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Comment by akgerber | Hacker News Reader

Detroit still seems like an easier environment than Uber/CMU's Pittsburgh, home of barely-maintained brick roadways with blind corners on 20%+ grades and icy winters.

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Not to mention its six radio stations, all of which are country. A brutal environment for anyone to drive through.

I believe there are a few companies working on piping music through the internet.

An inter-networked series of computers? Sounds like a fad.

computertubes.

So they ... put radio ... on the internet? Cool!

I'd have just let this joke slide if Pittsburgh wasn't a pivotal location in radio history due to KDKA. :P So let me just say 105.9 The X for life (as long as Mark Madden isn't bloviating, anyway).

What? This isn't accurate at all.

It's a joke.

Don't forget the 'Pittsburgh Left'!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left

That is actually a pretty decent explanation of the practice and the reasoning behind it.

Thankfully, the PGH left is starting to die off as they install newer traffic light systems with dedicated turning lights/lanes.

Still very common elsewhere. As noted by the article this is a widespread phenomenon in the Northeast... I see it all the time in Boston and Worcester.

TIL, I haven't seen it outside of the greater PGH area.

People do it in Brooklyn all the time. Sometimes not even from the leftmost lane :).

Extremely common all over New York. I didn't know it had a name though.

Huge in the Boston metro.

Definitely not dying here in Toronto

Not as odd, but there's also the Michigan Left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left

Pretty much anything in the US is easy. Try Indian cities, Italian villages or the Russian countryside. I’m absolutely certain that not a single one of the so called “self-driving” cars could handle even the most simple challenges in these environments.

The US is pretty big. I have neighbors that ATV and snowmobile the last few miles to their house, except during the very few months that they can wrestle an old Jeep up there. Google Maps isn't very helpful.

I bet self driving cars are first adopted enmasse in Asian cities (primarily Chinese ones) given need. Even though the driving (and pedestrian) habits seem to imply otherwise, the chance to optimize limited road infrastructure will just be too juicy for the politicians to pass up. In fact, lots of companies are working on self driving cars in china right now for this reason (also, it’s much more likely given china’s autocratic government).

Detroit is also interesting because it's Delphi's backyard (the other unknown horse in the whole autonomous vehicle race).

> home of barely-maintained brick

There are very few brick roads in Pittsburgh. Most are in older sections of the city where the residents have lobbied against a paved road for one reason or another.

And I would imagine steep hills and icy conditions are exactly what you want to test self-driving cars on to see how they handle it.

To be pedantic, I think saying there are very few is misleading. There are very few outside of older neighborhoods like you say, but there are plenty of small brick/cobblestone roads around. Just not many heavily traveled or particularly long ones.

> There are very few brick roads in Pittsburgh. Most are in older sections of the city where the residents have lobbied against a paved road for one reason or another.

Many places still have brick. It's not a majority, but it's not a couple of historic district streets either.

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