Grumpy Locals Are Sabotaging Cruise and Waymo Robotaxis With Traffic Cones

foobar@lemmy.villa-straylight.social to Technology@lemmy.world – 119 points –
Grumpy Locals Are Sabotaging Cruise and Waymo Robotaxis With Traffic Cones
thedrive.com

Think of it like a dunce cap, but for a car.

14

I live in central TX and they are running the driverless vehicles at night. These vehicles can be just as bad as the regular drivers.

Nearly struck twice while walking my dog. Fuck these things.

I mean, how many industry experts need to say, “we are not at a place with the tech that driverless cars are safe?” Because, from my recollection, plenty have.

And their main point is spot on. All of this money being sunk into this particular money race when we need to be phasing our cars in a hurry. Why are we putting more cars on the road? Traffic doesn’t need it, but the fucking PLANET really doesn’t need it.

Being the US, though, we all bow down before the mighty capitalist venture and dare not stand in the way of someone making money. No matter the cost for the rest of us. Figuratively and literally.

Iirc, most of the driverless tech is being dumped into EVs. Manufacturing pollution aside, converting more OTR vehicles to EV and diverging from ICE vehicles is the current path forward until newer technology provides other options in terms of tackling pollution. Additionally, once the driverless tech develops, hopefully traffic congestion will alleviate by removing the human element.

That’s the capitalist, market-friendly answer. The planet friendly answer is public transit. It’s been proven over and over again. Instead we’re trying to figure out how to charge electric cars faster for longer trips. It’s all with the express purpose of greenwashing the issue while maintaining a capitalist friendly personal vehicle infrastructure. It’s insanity.

What we really need are trains/subways

Nah, fuck trains.

You need trams.

Cross country, high speed bullet trams from coast to coast.

Trams would be good too

Almost struck in a crosswalk with a walk signal?

It’s usually at 4 way stops.

I don’t think I have seen a self driving car take a right on red at signaled intersections.

How anyone could consider it a good idea to test the prototypes of these services on public roads is unfathomable to me.