
Self-Driving Cars Are Still Cars–Which Means They Won't Improve Your Commute - ghosh
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117943/googles-self-driving-cars-miss-problem-mobility-america
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SoftwareMaven
This misses the point, in many ways:

* Driverless cars means safer cars.

* Driverless cars means independence for people who otherwise are restricted (elderly, kids, blind, etc).

* Driverless cars are more fuel efficient. Sure, they aren't as efficient as not driving, but, just like driving with cruise control is better than not, complete automation will be better.

* Driverless cars will enable more productive use of the commute time.

There are probably many more benefits as well.

The one thing the author probably gets correct is that this will increase
traffic load on the roads, and it is questionable whether it will increase
efficiency of roadway usage more than it increases traffic load, but I'm
guessing it won't. I can imagine a case where I have a single car, driving me
to work, then going back to take my wife, then back to the house to pick up
kids, then back to pick up my wife, and so on. In other words, a lot of empty
drive time. This would be mitigated by a taxi-like "call the nearest car".

~~~
voicereasonish
> Driverless cars means safer cars.

Where's the evidence for this?

 _perhaps_ if everyone on the road was in a driverless car, and they all
communicated and prevented crashes. But that's not going to happen.

~~~
x43b
"perhaps if everyone on the road was in a driverless car, and they all
communicated and prevented crashes. But that's not going to happen."

I hear this sentiment a lot. Having a higher percentage of cars following safe
practices is safer even if those are cars aren't perfect and even if 100% of
the cars aren't automated.

Can you tell me the logic (I've seen it many times in posts) that there won't
be any safety benefits until all cars are automated (or until there aren't any
manual drivers?).

I disagree that the benefit will be that discrete.

~~~
WalterBright
The trouble is that even if driverless cars are overall vastly safer, in
today's litigious environment it just takes one fatal crash to derail (!) the
whole concept when the car maker is sued out of existence. Whereas suing
individual drivers doesn't take down the whole system.

~~~
TheCowboy
I see this argument a lot, and it seems to beg the question to assume that
there is such a "litigious environment."

Why are Google and other companies trying to develop this technology if all it
takes is a single fatal crash, and therefore a single lawsuit? It should be in
their rational self-interest to avoid any contact with this technology. It
would be lighting on money on fire.

This is not the strongest example, but automobile companies have ignored
fatality inducing problems, yet the practice didn't end their business. There
is likely enough profit in the pursuit to deal with such issues. These
lawsuits are slow-moving enough that there would be room to maneuver.

The greatest threat, in my opinion, is over-reacting politicians passing laws
due to a shock in public opinion on the safety of the cars. The shock could be
legitimate, due to reckless implementation, or just due to an unpreventable
accident.

~~~
WalterBright
I trot out the power generation industry as an example. People sue nuke plants
out of existence, despite them being far less damaging than coal - in both
lives and environmental destruction.

There's also the vaccine industry. Some vaccinations result in severe adverse
reactions in a handful of people. But the public health benefit is so vast
that the government has stepped in to shield vaccine makers from the lawsuits.

~~~
TheCowboy
As far as I know, nuclear power and the disposal of nuclear waste is more of a
NIMBY problem than a problem of excess punitive damages or other alleged
problems with lawsuits. This could also be an example of public shock putting
pressure on politicians and public utilities to shy away from nuclear power.

The vaccine point suggests to me that it's not so black and white about if
self-driving cars are doomed. If the public safety benefit of self-driving
cars becomes so great, then maybe the government will be pressured to ensure
they're here to stay. I think there will definitely need to be changes in the
law to accommodate this tech, but it's not impossible.

------
elchief
Sure, the first driverless car doesn't really help other people. But there are
network effects. The more driverless cars, the better everyone else is off.

1\. Owning a driverless car and leaving it parked would be a waste of money.
Either rent out your car as an Uber taxi, or simply don't own a car, and use a
driverless one as a cheap taxi to work. Long-term, if everyone had a
driverless car and used it like this it leads to an 80% reduction in the
number of cars required. Isn't that good for the world? (minus GM
shareholders). That's some major congestion relief.

2\. A lot of congestion is due to drivers screwing up. Bad lane changes,
driving too close to each other, idling, etc. Google cars would smooth this
out.

3\. Easy to send the driverless car to the supercharger station to fill up
while you're at work.

4\. We get driverless buses too, right? Meaning cheaper buses, meaning more
quantity demanded.

The author is correct though, in that a lower cost of usership will lead to a
higher quantity demanded.

Some of my previous comments here:

[http://vancouverdata.blogspot.ca/2012/08/googles-self-
drivin...](http://vancouverdata.blogspot.ca/2012/08/googles-self-driving-cars-
are-going-to.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6007977](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6007977)

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spullara
The typical human driver, due to reflexes, follows the car in front of them
with 2s of response time, Indepedent of speed. Therefore you can really only
hope for 1800 cars/hour/lane under ideal conditions and at speeds where the
length of the vehicle is a rounding error. Self driving cars could safely
follow much closer, perhaps 0.5s of response time. This by itself could
increase lane capacity by 4x without accounting for bad drivers getting into
accidents or just disrupting the flow. Self driving cars are going to be
amazing.

------
adwf
Seems like this guy can't see the forest for the trees. Does he really think
that this technology isn't going to get applied to mass transit? Buses are an
obvious next step, but making a driverless car is the relatively easy _first_
step.

If we don't get started on the first step, we'll never solve the second, or
the third or the thirtieth.

He complains that Manhattan would be better if it was pedestrianised...
really? Does he think that they're going to knock down buildings and remove
the roads just so we can all have a chat in the street? And has he ever been
on mass transit like trains or subways? I dunno about the rest of the world,
but I can guarantee there's almost no "valuable, often spontaneous social
interaction" going on in London. You sit/stand quietly, generally in some
discomfort due to overcrowding or tiny seats, maybe talk to a friend (if
there) but probably not. They're anything _but_ sociable.

There's always some complaint that you can raise about any future technology
project, but sometimes you just have to get it done using what you have. Those
dense pedestrian friendly cities in Europe didn't get that way by design, they
just couldn't be knocked down to expand the roads for cars, so they made do
with narrow roads. Likewise, US car friendly cities aren't going anywhere,
deal with what you've got.

On another note, he seems to be ignoring the growing trend in renewable power
sources around the world. There is a big push in Europe to switch to cleaner
energy sources, thus making electric cars a great idea. eg. Combine the solar
panels of the Tesla charging stations with automated cars that can drive in
and charge while you're at work and you've got a revolution in how we get
around.

Not to mention that there are countries like France that have 75% nuclear
power, thus making the electric car almost emission-free from the very start.

------
rayiner
A few years ago, I spent a month working out of my firm's SV office. Coming
from Manhattan, it was quite a culture shock. Suburbia as far as the eye could
see. But eventually I realized that people there chose to live that way. It
wasn't just because they had kids and couldn't afford to live in the city
anymore. Folks actually preferred their sprawling office park to a downtown
skyscraper. Technology will be designed to enable that culture, and given the
importance of Silicon Valley, probably spread it.

I still don't get it, but you can't say that Google isn't fulfilling a need.
Its a catch-22: self driving cars are the right solution for America the way
its designed now. And their adoption will entrench the design even more. The
suburbs will get even sprawlier when people can commute an hour each way
without actively driving. Its not what most futurists imagined that the world
would look like, but it seems inevitable at this point. Urbanists can decry
these trends, but who are we to judge people for living the way they want?

~~~
colmvp
As a dude with a physical disability, using a car is a godsend.

While living in cities like SF/NY, taking mass transit was a nightmare for me.
Escalators were often not working. Elevators were either out of order,
disgusting, or just plain slow. So I often just had to walk up stairs which
was pretty painful for my shitty joints.

Then of course, there's stuff that affects most people. Some buses in downtown
SF that just wouldn't show up. Or trains in NY which were packed to the brim
on rush hour, extremely uncomfortable especially on summer days when specific
cars don't have A/C. Or maybe shivering for half an hour in the station during
winter. Or having to go uptown to go downtown because of construction. Or
walking two miles between transfer points. Or maybe a subway line that just
doesn't run during the weekend because fuck you.

What I went through is nothing like what people in war torn countries have to
go through, so yeah, it's definitely first world problems and a lot of
bitching. That being said, I'm so glad my years of work in SF and NY are over.
Love the food and communities in those cities... plus biking in SF was
helluvalot of a fun. That said, while it might not seem like a big deal, not
having to climb several flights of stairs with bad joints or deal with transit
uncertainty is a huge relief for me.

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Doctor_Fegg
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
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
> _" 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.

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notatoad
assuming self-driving cars don't get road rage and try to cut people off, they
absolutely will improve my commute[1]. the more emotionless drivers, the
better.

[1]my theoretical commute. in reality, my commute is a ten minute bike ride
along a riverbank.

~~~
baddox
They also probably won't follow bumper to bumper right into the middle of a
busy intersection right before the light turns red, thus blocking most of the
perdindicular road for its green duration. I see that every afternoon in SF
financial district, and I can't imagine how many person-hours are wasted every
day.

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iamjdg
Yes, this article is way off base, it will be referenced to years from now as
a joke about how no one saw the trans-formative technology coming.

Don't get me wrong, nothing beats the "live where you work principle" in terms
of efficiency. it should be the primary choice for professions that this is
possible. this principle would also do wonders for the financial and ethnic
diversity of neighborhoods instead of the tossed salad we have today.

Driver less cars will have a huge impact on efficiency and safety as they
become the norm. someone already mentioned driving efficiency, but as the
safety record of these vehicles sky rockets, cars will become lighter as they
won't need to be designed such rare high speed collisions. This will also
greatly improve efficiency and shrink the carbon footprint.

------
mrweasel
One question that interests me is what the self driving cars will do for
congestion. One question I'm sure Google developers are asking is "What's the
minimum safe distance between cars?".

If every single car is cruising at the same speed and distance between them,
would our roads then be more or less congested? From the things I've read from
German autobahn research seems to indicate that congestion should be less. On
the other hand some roads here in Denmark seems to be design for less traffic
that they currently carry and I doubt it would work if cars where forced to
keep a fixed distance.

It would be interesting to get the reaction from the politicians, if some one
like Google reported it's actually impossible to drive a certain road while
following the recommended safety rules.

------
dmritard96
awful article.

yes internal combustion engines are inefficient. yes mass transit offers
superior energy consumption per passenger mile in many cases.

BUT

when cars are good enough at coordinating to make streetlights irrelevant, or
park themselves, or self distribute among different routes to globally
optimize road throughput, the carbon footprint will be substantially lower.

when the grid is cleaner which is happening every day, the point of electric
cars being dirty is that much less valid.

cars are like packets. the cost per bit is higher, but the dynamacism compared
to circuit switched systems is a GIANT feature. trains and buses lose their
efficiency edge quickly as density lowers because of their inherent
inflexibility.

even if my commute was to take the same amount of time, have the same carbon
foot print and nothing else changed. The fact that I do something else besides
play organ with my cars controls is a giant improvement. Maybe i will spend my
new found free time coming up with explanations for why this luddite can't see
the forest from the trees as @inmyunix astutely points out.

AND

the author is suggesting that limited reagent is roadways and that cars don't
offer a solution to that. well, there are more creative solutions that can
play nice with self driving cars, like time multiplexing roadways. a global
system can decide that you may as well leave 20 minutes later because you will
get there in the same amount of time and hence send a car to pick you up
later. or more generally, just shifting the hours slightly so that instead of
most commuters leaving at ~8 and ~5, its half ~7, ~4 and half ~8, ~5 etc. or
even more granular.

These are difficult problems and there is no way a single solution should be
expected to solve all problems. This is a step in the right direction, despite
Ben Walsh's lack of vision.

------
jstepka
Driving is a frustrating experience. When you're a passenger that frustration
is decreased by quite a bit -- I always get out of driving if I can. Not
having to drive is a MAJOR improvement to anyone's commute.

Think about it, you've now gained X-minutes to and from work or where ever per
day to focus on reading, chats, etc.

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6d0debc071
_> Driving is a miserable experience inflicted upon 86 percent of us every
morning and every afternoon, five days a week._

But you won't be the one driving. You won't have to deal with the stress of
making those decisions and being constantly aware and hoping that some a-hole
doesn't mess up and hurt you, or that you'll mess up and hurt someone else.

So, what's the problem meant to be?

 _> The notion that hundreds of thousands of Google car pods will glide
through cities in humming packs just inches apart is deeply naive. Almost
every major city in the U.S. contains the rebuttal to that idea, in the form
of new freeways that ere supposed to relieve congestion and improve commute
times._

Very few demands are uncapped, and I've not seen any evidence that the demand
for transport is so.

------
logn
The problem with mass transit is that you can't have a stop everywhere people
are (and want to go) and even if you could you'd end up with a transit system
that looks awfully similar to google's self-driving cars in practice.

~~~
Dewie
Exactly. Self-driving cars could increase use of public transportation; order
a car to pick you up and drive to the nearest bus/train/subway station. Ditch
the car because it can take care to park itself/do whatever is next.

So if car-commuting is as terrible as the article thinks it is, and mass
transit is more pleasant, it can help with that.

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inmyunix
this guy is way off base. can't see the forest, etc.

personal, private transportation isn't going ANYWHERE.

Google isn't required, nor are they attempting, to reinvent propulsion
mechanisms.

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AndrewDucker
I wish people would think of these more as self-driving _taxis_. And thus,
cheaper taxis.

Because most people that live in cities don't need a car all the time. An
awful lot of people can use mass transit most of the time, and then a car
occasionally. Turn that occasional car usage into a cheap self-driving taxi
and you save on a lot of parking space.

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nawitus
>visually, the comparison is comical.

That visual comparison is flawed. Just read the comments.

~~~
manicdee
[http://the-riotact.com/the-muenster-photo-remade-in-canberra...](http://the-
riotact.com/the-muenster-photo-remade-in-canberra-how-much-space-do-those-
cars-need/82745)

Here you go, the same size group of people and the vehicles required to
transport them. 69 people: 1 bus, 69 bikes, 60 cars.

------
jesusmichael
driverless cars are such a dopey idea... money would be best spent to improve
public transportation.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
The money being spent of driverless cars is chump change compared to the
amount that public transportation costs. It probably wouldn't even be enough
to build a single light rail line.

