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Nail. On. Head. What does it matter if the guy in the front seat is twirling a steering wheel or not? His personal possession is still taking up a vast area of

Nail. On. Head. What does it matter if the guy in the front seat is twirling a steering wheel or not? His personal possession is still taking up a vast area of a public space - the city street. He's still driving 150 polluting miles for a meeting that could be held just as well electronically. He's still using way too much energy to transport just one person, whether the oil is burned in his car or in a power station somewhere else. And he's still sitting on his increasingly wide butt. Google's self-driving cars will entrench one of the biggest problems with Western culture, not fix it. The answers are mass transit, active travel, smarter workplaces and better urban design, not the same old cars but with the ability to twirl the steering wheel themselves. (and before the obvious rejoinder: I live in an English rural town with a population of 3,000. I don't own a car. It's possible right now; it'd be much, much easier if public transport and bike routes got the same investment lavished on motorists.)

harmegido 12y ago
I just don't understand these types of articles. "Driverless cars don't cure cancer. They're a complete failure." Would you prefer to have autonomous cars, with their reduced incidence of accident/ability to reduce traffic through smarter driving, or not? Who cares if it doesn't solve every one of the world's problems? And I'm a person who actually hates cars/suburbia/etc.
- jacques_chester 12y ago
  > "Driverless cars don't cure cancer. They're a complete failure." It's called the Nirvana Fallacy. Very common in our profession and in others where folk like us wind up.
- Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
  _If_ we could achieve largely car-free cities, and the few journeys for which cars are necessary were carried out by self-driving cars, then I'd agree with you. But I don't see it. The seductive argument is "hey! Google's technology makes cars all right! We don't have to invest in public transport or bike lanes!". It's what's going on right now with electric cars here in the UK: the Government investment lavished on them is disproportionate to the pennies spent on cycle infrastructure.[1] Self-driving cars are a great excuse for politicians not to make their cities as good as Groningen.[2] But maybe you're lucky enough to have better politicians than we do! [1] https://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/cycling-gets-weak-mention-in-dft-s-roads-for-the-21st-century-plan/015120 https://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/cycling-gets-weak-mention-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen#Transport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen#Transport
Zak 12y ago
His personal possession is still taking up a vast area of a public space While true during the time the car is transporting a person, self-driving-cars-as-a-service requires fewer cars in total, and need not be parked near the destination (or at all during high-use periods). Many US cities came in to existence or experienced major growth during the age of the car. They are built for people with cars, and would be quite difficult to convert to an effective public transit system. Consider Jacksonville, FL as an example. It has a population of less than a million and it's sixty miles wide. It wouldn't be terribly hard to make a strong case for building new cities differently, but causing Jacksonville to have a usable local rail system would be considerably more expensive than deploying self-driving cars there.
Bluestrike2 12y ago
Cars aren't going to simply disappear anytime soon. They're already entrenched, and they have been from almost the very beginning. What you're describing isn't so much an alternative as it is a wistful dream of a completely re-engineered human condition. And I say this as someone who loves to bike, has high hopes for future public transportation changes, and believes that we'll come to see many of the changes you're alluding to trickle into the world. Even then, the sort of revolution you're describing wouldn't be one that simply swaps out the car, but one that would necessitate changing everything from cities to suburbs to everything in between. Cities don't change overnight; they change over decades. The implications of self-driving cars go well beyond simply cars "twirling the steering wheel themselves." From huge boosts in efficiency, to decreases in city congestion as people abandon the always exciting practice of circling the block for a parking space, to better traffic flow and decreases in traffic accidents to almost nil, self-driving cars are going to be revolutionary in ways that many can't even imagine. What's more is that they won't be limited to just private vehicles. Autonomous taxis will combine door-to-door service with the Zipcar sharing model together and turn the current system on its head. The same goes for buses and even subways and trains, where the ability to run unimpeded 24/7 will make mass transit options that much more flexible and easier to expand. All of this while minimizing congestion on the roads.

harmegido 12y ago

I just don't understand these types of articles. "Driverless cars don't cure cancer. They're a complete failure." Would you prefer to have autonomous cars, with their reduced incidence of accident/ability to reduce traffic through smarter driving, or not? Who cares if it doesn't solve every one of the world's problems? And I'm a person who actually hates cars/suburbia/etc.

jacques_chester 12y ago
> "Driverless cars don't cure cancer. They're a complete failure." It's called the Nirvana Fallacy. Very common in our profession and in others where folk like us wind up.
Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
_If_ we could achieve largely car-free cities, and the few journeys for which cars are necessary were carried out by self-driving cars, then I'd agree with you. But I don't see it. The seductive argument is "hey! Google's technology makes cars all right! We don't have to invest in public transport or bike lanes!". It's what's going on right now with electric cars here in the UK: the Government investment lavished on them is disproportionate to the pennies spent on cycle infrastructure.[1] Self-driving cars are a great excuse for politicians not to make their cities as good as Groningen.[2] But maybe you're lucky enough to have better politicians than we do! [1] https://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/cycling-gets-weak-mention-in-dft-s-roads-for-the-21st-century-plan/015120 https://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/cycling-gets-weak-mention-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen#Transport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen#Transport

Zak 12y ago

His personal possession is still taking up a vast area of a public space While true during the time the car is transporting a person, self-driving-cars-as-a-service requires fewer cars in total, and need not be parked near the destination (or at all during high-use periods). Many US cities came in to existence or experienced major growth during the age of the car. They are built for people with cars, and would be quite difficult to convert to an effective public transit system. Consider Jacksonville, FL as an example. It has a population of less than a million and it's sixty miles wide. It wouldn't be terribly hard to make a strong case for building new cities differently, but causing Jacksonville to have a usable local rail system would be considerably more expensive than deploying self-driving cars there.

Bluestrike2 12y ago

Cars aren't going to simply disappear anytime soon. They're already entrenched, and they have been from almost the very beginning. What you're describing isn't so much an alternative as it is a wistful dream of a completely re-engineered human condition. And I say this as someone who loves to bike, has high hopes for future public transportation changes, and believes that we'll come to see many of the changes you're alluding to trickle into the world. Even then, the sort of revolution you're describing wouldn't be one that simply swaps out the car, but one that would necessitate changing everything from cities to suburbs to everything in between. Cities don't change overnight; they change over decades. The implications of self-driving cars go well beyond simply cars "twirling the steering wheel themselves." From huge boosts in efficiency, to decreases in city congestion as people abandon the always exciting practice of circling the block for a parking space, to better traffic flow and decreases in traffic accidents to almost nil, self-driving cars are going to be revolutionary in ways that many can't even imagine. What's more is that they won't be limited to just private vehicles. Autonomous taxis will combine door-to-door service with the Zipcar sharing model together and turn the current system on its head. The same goes for buses and even subways and trains, where the ability to run unimpeded 24/7 will make mass transit options that much more flexible and easier to expand. All of this while minimizing congestion on the roads.