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.

It would be great for people if this were the case, and I wish you well in this, however, I think the government would put the kibbosh on this in some way.

Like they must have a qualified driver in them 'just in case'.

But then that would be hard to argue if these taxis were ferrying people about who had no licence, wouldn't it?

They'd find a fecking way though.

Independent and internal data strongly indicate that Waymo robotaxis are significantly safer than human drivers, experiencing drastically lower rates of crashes and injuries.

I can't wait!

It will be B2B deliveries that get hit first - where there is someone to handle the loading and unloading. Driverless vehicle pulls into your loading bay, you unload/load and send it on its way. No doubt the loading and unloading will also be handled by robots in the not to distant future.

I'd care about safety of the road users, pedestrians and deaths. Also the safety of the occupants. It doesn't bother me if people go out of work. You can choose driverless or with a driver. If the people want driverless that's how it is.

I don't mistrust them that much in themselves but legislatively and physically it is a challenge to have both human driven and automated vehicles sharing the road. I think the tech is largely working but our laws and systems are not ready for it.

Remember pre Covid everyone was saying self driving cars were imminent, like a couple of years away. But it's not the tech that is the limiting factor so much as how it's regulated.

I've always thought the the ultimate goal for the insurance industry is to have driverless cars, less accidents but charging the same pemiuims so they make more money.

We can all think of circumstances and road layouts near where we live that a driverless car probably won't cope with.

Theres videos online of driverless cars getting stuck in cul de sacs or reversing at 2am making a noise. Or fleets of them hanging around in quiet streets getting confused and honking at each other.

London Taxi cabs are wheelchair accessible unlike most minicabs or Ubers. No reason that future models couldn't have a ramp - especially for pre-booked cabs.

Mentioning the risk to women - this would depend on who has control of the taxi. Is it done via the Uber app? If so, all it would take is an abusive partner/stalker/etc. to get control of your account then it's not so safe.

I do see the point of taking away human error, but I worry about hacking the system by Russia, terrorists etc. I sound like a loon I know but surely it is a possibility?

Then make sure only you have access to your account? Simple fix

My kids bloody love a Waymo, DS did a whole preschool show and tell based on them after our last trip to San Francisco. They are incredibly cautious, I think the stats bear out that they are safer for pedestrians than human drivers. Agree it's another problematic AI related job loss though. My brother Ubers on the weekends to save cash for a deposit and he's pretty worried about that income stream drying up.

And when the driverless taxis are driving around in big, empty, completely flat, paved plazas, of the sort beloved of town planners' illustrations, then this might sometimes be feasible. (Even though shopping bags, suitcases or anything else one is carrying make short, steep ramps through narrow entrances difficult and dangerous.)

But in the reality of the British street scene, cluttered with parked cars, varying kerbs, bollards, bins, sandwich boards, heaps of building sand, wheel-unfriendly surfaces, etc etc, this is not an adequate solution.

With a human driver there's a lot of, "Oh, you can let me out here because I can see all those obstructions over there mean there's no possible safe place to stop the car, extend the ramp, give me road space at the bottom of the ramp and give me a safe route to a dropped kerb and up onto the correct pavement where I need to be."

Even once out of the car, it's easy to be marooned on a bit of road or pavement without a dropped kerb in sight – and if there is one, someone's parked across it.

Of course it can crash They said tge same about the Titanic.

A young woman was run over and killed by me yesterday, the taxi driver is currently in police custody being held on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs.
i’d much rather have a driverless car than a drugged up knobhead behind the wheel.

They are incredibly safe, far safer than your average human driver.

Quite honestly taxi drivers have been taking the mick out of people for long enough so I don’t see the issue.

They can only be a good thing.

Your first sentence reads as though you did it - 'by me' - you may want to edit for clarity as I don't think that's what you mean.

We are arable farmers - big tractors have “driven” themselves for decades. We drive on roads and field to field but once in the field at work it steers its self from GPS. It still needs a driver in the seat though, although smaller autonomous tractors are appearing they are very expensive at present. The tech has been around a long time now, it’s not a new thing. I have no concerns about a driverless taxis safety.

I think driverless cars will be the norm pretty quickly - I think the powers that be will discourage car ownership and you’ll just call a driverless uber type service, a hybrid of taxi/public transport, in city’s anyway!

I think they are a great idea, especially for lone women at night.

It's London. They will end up being fucked about with by bored kids. Standing in front of them so they cant move. Climbing on them to get a free ride. People stripping them for parts. Perhaps even robbing the stranded passengers. Also, would you trust one to carry you and your children around?

I'd never use one. I can just imagine one malfunctioning and driving into the path of a lorry and there's nothing you could do.

I wouldn't mind as a passenger if it had a speed limit of 20mph or maybe 30mph max.

But US cities are nearly all planned on a grid system so are easier for driverless cars to navigate. I can't see how they'd safely manage on our winding old roads.

Used them extensively in the US, felt safer than a human driving, no chance of the driver being tired, under the influence or losing concentration.

We all fly on planes that are 99% controlled by computers with the pilots just taking off & landing, monitoring instruments the rest of the time. Computers constantly adjust the controls to make it a smoother flight. 👍🏻

In an ideal world, I would like to go back to the days of lovely taxi drivers. We still have them where I live and they're very important part of the local community. Unfortunately, all the lovely ones don't work in the evenings (I've spoken to them quite a lot about why they don't work in the evenings, and I don't blame them).

So ironically, the safety issues that concern me with late night taxis would be solved by a driverless car.

People were concerned when the first automobiles came to London. Weren't they restricted to 8MPH and a man with a flag had to walk in front? I bet people were concerned about how they would replace the horse and carriage, putting all the ostlers out of work.

Of course, you are right. Where will it end?
No one will have a job. Elon, Jeff and their ilk will have all the money and armies of robots, while everyone else is starving and on the streets.
Can’t wait.