Safe Streets Rebel’s protest comes after automatic vehicles were blamed for incidents including crashing into a bus and running over a dog. City officials in June said…

  • moss@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I live in the area and the streets are just clogged with these fucking autonomous cars. Traffic is slower, people end up having to swerve, it’s just a constant persistent headache. If I had it my way, they’d all be off the streets and into the crusher

      • howrar@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Can we instead have self driving buses?

        I’m envisioning a system where you tell it your location and where you want to go, then it automatically sets up a route for the bus that coincides with where most people want to go and tells you to get off when it’s near your destination. This can work in conjunction with self driving taxis if no one else is going to your destination.

        • Kuinox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Maybe minibus but in no way it will works with full sized bus.
          The ideal bus to commute is a bus line with frequent bus, you don’t have to check the time, just show up and in a few minutes there is a bus.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’re not gonna get self-driving buses without self-driving cars first, so this protest is directly fucking you out of what you want

        • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The problem is no one will use them. Busses are full of homeless people and people that NEED to use them than they want to. I was a bus driver for many years. They don’t stop where everyone wants to go and it’s a necessity to most instead of an integrated way of life. The entire American culture would need to change.

          • Spzi@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Busses are full of homeless people and people that NEED to use them than they want to.

            I heard this is the case in the United States. In Europe, as far as I can tell, it’s more common that people from all backgrounds take public transit, including ‘higher’ class people. Of course exceptions and reasons exist.

            • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              For sure. However do you change something that is mostly government subsidized and everyone that manages the systems are happy with the operations?

              • Spzi@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                everyone that manages the systems are happy with the operations?

                Is that the case? I suppose most car drivers are not happy with sitting in traffic jams. Better public transport would help.

          • xSPYXEx@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            That literally just proves that we do in fact need more busses. More vehicles would allow for a wider coverage with more frequent and well organized stops.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Public transit is better, but self-driving taxis are absolutely coming to every city in this country, which is great if you live in a city like mine that has little to no public transport infrastructure.

        Also, automated taxis can service more rural areas, which is the key driver of lack of public transport in many “commuter cities.”

        Luddites gonna Luddite, but this tech is coming, and it’s coming to logistics and taxis first.

          • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I can tell you aren’t from SF. Because no one from here calls it SanFran. But I digress. Uber is huge here because it is where it started. And buses come with other baggage. Many homeless people and plenty of pervs doing shady things deter people from using the system regularly. Having seen the system it is substantial, but getting out of the city is the issue. San Francisco proper is very small 7x7 miles (49 square miles, Easter egg from being 1849 and the 49ers). But going anywhere outside of the city is where things take forever and why most affluent people do not use those systems. 2 hours back and forth is not economic on time.

            • dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              No, I’m not. Homeless on our public transit isn’t an issue because our police actually responds to driver calls.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I am well aware of both the benefits of public transport and this image specifically. This is irrelevant to our discussion

              • SCB@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Self driving taxis aren’t stupid. They better fit the existing infrastructure within America.

                Taxis as a whole generally serve a different market function than public transportation in the US.

                Im all for gutting zoning, and building dense, walkable cities, full of public transportation free at POS - but that’s not the world we live in.

                Self-driving taxis are such a massive net boon for people that it’s not even a comparison to the alternative

                • dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  On that I will agree, but I still stand that self driving taxis are stupid. BUT, they are necessary due to how NA cities are built, and getting rid of them would require many other changes as well

    • DrM@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I was in SF 4 years ago and it was insane how many self-driving cars were on the streets for tests. Especially on Lombard Street they just drove in circles. I can’t imagine how annoying this is for someone who lives there

    • Kausta@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Comparing these two requires the number of cars with human drivers and the amount of time humans spend driving per year versus the number of autonomous vehicles and the amount of time they spend driving per year. I am not saying that you are wrong, I am just saying that comparing these numbers directly is like comparing apples with oranges.

      • catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I agree completely. My original post was just a stupid meme. I don’t really think putting cones on the hoods of the cars is helping and that it’s kind of dumb to do that and act smug about it. I’d rather people were sueing or something. I’m sure there is precedent for stopping manufacturers from making their vehicles more dangerous just to save a small percentage of money. I guess we do live in a capitalist utopia though so maybe I’m wrong but it seems like court might be more effective than trying to make these cars even more dangerous by adding a cone to the hood.

    • randon31415@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      DARPA figures out how to safely drive cars using LIDAR. Musk asked for a self driving car. Engineers come back the LIDAR solution. Musk fires them, says if humans can drive with two eyes, then so can computers. Cameras are cheaper than LIDAR. Second group tries it with cameras, can’t get it to work, asked why they can’t use LIDAR. Second group of engineers is fired. Third group comes up with something that ‘kind of works’. People die. Big companies avoid self driving altogether, even though we have a perfect solution with LIDAR, all because Musk wanted to save a buck and can’t get out of the way of his engineers.

    • Snapz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      When a for profit company is deciding how much time/energy/funds they want to invest in pedestrian safety, you get LOUD and you stay that way forever.

      Your comment is blind to the reality we live in and the broken, out of touch people deciding if human lives are a businesses priority, and at what percentages, as these types of vehicles scale.

      When humans get in an accident, there were choices/mistakes made, but there are things we can understand in certain situations and find closure often. When elon’s failed experiment decapitates your grandmother by driving her under a semi and sheering off the top off the car, you’ll probably never settle with that image as long as you live - and you’ll see elon in the news each day being a tool and never seeing justice for that moment.

      There’s a difference with distinction in this conversation.

      • Event_Horizon@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        That’s a really good point.

        Imagine your dog gets run over, you rush them to the vet but ultimately they die and your thousands out of pocket. You call the corporate helpdesk to log a claim because there isn’t anyone else to contact, they offer you $300 in credit for immediate resolution or you can dispute. You become upset because your dog was more than a credit refund, the call centre drone says that you’ve become aggressive, that you can call back during business hours and hangs up.

        What a hell scape.

        • regeya@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “But who do I sue” is also why it took so long for Linux to catch on.

          But who do I sue. I hate America so much sometimes.

      • catsarebadpeople@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Oh ok I didn’t realize a person’s life was worth less of they’re killed by the mistake of another person instead of the mistake of a computer. Since it’ll be easier for their loved ones to blame a person and just get over it then that’s better. Thanks for explaining that!

    • bighi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      90 accidents a year is a LOT, if you stop to think that there are like only a few dozens of them out there, versus more than a hundred million human drivers.

    • over_clox@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You make it sound like it’s a 50/50 split between human drivers and autonomous vehicles, which is definitely not the case.

      There are way more human drivers than autonomous vehicles. So, when an autonomous vehicle runs your child or pet over or whatever, who do you blame? The company? The programmers? The DMV for even allowing them on the road in the first place?

      What’s an autonomous vehicle do if it gets a flat? Park in the middle of the interstate like an idiot instead of pulling over and phone home for a mechanic?

      • donalonzo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You need to first ask yourself if it more important to put blame than to minimize risk.

        “Autonomous vehicles could potentially reduce traffic fatalities by up to 90%.”

        “Autonomous vehicle accidents have been recorded at a slightly lower rate compared with conventional cars, at 4.7 accidents per million miles driven.”

        https://blog.gitnux.com/driverless-car-accident-statistics/

        • HedonismB0t@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          That opinion puts a lot of blind faith in the companies developing self driving and their infinitely altruistic motives.

          • biddy@feddit.nl
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            1 year ago

            That wasn’t an opinion, it’s a statistic.

            No (large public) company ever has altruistic motives. They aren’t inherently good or bad, just machines driven by profit.

          • IntoDaLagoon@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 year ago

            What do you mean, I’m sure the industry whose standard practices include having the self-driving function turn itself off nanoseconds before a crash to avoid liability is totally motivated to spend the time and money it would take to fix the problem. After all, we live in a time of such advanced AI that all the news sites and magazines tell me we’re on the verge of the Singularity, and they’ve never misled me before.

            • Red Wizard 🪄@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because no on seems to know or give a shit that Tesla was caught red handed doing this. They effectively murdered those drivers.

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There’s a concern about more cameras recording all the time, and while I don’t personally buy that argument (because being out in public means you don’t have any expectation of privacy) I don’t agree with these companies storing that data to give to police, effectively making Waymo or Cruise into private arms of law enforcement.

      The reason that makes the most sense to me is it still encourages cities to be designed around cars, and not transit or people-oriented methods of travel. Even though they might make travel smoother by better decision-making than people, I’d still rather see more spaces devoted to foot traffic connected by buses or trains than the sprawl necessitated by personal vehicles.

      • nivenkos@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I bet you own a car though.

        Cars are freedom. You can go anywhere, anytime, without worrying about a delayed schedule or how many connections you’d need to get exactly where you’re going.

        You can listen to your own music and carry as much as you like, without worrying about someone trying to steal it or altercations with the public.

        I agree we need electric cars, but anti-car policy is ultimately just trapping people in cities, allowing the rich to still enjoy their cars from commuter towns, etc. whilst the working class are stuck in overcrowded pod apartments. This is literally the reality in a lot of Spain, Sweden, etc. where you’re lucky to get even a 70m2 apartment and parking is extortionate.

        • Luca@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          cars are freedom

          What about my freedom to walk or bike? My freedom to be able to cross the street? My freedom to get milk without taking 2000 pounds of metal with me?

          Cars warp entire cities around them. In an ideal world, everyone would be able to own a car, but very few people would need to own a car

        • TanakaAsuka@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          You’re ignoring the thing car drivers complain about the most, traffic delays. To me real freedom is being able to get to the places I need to using my own two feet, without needing to spend thousands every year on a car, insurance, etc. Headphones also exist and let you enjoy your own music while outside of a car without disturbing anyone!

          What we need everywhere is a people first policy that makes it so you don’t need a car to get around, especially in cities.

          I’m not sure what you are talking about with Spain. People there are not “trapped” in cities, they have good public transit in most cities and one of the best high speed rail systems in the world to get between cities, on top of that an extensive bus system that is even cheaper and extensive than the trains.

          • nivenkos@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            But in Spain there are not connections to most places outside cities, like most smaller towns don’t even have rail connections, nevermind going to the countryside and touristic places.

            Yeah, it’s okay between cities (although AVE is expensive), but that’s my point - it’s only cities.

            • TanakaAsuka@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              In Spain you can totally get the bus to most places, especially touristy places! AVE is expensive but there are budget high speed operators operating now and the bus is cheap. All these options are far cheaper than owning a car (and cheaper than owning a car in a car centric country as well!).

              Also those towns that don’t have good connections it’s mostly poor people living there, so rather than being stuck in cities because they don’t own cars, they’re stuck in poor rural towns because there is no transit to other places!

        • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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          1 year ago

          I mean, not really. You can go with a car only where infrastructure (roads) has been built, same as transit. There’s more places reachable by that infrastructure, but that is only because things have been built around it. You absolutely do have to worry about delays; there are after all things like traffic jams and road closures. You have to worry about the route you take, not in the form of what connections to take but in the form of navigating the right route. People absolutely have to worry about things like theft and altercation when driving, else people wouldn’t lock their cars, and road rage wouldn’t exist.

          Personally, after having moved somewhere I can manage to at least live my life, without owning a car, I find it feels a lot more freeing to just be able to walk places I want to be, or get on a train that someone else is driving, than having to own some expensive machine that needs periodic and also costly maintenance, and then having to operate it constantly to get anywhere, with the risk of accidently killing someone if I make a mistake.

          • everythingsucks@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You can go with a car only where infrastructure (roads) has been built

            I can drive a car from where I’m at right now to where you’re at right now. And I’m not even going to ask where you’re at. I think that’s pretty neat.

            But I do agree, walkability and reliable public transit are super nice. The time I’ve spent in smaller, remote ski towns where I could walk/bike or take a bus anywhere in a short amount of time are some of my favorite memories.

        • GFGJewbacca@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think the view behind the anti-car movement is that there shouldn’t be cars. Period. Doesn’t matter what income bracket. Gas powered cars create huge amounts of pollution, all cars generate lots of waste and are in general very inefficient modes of transportation.

          I believe in the end it advocates for busses and trains (above and below ground)as public transit. I think there’s also a belief that infrastructure is supposed to be updated to support this. Busses get their lane, while most of a street is for people moving under their own power, be it walking, cycling or using a wheelchair.

          • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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            1 year ago

            I think the view behind the anti-car movement is that there shouldn’t be cars. Period.

            I don’t think so. Fuck-car people are rather against the omnipresence of private cars and how cities prioritize them instead of greener means of transportation, which creates mortal danger, pollution, wasted energy, wasted materials and wasted space. But I don’t think they would mind the occasional car for reasonable usage like disabled people, craftsmen, public services etc.

  • Chipthemonk@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    The interviewed protesters sound a little whacky. Maybe the cars are doing surveillance with the police, but that idea seems far fetched and unrealistic. Maybe I’m wrong.

    I agree with more public transportation, bikes, and so forth, but I also agree with self driving cars. I dream of a future in which all cars are driven automatically without human drivers. Humans are very fallible and we all know, in almost every city, how many shitty drivers there are. Autonomous vehicles could fix this.

    • firadin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Maybe the cars are doing surveillance with the police, but that idea seems far fetched and unrealistic

      I’m sure that’s what people said about Ring, or Facebook messages being used to arrest women for abortions. Why would a company turn down an extra revenue stream (or subpoena)?

      • damnYouSun@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Facebook messages being used to arrest women for abortions.

        That’s a misrepresentation of what happened. The police already suspected her, and so they requested the information from Facebook. Facebook didn’t voluntarily supply a bunch of data to the police for no reason, and then the police didn’t comb through all the data to find this one crime that they otherwise didn’t know about.

        What is being suggested with the automatic cars is that the police are actively monitoring the surveillance footage looking for criminal activity. They definitely won’t be doing that. It’s way to much like work.

    • FluffyPotato@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Cars are incredibly inefficient at transporting people though, like you need a massive highway to transport the amount of people a train can transport, not to mention how much higher maintenance roads are compared to train tracks.

      • lemmycolon@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Cars are incredibly inefficient at transporting groups of people long distances

        FTFY

        I’d love a legit train system to take me to locations across the state or country. But for running errands or local, day-to-day tasks, trains aren’t the answer.

      • mouth_brood@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        If all cars became autonomous there would no longer be traffic, it’d be similar to train cars in that they are linked together with no disruption in progress due to other cars/drivers.

  • Billiam@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    City officials in June said there have been ninety incidents involving Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise vehicles since January.

    Compared to how many traffic incidents involving human-operated vehicles? Because if that number is greater than 90, the AVs are the safer choice.

    Automated cars don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be better than people.

    • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      To play devil’s advocate, how many AVs are on the road everyday? There are millions of cars on the road so naturally there are going to be a ton of accidents.

    • wimpysocks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Compared to how many traffic incidents involving human-operated vehicles? Because if that number is greater than 90, the AVs are the safer choice.

      Well that is simply flawed logic. How many autonomous cars are there compared to human-operated? Far far more.

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        How many autonomous cars are there compared to human-operated? Far far more.

        I think you meant less.

        Ideally, you’d be correct and we should be looking at per capita incidents- like how many incidents per 100 miles on the road or something. But the article just cited a flat number of incidents without contextualizing, which as you’ve pointed out can be misleading. Without knowing the ratio of AVs to human-driven vehicles, the best rebuttal that could be offered is “Yeah, but how do those 90 incidents compare to how people drive?”

    • Qazwsxedcrfv000@lemmy.unknownsys.com
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      1 year ago

      And they will definitely be better than people. Just them being able to communicate with each other, even locally, can remove the need for traffic lights already.

      • firadin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What percent uptime does your phone’s wifi/bluetooth/mobile internet have? Is it exactly 100%?