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from the how-long-could-they-last-in-Boston? dept.
A little while back, I saw the following tweet:
I can print mostly. My wifi works often. The Xbox usually recognises me. Siri sometimes works. But my self driving car will be *perfect*.
The tweet has since been deleted, so I won't name the author, but it's a thought-provoking idea. At first, I agreed with it. I'm a programmer and know full well just how shoddy is 99.9% of the code we all write. The idea that I would put my life in the hands of a coder like myself is a bit worrying.
[...] The reality is that self-driving cars don't need to be perfect. They just need to be better than the alternative: human-driven cars. And that is a much lower bar, as human beings are remarkably bad at driving.
[...] Self-driving cars don't get tired. They don't get drunk. They don't get distracted by friends or a crying baby. They don't look away from the road to send a text message. They don't speed, tailgate, brake too late, forget to show a blinker, drive too fast in bad weather, run red lights, race other cars at red lights, or miss exits. Self-driving cars aren't going to be perfect, but they will be a hell of a lot better than you and me.
Related: The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 04 2016, @02:42PM
to use mass transit. people cluster into suburbs anyway. run bus service from them to the cities. then use subways in the cities.
We've already solved this problem. For everything else there is higher fines for when the driver screw up and more rigorous and frequent drivers license testing to get and keep a permit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 04 2016, @08:15PM
Mass transit is easier for the bureaucrats, but it is much worse for the people. The point of self driving cars is to make personal transit possible for people who can't drive so that we can get rid of mass transit. With self driving cars, non-drivers will have cheaper taxi service available, or can own their own car, if they want to.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday January 04 2016, @08:59PM
Buses suck: they're too slow, and they pollute too much and create too many emissions. It's more efficient for everyone to just drive a car than to use a bus: they're literally that bad.
The solution for suburbs is SkyTran.