AIBU to think we don’t want driverless taxis?

[Burnedbyquestions]

Driverless Ubers now bookable in London - as a pedestrian I would not feel safer knowing cars are driverless and as a taxi passenger I want to support humans to have a livelihood, not increase numbers on benefits and give Uber more profits. Surely most people agree? Appreciate taxi drivers need tighter controls after all the sex attack and intimidation problems but I don’t think driverless anything is the solution.
If taxis were that cheap what would happen to buses/trains? The roads would be clogged up with individual passengers in cars instead - I can’t see the point of them.

Aren’t they safer than human drivers?

I agree and while I agree that there would be advantages and disadvantages to them, ultimately it will be the fact that people don't trust them that will lead them to fail.

You get into a car and somebody drives it.
That's the way it is.

I don’t think people are reliably safe drivers, and so I’d prefer a driverless car. I’ve been in a few in the US and they’ve all seemed impressively cautious and reacted really well to changing circumstances. They’re a bit hesitant, but that’s the right way to go about it. It felt much safer than a human driver from both a road safety and personal safety perspective.

No one is lamenting the loss of the job of the man who scooped poop after the horses were replaced by cars, or the man who lit the gas lamps before electricity. We need to start thinking radically different about jobs in the new world.

In a way it doesn't really matter if they are or not as people are not always led by logic alone and the thought of getting into a car that isn't being driven by a person - especially when they can drive themselves and appreciate it is a learned skill requiring quick reactions-will elicit the heebie jeebies.

I’m excited. I want to go out and find one now

I suspect that driverless cars will have less accidents than drivers so as someone who cycles / walks I am not concerned about them when I see them in London. The longer term impact on jobs is separate.

But they aren't failing. Their use is increasing.

Within about 5 minutes of being in a driverless taxi, I forgot there was nobody at the wheel. The novelty wore off. It was a really seamless experience, remarkably unremarkable. That said, this was in the US, where the car is king, and the grid layout of roads means it's mostly just a series of traffic light controlled left and right turns. That's completely different to European city driving, which tends to be much more chaotic and requires a lot more anticipation to judge passing places, keep traffic flowing etc.

I've always said that in the future people will be shocked we ever let humans drive cars because it is so dangerous.

I used them in San Francisco and loved them. The price might put people off - they were more expensive than Ubers.

There are only 15 of the vehicles and currently they still require a licensed driver to be in the driving seat ready to take over.

If it does succeed as a pilot and eventually is rolled out without the drivers still in place, the social impacts would be challenging.
They probably are better drivers most of the time than humans and would also prove that the technology does exist to geofence a car to certain speed limits which I think should be rolled out as a requirement to all cars. When I hire a e bike, it has geofencing to slow it down in the park. Cars should be forced to have the same thing- no car needs to be doing 40mph or 50mph in my residential area.

The other plus is that the cars can work all the time outside a brief charging break so fewer vehicles are needed so the means fewer cars parked on streets and more space for other road users so better for traffic.

The employment issue is a big problem in localised areas. A lot of male migrants work as Uber drivers and many aspire to - it isn't that easy, they need to get a driving licence first (expensive) and then get licensed (slow and requires enough language skills). But then they get to effectively be their own boss and feel like masters of their own destiny. It's a very aspirational job for many migrants Vs the other common jobs of working in cleaning or kitchens.

Good point.
15-year-olds can drive out there too.
I imagine the test isn't as difficult as in the UK, either.

I must admit the thought of being driven in one of them at high speed on the motorway would be too much for me.

I’m more concerned about the number of people on electric bikes and scooters who go through red lights. It’s rife in London and getting more and more dangerous for pedestrians.

They’re not completely infallible. There have already been cases where they have hit and killed pedestrians, there was an interesting programme about them with Hannah Fry on the BBC looking at incidents where they had failed. In one case they found that the car’s computer had seen the pedestrian it hit and killed but hadn’t recognised them as a person because they weren’t crossing the road at a designated crossing so the car didn’t stop. There were also cases of cars driving on pavements and failing to stop at junctions.

I wouldn’t feel completely safe in one.

I have a vision of me struggling and putting my shopping in the car (without the help of a kind human driver) and the blasted thing tootling off home without me !

Stick to black cabs and you’ll be fine! They are the safest taxi drivers

I’ve used them loads in the US, they’re absolutely fine. They don’t argue about where they’ll go, or try to argue they can only take cash. Bring them on, I say.

I agree. My only reservation is whether they will be another threat to the traditional black cab trade. I’m a big supporter of black cabs, they offer a far superior service and vehicle. WIGIG

There are so many reasons that this could go wrong imho. PP stating they cant crash?
Perhaps not but whats stopping other vehicles crashing into them?
I'll take the bus Ta very much!!

For some people. I rarely use taxis, but id be happy to use a driverless one (and I’d prefer it if they were statistically safer).

I think I'd rather have a driverless taxi than a regular one. Yes, a fault could result in a disaster but have you seen the average taxi driver?! One second of distraction kills and computers can't be distracted. Humans can. Not to mention the risk to women. I wouldn't get in a taxi alone unless it was a dire emergency.

No computers won’t be distracted like a human could be but they can misinterpret things and are susceptible to software failings. Such as the case I mentioned where the car’s computer couldn’t recognise a person in the road because they weren’t at a pedestrian crossing where the car had been programmed to expect people. The problem is that these cars are driving around people and people are unpredictable. Lots of human drivers do silly things and can be unsafe of course. If every car on the road was driverless maybe it would be safer than them driving amongst people ?

Also, some rural areas near us have road markings that need to be repainted or signs that are covered by overgrown trees, I’d be curious about what would happen if the car couldn’t register these signs. It’s not ideal for human drivers either especially if you don’t know the area, but where a human could logically think “I need to be vigilant here, the road makings are very faint”, a computer might just see no stop sign and think therefore there is no need to stop. A human would spot the junction or whatever and stop out of common sense (hopefully)

I'm not able to drive so a driverless personal car, if it genuinely was driverless and didn't need a driver in it 'just in case' would be a game changer for me.

A concern with driverless taxis is accessibility - e.g. people who use wheelchairs needing a person there to assist them - if these become the default, it could put the onus on the disabled passenger to arrange separate support at additional cost.

I'm not saying that this isn't true for some people like yourself, but I think that for the majority it would be no way.

Some people do make decisions on some things on logic alone. I appreciate that.

Like logically there's no need to be terrified of spiders in the UK but people still are.

They gave waymo in the USA. It's fine. Good on it for technological advancement