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Comment on Someone should really develop this idea

raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

You used the self-driving bit saving you time as an argument in favor of self-driving cars, hence the correction. The time save has nothing to do with who operates the car (unless it’s a F1 driver).

The problem is that this whole debate is poisoned. Self-driving cars are not, and will likely never be safe. They can be safer on average than human drivers, it’s just that other people will die in accidents than those killed by reckless drivers. The ones dying will die due to software errors / profit calculations and the likes. As such, promoting self-driving without a mechanical guiding control (as in railways) is highly unethical.

It might be possible to overcome the technological challenges of safe self-driving, but humankind as a whole is too selfish and profit-driven to ever reach a point where that kind of research will even be funded with any meaningful budget. That’s my prediction.

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AliOski@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
In one of my other comments I mentioned the reduce of traffic jams as an argument, due to coordination between vehicles.

About the accidents: reckless drivers also (mainly even I think, no source) kill innocent people on the road. Reducing the total amount of deaths is more important than some supposed moral superiority of only reckless drivers dying vs people dying due to technical faults.

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- raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  In one of my other comments I mentioned the reduce of traffic jams as an argument, due to coordination between vehicles.
  
  Yes, that is possible. However, in today’s neofascist regimes, this is a beloved excuse for total surveillance. Not that they still need it - we basically have always-online and trackable cars already anyways. :(
  
  About the accidents: reckless drivers also (mainly even I think, no source) kill innocent people on the road. Reducing the total amount of deaths is more important than some supposed moral superiority of only reckless drivers dying vs people dying due to technical faults.
  
  This is an alternative of the trolley problem. There’s no clear ethical answer to this. Personally, I think that today’s technology proves that companies will always put profits over safety, and I will always prefer to control my own vehicle when it comes to personal travel, over having any kind of safety relevant automation. Just think of Boeing’s 737 MAX debacle, where Boeing murdered (with the amount of criminal energy they put into obfuscating the redesign of the plane there’s no other way for me to see this) the crew and passengers of two civil airliners for profit.
  
  We’re not doing anything meaningful against reckless drivers in today’s world, even when it’s trivial, and our governments are corrupt to the core and will never exert more control over corporations than they will over private people who drive recklessly.
  
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  - AliOski@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    The last part about governments not acting up reckless driving, I think it depends on the country. In the Netherlands it is pretty well done. Most disciplined drivers you could find in the world.
    
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    raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    The last part about governments not acting upon reckless driving, I think it depends on the country. In the Netherlands it is pretty well done.
    
    Absolutely not! My experience from a couple of years living and driving in NL: Speeding is expensive, but has no other consequences -> speed limits are effective for poor people only. No other controls are in effect. The average speed measurement over longer stretches of road is a nice touch, but again, no consequences but expensive tickets. Also, contrary to Switzerland, fines are NOT bound to your income / wealth.
    
    Most disciplined drivers you could find in the world.
    
    Also not. Things wrong with the average Dutch driver that come to mind immediatley: Due to the low speed limits, overtaking another vehicle is a long process - that’s not the fault of the drivers, but the system’s fault (although the average speed limit is designed to allow a quick burst in speed for this, it’s hard to know when you’ll pay an expensive fine and I wouldn’t rely on it either). What the average Dutch driver does with it however is a problem:
    
    the driver overtaking will creep up to the car to be overtaken’s rear bumper before changing to the left lane, and will typically go right back into the original lane after clearing the slower car by like 5 meters - due to the slow process of “catching up” this leads to minutes with a very dangerous distance to the car in front of them, and will occasionally cause accidents (thanks to the low speed those are not as fatal).
    
    the driver being overtaken basically never slows down to speed up the process and make it safer for all involved
    
    on the contrary, people will sometimes even drive at very irregular speeds and speed up a little just when someone attempts to overtake them
    
    and then 4) many Dutch drivers do not understand zip merging and hate people doing it correctly. If a lane is closed down, people will merge onto the other lane(s) kilometres before the road closure, and there will always be someone who behaves aggressively towards vehicles using the lane until the frontmost part where it is closed and the zip merger should be done. I’ve seen truckers(!) veer to the side to try and intimidate cars passing for a zip merger, because they perceive these people as “cutting the line”
    
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