Driverless cars were the future but now the truth is out: they’re on the road to nowhere::The dream of these vehicles ruling the roads remains just that. Focusing on public transport would be much smarter, says transport writer Christian Wolmar
Driverless cars were the future but now the truth is out: they’re on the road to nowhere::The dream of these vehicles ruling the roads remains just that. Focusing on public transport would be much smarter, says transport writer Christian Wolmar
Self driving cars have always been a solution to the wrong problem.
The problem isn’t really “I don’t want to steer this car”. It’s “I want to fast+safe+cheaply get from where I am, to where work/school/fun is”. So you could spend billions on machine vision and car tech to try to accomplish that, and maybe you will eventually. Or you could invest in historically proven solutions that have incredible side benefits like public transit and better zoning. Because having your self driving car cart you around suburban sprawl is still going to suck. Living spaces that are built for humans first instead of cars are better on like every metric.
You missed part of the problem. It’s actually,
“I want to fast+safe+cheaply get from where I am, to where work/school/fun is, and I want to do it without sharing transportation with anyone else who might be sick, annoying, crazy, or a member of an ethnic group or economic class I don’t care for”
The good solutions for transit do not account for how much people hate being around each other. My city has phenomenal bus infrastructure, that often gets you to your destination faster than driving. But people drive anyways, because there are sick people and crazy people on the bus.
You’re not wrong, but I don’t really think society should bend too far to the whims of it’s most antisocial members.
Like, if they don’t want to share the bus with a black person they can leave. And I don’t want to subsidize their selfishness by ceding space to cars, for example.
Also that’s a bit of induced demand, probably. People drive because it’s easier. Take away the subsidies or internalize the costs of driving, and people’s habits will change.