"These are completely safe autonomous vehicles": Cyclist spots driverless car using cycle lane

Born_peddling wrote:

Am I the only person who instantly thought of Johnny Cabs? 😂 Call it whatever you want am not exactly comfortable in trusting an equation to apply the breaks just in case, and just a small question do these things have a hand brake? (parking brake for u.s. readers)

A lot of (most?) modern cars have a parking brake that is applied automatically when the car is stationary and is taken off when power is applied (don't have one myself but that is how my Dad's works). I would assume a self-driving car would just have the same. 

Incidentally my Dad hates it because he can't check whether it is on or not. 

I'm assuming that these self driving cars are technically on the phone 100% of the time, instead of just 30%.

Ah - but they're not watching their phones - their cameras are pointed elsewhere.  Of course, just like humans that wouldn't help with "looked but didn't see".

andystow wrote:

I'm assuming that these self driving cars are technically on the phone 100% of the time, instead of just 30%.

But unlike humans, computers can genuinely (sort of) multi-task. 

I can literally think of zero people that can't drive but want a car. I know rather many people that can drive, and don't have a car (such as myself). Really don't see AV's causing an increase in motorised traffic. 

KDee wrote:

I can literally think of zero people that can't drive but want a car. I know rather many people that can drive, and don't have a car (such as myself). Really don't see AV's causing an increase in motorised traffic. 

Really? 

I grew up in a tiny village (early 80's) with no bus service. If my parents had had an autonomous car it would have opened things up for me considerably. In addition - we don't have them currently so we're not entirely sure how we're going to use them. I clearly remember having a conversation in the early noughties about the new 3g network and no-one really knew how much that was going to impact our lives in only a few years. It was like, great, I can browse the internet, so what. 

I know numerous people who would enjoy the 'freedom' offered by an AV. It would allow them to get to places and social events that would be inaccessible due to poor public transport that has yet to enter the 21st century. It would also allow them to get to places not serviced by the same public transport. My own father would have relished an AV after he gave up driving as neither my brother or I were always available. 
 

How/why does an AV offer any more 'freedom' than a mincab or an Uber?.  AVs would still have to be deployed/available in the areas where people want them.  One of the issues with Uber is that they are rarely available in rural areas with rubbish public transport because the drivers know that there's more likelyhood of getting a fare in towns so that's where they hang out.

My village is only 5 or 6 miles outside of Bristol city centre and yet locals always complain about how difficult it is to get a taxi home.  Apparently taxi drivers don't want to come out this far because they'd be going back into town empty, as it were. So they (again, allegedly) either flat out refuse the fare or else quote some mind bogglingly stupid fare which guarantees nobody will take it up.

brooksby wrote:

My village is only 5 or 6 miles outside of Bristol city centre and yet locals always complain about how difficult it is to get a taxi home.  Apparently taxi drivers don't want to come out this far because they'd be going back into town empty, as it were. So they (again, allegedly) either flat out refuse the fare or else quote some mind bogglingly stupid fare which guarantees nobody will take it up.

This. I live in a sizeable town about 8 miles from Bristol City Centre. After my work Christmas do, I decided to take an uber as opposed to the bus home. The first couple of Uber drivers who accepted my trip, promptly cancelled once they realised they would have to drive out of town.

schlepcycling wrote:

How/why does an AV offer any more 'freedom' than a mincab or an Uber?.  AVs would still have to be deployed/available in the areas where people want them.  One of the issues with Uber is that they are rarely available in rural areas with rubbish public transport because the drivers know that there's more likelyhood of getting a fare in towns so that's where they hang out.

The difference is that there isn't a human being making a value judgement on where best to "hang out". The "driver" of an AV doesn't care how much money is being made, nor how many fares they collect. 

It would just require the operators to be prepared to put them in those areas. 

But isn't the operator of the AV human and therefore looking to make as much money from their AV as possible?.  Surely the human operator is the one making the value judgement as to where their AVs 'hang out' and that's more likely to be in those places where they'll get the most business and therefore make the most money.

schlepcycling wrote:

But isn't the operator of the AV human and therefore looking to make as much money from their AV as possible?.  Surely the human operator is the one making the value judgement as to where their AVs 'hang out' and that's more likely to be in those places where they'll get the most business and therefore make the most money.

Yes, but that isn't how it works at the moment. Uber drivers decide where to hang out and which trips to make, not Uber the operator. The operator can take a business/strategic level decision to cover an area with an AV, which is a very different decision than an individual driver making a decision on where his personal income is going to come from. 

It might be more expensive for customers (although an AV won't quote an exorbitant price because it doesn't want to do it), and if it's not profitable for the business it still won't work, but it does potentially change the situation quite considerably. 

Exactly. Until they're beyond being test taxis, they offer nothing.

They'll be fantastic. I could strap my 5 year-old in his seat in the back and send him off across town to his grandma's for babysitting.

Until AV's are 100% reliable (or close enough), outside of these real world taxi test environments, you're going to need a driving licence to sit behind the wheel in case you have to intervene. In the future, it'd be nice for fleets of shared ownership AV's being available at your beck & call...but that's some way off.

KDee wrote:

I can literally think of zero people that can't drive but want a car. I know rather many people that can drive, and don't have a car (such as myself). Really don't see AV's causing an increase in motorised traffic. 

I know people who are young and able otherwise, are well off so they can afford a car, but don't drive for personal reasons, and have to rely heavily on taxis or on their spouses (male or female) to go where they want. They definitely don't do it for ecological reasons, so I believe they would be perfect potential buyers. And I know many more who are bored to death to drive, so with an AV they could potentially do more trips. For me there is a big upcoming market for AV, there is still long road to be reliable but I believe in around 10 years the larger cars sold will be predominantly electric and AV or at least AV capable.

I'd say the car not recognising those faded lines is another reason for not allowing autonomous cars.

TSGRD2016 mostly got rid of that loophole - signs just have to be good enough and not perfect.  

Is it legal to cross an unbroken lane marker in Austin, Tx?

In the UK the so-called cycle infrastructure is an incoherent mess of paint and street furniture, shared with pedestrians, so I guess AVs will just park on the pavement like all the other SOVs, and the ultra rare police won't do anything to police this.