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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Just to be clear, I do think the obvious solution to terrible things like this is vastly expanded public transit so that people don't have to rely on cars to get everywhere, not overhyped technology and driving aids that are still only marginally better than a human driver. I just thought the article was interesting.

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[-] [email protected] 73 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

“Let’s invent metal boxes with wheels that follow lines on the ground automatically to get you places.”

“Oh, you mean like trains.”

“Ew, no. They’re nothing like trains, these are ‘self driving cars’. They’re fool proof!”

tesla hits someone in a dense fog because it doesn’t have lidar

Queue surprised pikachu.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Doesn't even need to be dense fog. The other day I saw a video of a Tesla (on newest firmware, mind you) drove off the road into a tree, in broad daylight, with no visual impairments to the sensors. It's not ready for any kind of driving, let alone fully automated, not to mention that it's only really trained on American roads

[-] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wait. Those things rely on visual sensors only?? That moronic! I mean, more so that I originally though. Please tell me that they have them, but this particular one was malfunctioning.

Edit: holy crap. How are these vehicles allowed to operate on public roads??

[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago

Musk has sai d multiple times that humans can drive with vision alone, so cars shouldn't need LIDAR.

He ignores that humans also regularly experience optical illusions that contribute to poor driving and collisions, and that LIDAR is far less susceptible to such abberations.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Very early on, Tesla used ~~lidar~~ radar in addition to optical sensors. However, they only use optical sensors today and have for a while. Like many of the poor decisions at that company, the change to optical-only was made at Musk's demand.

Edit: misremembered, it was radar not lidar as pointed out below

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

IIRC, they uses to have radar, not lidar.

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[-] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I'm all for better safety features but perhaps an easier, cheaper, and more likely to succeed option to use is city planning/enforcement and change of current regulations. For instance, closing the loophole that lets car manufacturers ignore safety and emissions rules for "light truck" classified cars, which at this point is most of the oversized SUVs and pickups.

Alternatively having safer options for pedestrians and cyclists would help too, like having separated bike roads, and pushing highways and stroads out of residential areas and reclaiming city space for pedestrians. Public transit investment also helps reduce the number of drivers, which helps traffic and safety too.

I don't hate the idea of these extra AI tools like emergency braking being required or at least encouraged with stuff like safety ratings, but I think it's going to be very hard to get that implemented anytime soon considering you'd be fighting consumer interest(higher cost cars) and companies who don't want to have to make or license AI tools.

Edit: also the current regime in the US is more interested in de-regulating things to the point where I can get a happy meal wrapped in asbestos with a nice lead toy. So uh... Good luck

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

The Problem is, the whole pedestrian and cyclist centric society only works of we also restructure the entire economic system to where workers have an extra hour and a half to two hours of free time outside of work. Because we already don’t have enough time for our families and children.

Like me for instance. I have like 3 waking hours to spend with my child (once you minus, cooking, cleaning, adulting) if I’m lucky each day. Driving to work is a highway exit away on the other side of town. With a car, that’s 6 minutes each way. On a bike? 40 minutes minimum. Public transit? With transfers, even longer.

And then you have to juggle picking up your child from childcare, etc with is ridiculous without a car. And living closer to your work is a funny idea unless you expect every neighborhood to have offices and warehouses representing every industry. I mean it sounds great for the upper middle class with shorter office jobs and the finances for that kind of lifestyle, but that’s just not feasible for real working class Americans in the economic system as it is currently

It’s for singles who can tralala themselves around on a bike or have a leisurely stroll to wherever they’re going and who don’t really cook or anything themselves.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

but that’s just not feasible for real working class Americans in the economic system as it is currently

Nothing to do with economics, everything to do with city planning and resource allocation. Public transit and bikes are a bad option in the US because the transit is completely underfunded, "only poor people take the bus", and bike paths, even pedestrian paths (if they even exist) are sent on detours around car infrastructure instead of cutting through everything.

And then you have to juggle picking up your child from childcare, etc with is ridiculous without a car.

My mum did just fine first coming by with the bike, putting me on the back seat, then swinging by the supermarket, groceries in the front basket, later on coming by with the bike, me riding along on my own, still swinging by the supermarket. We were driving on calm backstreets and through a park which was actually the most direct route, much more direct than with a car as you'd have to get onto the collector, first. Got more than one kid to wrangle? Put them in a trailer, or get a suitable cargo bike. They can even have seatbelts.

No, you don't need a warehouse full of washing machines in every neighbourhood. People don't shop for washing machines daily. People don't need cars to shop for them, either, delivering bulky stuff makes a ton of sense. Groceries? Wherever you were that day, a supermarket should only be like a two or three minutes detour.

And it's not like European cities didn't go down the car-centric route, mind you. Difference being we realised it's a stupid idea.

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[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

While I agree in concept, redesigning and rebuilding society to be less car centric would NOT be fast or easy.

It’s better in so many ways and I wish more Americans could experience the freedom and convenience of walkable and transit oriented areas to understand how unpleasant their cars really are. But if even if we seriously pursued that, it would be many decades, probably more like a century. In the meantime electric vehicles are much better than what we use now

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[-] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There is an obvious answer here that both the author and the people in this thread are ignoring.

Driving as a transportation method is a high risk/cost high flexibility/comfort solution.

Pretty much everyone who has accepted driving as their transportation method understands that it’s not the safest way, so a lot of drivers are always willing to take a little bit more risk to save money or something like that.

A better question is, why are we so okay with accepting such high risks for transportation. The human mind is terrible at risk assessment so I think it’s just a culture thing that car accidents are a part of life.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

I don't know if you've noticed, but Americans are real good at ignoring issues that don't affect them personally.

Oh I won't wreck my car, I'm a "good driver"!

I can't catch Covid because it's not real!

School shootings are just false flags the government uses to pass gun control laws!

Donald Trump only wants to remove the dangerous immigrants, not the ones I hire for my business!

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

We need more people part of the FuckCars, Walk, Bike, & Public Transit online cultures

Need more outreach to get things happening even more. Also my comment on this post would solve a lot of things by not having to redo outreaching to people

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Even better, the equivalent irl cultures. Most cities have groups advocating for better bike and pedestrian infrastructure and better public transit.

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[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago

Trains? We've been using those for over a century now.

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[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

The technologies mentioned in the article:

lane-keep assist, automatic emergency braking (AEB), and blind-spot detection

AI-powered traffic systems

On-demand breathalyzers, smartphone saliva tests, and eye-tracking sensors

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Only one of my cars has just one of those things (2015 Toyota Highlander and it's the blind spot monitor). That aside, all of my vehicles - cars and motorcycles - are paid off. I'm not going into debt just to have nannies yelling at me.

My vehicles are a means to an end. I would absolutely love more public transit, but there is just a single train station about 12 miles from my house, while my work is only 6 miles in the same direction. "You could bike" you might say, which is a fantastic idea. However, 90% of my commute is on a 55mph rural highway with minimal shoulders and zero bike lanes. It's literally a perfect candidate for a bus route and bike lanes, yet there are neither, and I am not risking my life on a bicycle next to 55MPH traffic during commuting hours.

Now tell me how I'm the problem.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

with every section it just became worse

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[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Because too many people in too many industries that would be negatively affected have too much money.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Autonomous vehicles. They don't get high, they don't get distracted, and if they're made by literally anyone except for Tesla, they have superhuman vision and not only don't have blind spots, they can also see in the dark and see through steam and fog.

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What technology?

Safety features like lane-keep assist, automatic emergency braking (AEB), and blind-spot detection...

... AI-powered traffic systems that predict and prevent accidents....

Impaired driving is also solvable. On-demand breathalyzers, smartphone saliva tests, and eye-tracking sensors... Uber is already testing real-time driver sobriety verification...

Why aren't we using it?

The article doesn't have an answer.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

A Tesla in FSD randomly just veered off the road into a tree. There is video. It makes no sense, very difficult to work out why the AI thought that looked like a good move.

These tools this author is saying we have do not work how people claim they do.

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Lane.assist.. fine.
Autobreak? Fuck no.
AI?! ffs

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

One of the many things I like about Subaru is that they seem to move useful features from optional to standard, once they've had a chance to prove themselves. I bought an Outback in 2016 and paid extra for the EyeSight safety system. Two years later that car was destroyed in an accident (I was T-boned and rolled over twice, without anyone being hurt). I bought another Outback to replace it, but by that time the EyeSight was a standard feature. Subaru now includes EyeSight on all their cars because it saves lives.

They had done similar things with other safety features. Four-wheel disc brakes, anti-lock braking, and all-wheel drive became standard on Sabarus relatively early.

It is also worth noting that the more intrusive EyeSight features, like lane assist, are easy to turn off. There's a button on the steering wheel for that one. Even if you turn it off, the car will still warn you if you start to cross lanes without using your turn signals, but it will not adjust for you.

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[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

The technologies to end a lot of problems exist. We aren't using them because the oligarchs think it's better this way.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

This is definitely a great example of individuals being obstinate and entitled. Just mention you support speed cameras on all roads and find out how many of your friends think speeding is a good given human rights.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Speed cameras are a privacy issue that doesn't solve the problem of speeding. People are most comfortable driving the speed the road is designed for, and if that speed is too high, the solution is to modify the road for a safer speed. The speeders in your example are right here, for the wrong reason; speed cameras should be rare if they're allowed to exist at all. They have, at most, a short term benefit, and broad public surveillance is a very serious issue they contribute to.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

It's my understanding that speed cameras don't actually make roads safer, they just generate revenue for the city.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

In my city a program of speed cameras was instituted about a decade ago. A private speed camera corporation lobbied the city to install, maintain and administer the system. Whoever it was that they bribed to approve it did so and the system was installed. For the first year it brought in a bunch of money extorted from the citizens. Then the revenue dropped below the minimum amount that the corporation wrote into the contract as their cut (people figured out where all of the cameras were). At that point the system was costing the city money rather than generating revenue as the corporation had promised. So they started using mobile cameras. This worked for a short time but the blowback was sharp. In the end the system was scrapped.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

My cars are old and don’t have any of this, and my one experience in a rental car with lane keeping assist was that it pushed me towards a highway barrier in construction where the original lane lines weren’t in use. Terrifying.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Public transportation or bust

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

More sensors in the car might help a bit, but the real problem in US is its car dependent infrastructure. If the only way home after a night in the pub is by car, then you’re going to get a lot of drunk drivers. Add to this that bikes have to share road with cars, then it’s a death sentence to ride bike by night.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

What a load of fear mongering. Instead of having people take accountability for their actions we should require "safety features" that have a direct correlation to increased distracted driving. Maybe if somebody is killed we should make regulations around driving drunk? Oh yea pretty sure that exists. Problem is we have a bunch of steering wheel holders, hardly anybody is a driver anymore. Would lane assist and auto braking have prevented this? Possibly. But would lane assist not keep him barrel assing down the road doing up through the next intersection where somebody may decide to cross the road? This is not a fix. We have ALWAYS had the "technology" to avoid traffic deaths, problem is most people are selfish self centered pricks with but a ball of lint between their ears.

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[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

No. It doesn't.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The solution is to raise better humans who make better choices, not to try to use technology to prevent our bad choices from being worse.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Because people want to drive theur cars instead if let a system handle everything perfectly. Theres no way to have safe driving with people behind the wheel.

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this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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