
Uber Wants to Make It Illegal to Operate Your Own Self-Driving Car in Cities - ctoth
https://cei.org/blog/uber-wants-make-it-illegal-operate-your-own-self-driving-car-cities
======
tyingq
I suppose someone will call me out as alarmist, but this sounds almost like
the first step into a dystopian movie.

Ban personal self driving cars, then when the fleets outnumber personal non-
self-driving cars, ban them too.

Presto...big brother now knows where you are, all the time. (Yes, I get that
cell phones serve that purpose now, but the workaround is pretty easy)

~~~
munk-a
I think that's a bit overly alarmist, there could certainly be competition in
this space. _But_ this is an absolutely despicable move on Uber's part that
would slow the adoption of self-driving vehicles to prop up their own (at that
point failing) business model.

~~~
tyingq
"there could certainly be competition in this space"

I was assuming governments forcing all fleets to share data. Probably via some
"safety / think of the children / OMG terrorists" bill.

~~~
munk-a
I think for safety you might get benefit out of cars communicating intent to
neighbors. Pervasive tracking and reporting would be unnecessary - but that is
the logic, of course various governments could require all sorts of stuff in
the name of anything. So yea, good point.

~~~
dragonwriter
Beyond uses of local comms, N Non-local coordination could improve long-range
routing, and even support automated allocation of infrastructure (like the way
some roads—especially expensive-to-build-and-maintain ones like
tunnels—reconfigure lanes for different directions of travel at different
times of day to match traffic patterns, but dynamically and in more places.)

~~~
munk-a
I think non-local comms will end up going through more pedestrian modes.

Road usage configuration is something that external systems will already force
self-driving cars to obey, a lot of bridges are 3 or 5 lanes with a middle
that switches directions, or have some partitioned third lane group that
switches similarly. Broadcasting that information over the web/whatever may
help car co-ordination, especially it may help with route planning and traffic
analysis, but these systems should be rather strongly isolated from the car
itself and be offered from a source open to the general public.

There is a lot of interesting stuff here, especially when you get into traffic
balancing, but none of it would need to pass through a car relay network or
anything of the sort - there may be economy in doing so, but that sort of a
propriety (or open yay) caching of state wouldn't impact or impose
requirements on car-to-car communications.

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randyrand
How ridiculous.

At some point you drive enough to warrant not having a middle man between you
and a car. This really does not need to be regulated. Just let people make
their own economic decisions.

Not to forget, some people also like or need to keep belongings in their car.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Why couldn't people have personal pods with their stuff in it, with their
preferred upholstery, sound system, etc. that got moved by a third-party owned
motor unit?

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ughira
Why was Uber mostly singled out in this article? If anyone reads the article,
it makes it seem like there is some agenda behind it, especially when seeing
the full list of signatories for the initiative [1].

The article also reads with some bias as the initiative itself seems to make
some sense, based on my cursory review.

[1]
[https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/signatories/](https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/signatories/)

~~~
adfm
Consider the source.

"The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a non-profit public policy
organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free
enterprise, and individual liberty."

"...CEI crafts advocacy campaigns in order to reach policy makers..."

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noonespecial
Oldest trick in the crony-cap playbook. Convince the gov that a special
licence is required because think of the children, bribe and lobby your way to
being the only one who can practically get one. Profi... Rent-seek.

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IntronExon
i want to say something along the lines of, “Oh how quickly the disruptor
becomes the regulator,” but really isn’t it a bit early in the autonomous
vehicle game to pull the proverbial ladder up behind you? Besides, given the
likely cost of such vehicles, even when they really exist, they’re not going
to be in most households.

Killing competition that doesn’t exist in a tech space that may be decades
away from bearing fruit. Uber.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Agreed, wouldn't it match their business model to just demand
interoperability, and maybe subsidies to get autonomous vehicles into the
hands of people who'd take the risk of buying and insuring them to ferry Uber
fares around?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Agreed, wouldn't it match their business model

I think you've confused “cultivated PR image” with “business model”.

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303space
If you open the link SMPLC is actually Zipcar’s NGO and basically every
mobility startup signed this proposal. Full list of signatories: “BlaBla Car,
CityMapper, Didi, Cityway, Jetty, Keolis, LimeBike, Lyft, Mobike, Motivate,
Ofo, Ola, Scoot, Transit, Uber, Via and ZipCar”

~~~
dragonwriter
So every mobility startup wants to ban consumers from owning what the mobility
companies want to try to get people to rent.

Surprise, surprise.

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rayiner
There needs to be a planned phase-out of human-driven vehicles. Supporting
legacy incumbents can hugely hamstring automated technology.[1] It's a double-
whammy: (1) enormous investment must go into designing around human drives in
the first place, and (2) the existence of human-driven vehicles dramatically
reduces the traffic mitigation advantages of self-driving vehicles (reducing
the incentive to make the investment in (1) and adopt self-driving
vehicles).[2]

[1] I spent the beginning of my career working on radios that dynamically
share spectrum among themselves, instead of relying on FCC central planning.
The need to support incumbents like television stations has probably set the
technology back a decade or two, not to mention cost millions upon millions of
dollars.

[2] _E.g._ [https://readwrite.com/2017/06/06/hyperlane-self-driving-
tl4/](https://readwrite.com/2017/06/06/hyperlane-self-driving-tl4/)

~~~
peapicker
You can pry my human-driven gas-burning vehicle out of my cold dead hands.

~~~
rayiner
You can keep the car and drive it on your farm. But as to public roads,
they're a limited public resource, and the government has an obligation to
ensure they are utilized as efficiently as possible. That will be achieved by
only allowing self-driving cars.

~~~
soneil
Unfortunately this is the kinda stuff that creates red/blue divides.

I used to live somewhere I could drive the 12 miles to work without seeing
another car. Telling people around there that they can't have their trucks
because roads are a limited resource, would go over like a fart in a
spacesuit.

~~~
zild3d
> like a fart in a spacesuit

relevant quora discussion [1] - doesn't seem too bad since the suit has a
carbon filter and the helmet is well-sealed & separated from the rest of the
suit. (breathable air is prioritized for the head of course, not so much the
rest of the suit)

[1] [https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-astronauts-fart-
in-t...](https://www.quora.com/What-happens-when-astronauts-fart-in-their-
spacesuits-The-space-suit-is-sealed-What-technology-does-NASA-use-to-deal-
with-the-fart-Or-do-the-astronauts-just-prevent-themselves-from-farting)

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ohiovr
Why does uber get to have government regulations on their side when they
violate local laws constantly? They have been banned by several governments
entirely.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=uber+banned&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-...](https://www.google.com/search?q=uber+banned&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-
us&client=safari&dlnr=1&sei=qmx0WpTCAsjAjwTvo7qYCw)

------
hartror
> Due to the transformational potential of autonomous vehicle technology, it
> is critical that all AVs are part of shared fleets, well-regulated, and zero
> emission. Shared fleets can provide more affordable access to all, maximize
> public safety and emissions benefits, ensure that maintenance and software
> upgrades are managed by professionals, and actualize the promise of
> reductions in vehicles, parking, and congestion, in line with broader policy
> trends to reduce the use of personal cars in dense urban areas.

Sounds reasonable to me, imagine how much premium land could be unlocked if
car parks were relegated to a thing of the past? Not to mention adding more
throughput on smaller urban streets choked with parking.

Or god forbid, more cycling lanes . . .

~~~
jack9
> it is critical that all AVs are part of shared fleets, well-regulated, and
> zero emission.

Nope.

> Shared fleets can provide more affordable access to all, ...

Nope. Dressing up a monopoly as more efficient, is not fooling anyone anymore.

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mnm1
I love self driving cars, but more and more it seems when they will arrive,
the cons might outweigh the pros if we're not careful. With thinking like
this, I think I'll keep driving myself and seriously consider voting against
any legislation that might lead to this outcome. Uber should rethink what its
ultimate strategy is. If we can't deter Uber because it's a giant US
corporation, we can certainly deter self-driving car technology. And that
would be a giant loss for all of humanity, including the greedy Uber execs.

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TheCoelacanth
Stupid idea. Just get rid of all parking minimums and the favorable tax
treatment of parking lots in commercial areas and the problem of having too
many personal cars in city centers will take care of itself without heavy-
handed regulation.

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anfilt
All these companies should burned for pushing for state sanctioned monopolies.

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hprotagonist
The sidebar suggested I read another CEI article entitled "stop forcing unions
on your workers".

Uh huh. This article sure seems like it represents facts in an unbiased way..

~~~
klez
Look, you don't like CEI? Fine, me neither, from the looks of it.

Are they spinning a libertarian agenda? Yes they are.

Is this article mostly an attack on uber and "shameless, greenwashed crony
capitalism"? Yes it is.

 _BUT_

Is it true that a group outlined those 10 proposals? Yes it is.[0]

Is it true that proposal #10 is about only permitting fleets to operate EVs?
Yes it is.

Is it true that Uber (and Lyft, and Bla Bla Car, and...) signed this
proposals? Yes it is.[1]

Will those companies greatly profit from that kind of regulation? You betcha!

That is the gist of the article, and that is what we should be discussing
about.

[0]
[https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/](https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/)

[1]
[https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/signatories/](https://www.sharedmobilityprinciples.org/signatories/)

EDIT: OT, but is your name a reference to Snow Crash? Because if it is, good
job! :)

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mebebil
I give three years after the IPO for Ackman to short the fuck out of UBER.
What a disgusting company.

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et2o
Incredible.

