How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities (and what to do about it)

It's long, but well worth an hour of your time. He even states in the comments that he set out two years ago to make a positive video about AVs: What was most surprising to me was that when I began researching this video (two years ago!) it was going to be about some of the technical challenges that would need to be overcome in order to make self-driving cars a reality, but the conclusion was going to be that ultimately, AVs would be a good thing. By the time I was done researching this topic I was absolutely horrified of our future self-driving dystopia. [this video] The future he illustrates seems mostly plausible, except that it depends on all of the technology functioning flawlessly. I have a hard time believing that streets full of high-speed AVs functioning in perfect synchrony is likely. However, that doesn't change my general agreement with the conclusions he draws in that video and the rest of his channel.

I ride my bike several times a day, and I have very mixed views about Waymo, etc. I care immensely about traffic safety (so much I moved to the Netherlands). If you took the world as it is now and left everything the same except that every car was a waymo and there were no human-driven cars left, I would be ecstatic. Humans are horrible drivers and some of them are downright murderous. If every car were a waymo I could even imagine letting my kids bike to school in the bay (where I used to live), which I wouldn't dream of now. But I think the second-order effects of self driving cars could be terrible. It removes any incentive not to have an incredibly long commute (exacerbating sprawl), and so far every time there has been a situation where the needs of walkers and cyclists were pitted against the needs of drivers, drivers won. I think the same will happen with self-driving cars, and people will be made to wear beacons just to walk across the street. NotJustBikes discusses this well here [this video] But if we have proper regulation (pretty unlikely I would say) and use things like waymo to stop humans from driving (remember, drivers are the leading killers of children in the US!) that would be great.

If that interests you, maybe the question "how did it get to be like this" will too. This video is pushing a point down your throat. If you can ignore that at the end it compares Canada's New London to Holland’s Utrecht: [this video] Turns out the choice between "Middle America Suburbia" path and the other you describe really is a choice. Some have very deliberately chose one and some equally deliberately have chosen the other. Like you I've nearly always lived in the "American Suburbia" style. Like you I literally didn't realise (in fact I would have scoffed at the idea) there were other choices. That was despite the fact I was taught by migrant European teachers, who, when I look back, made it very plain what they thought of the "American Suburbia" style of living. Us calmly accepting the extra overheads of longer roads, consequent travel times, power transmission, transport fuel costs, freight and so on just blew them away. It blew me away too once I understood it. Then, again like you, I got live in one of these high density neighbourhoods for a very short while, and experienced the level of social cohesion and the "big village" feel of it. Now I think "wtf? I've been had".

I recently watched Not Just Bikes' video on the disastrous future side effects of self-driving cars[0]. Of course it made me think about the massive PR push that made us think they were around the corner, but also about the manufactured consent for these technologies in the first place. Right now this kind of discussion is hitting the mainstream with the 'clanker'[1] backlash. I think it's really obvious to a lot of people that the AI push is not organic and is not based around consumer needs, and this manipulation is making people genuinely angry[2] (ok jreg is a performance artist, but just because something is performative doesn't mean it's not real). [0]: [this video] [1]: [link] [2]: [link]

> Imagine the conversation New York legislators could have had if every robotaxi ride generated a cryptographically signed, tamper-evident record of the vehicle's behavior — independently verifiable by any regulator, auditor, or safety agency. This is putting the cart before the horse. The problem with autonomous vehicles is that there's no standardized third party test suite to validate and certify ahead of time and periodically that the vehicles are capable of behaving correctly in all road conditions even with their sensors degraded as will happen over time. This kind of validation should be done by the state or a neutral third party like UL in the US before a single vehicle is allowed on public roads. Without it they're just unleashing multi-ton weapons on the streets with no guarantee they'll perform adequately. The problems with this were evident in SF when the blackout happened and the Waymos clogged up the roadways. If that happens during a real emergency and blocks the roadways it could result in thousands of deaths. Autonomous vehicles are a bad idea anyway for the reasons in this video[1]. 1. [this video]

>Everything I am saying is straightforward and in good faith. You asked me why I thought he was unsuitable after I'd already explained why I thought he was unsuitable. >It seems you've confused postponing a strike with quashing a strike. He helped Biden block the rail strike. As I said. [link] [link] >Don't worry, all strikes in every industry will be quashed by Trump and Musk over the next 4 years. That's how strikes work under the rule of law and the faith that all parties will operate fairly within it, which we can agree is going away under Trump to some extent. >Also, do you seriously consider a single neglectful shipping company ramming into the bridge to be the fault of the transportation secretary? Yes. As with the train incident, it speaks to a culture of ineffectiveness under his direction. (Admittedly rando) guy at this link makes a good point: [link] >I can't think of a single mode of transportation that has gotten better under Buttigieg, can you? In his examples, he mentions air travel headaches, which combine with my Boeing criticism from earlier. I also hadn't considered personal vehicles: to add to his talk about EVs, there are also the many controversies involving self-driving cars and the companies his department have allowed to operate recklessly, per [this video] . In all, Buttigieg's tenure has been marked by a lack of sufficient oversight of industry; his lax supervision has lead to a disturbing number of incidents across all modes of transit. He's supposed to

Certainly some unknowns, but I'm optimistic. > No pedestrian crossings. Everywhere is a pedestrian crossing when you know that every vehicle sees you and will slow/stop if it anticipates you will enter its path. > No bike lanes. I'm an urban bike commuter and would be delighted to share the road with autonomous vehicles instead of human-driven ones. > No escape from the noise of thousands of tires going at high speed. I live 60 ft from a highway and would trade the noise of 1 speeding, honking, revving, modified-exhaust having human driven car for 100 well-maintained speed-limit obeying Waymo's. > No escape from the air pollution of eroding tires and brakes. Gentle starts and stops from a well-maintained (e.g. proper tire inflation) autonomous vehicle will create less of both of those than the average human-driven vehicle. > [this video] I like a diversity of viewpoints, and glad there are people advocating for pedestrian and cyclist use of roads, but I find very little I agree with in Not Just Bikes pessimism.