British industry calls for regulation of autonomous vehicles
theregister.com
theregister.com
1. Massively deregulate, in which case the UK might be a good place for R&D but still not for manufacturing (disadvantageous tariffs to their largest export markets and a second tier domestic market, cars exported would be designed to meet foreign standards anyway).
2. Regulate about the same as other key markets, this is what you'd normally do by default as a country, you get decent safety standards, but costs will be high, because the automotive manufacturers will design for major markets, not the UK, so they'll see extra costs associated with UK regulatory compliance, but all products sold in the UK will match EU standards anyway.
3. Just adopt EU standards. It makes operating in the UK cheap for automotive companies, you can use it to argue for tariff reductions with the EU, but a small group of psychopaths in the UK parliament will collapse the entire government and economy.
4. Have higher standards than elsewhere, likely locking the larger manufacturers out of the UK market entirely, opening the door for smaller, higher cost niche manufacturers, but significantly slowing adoption.
Obviously number 3 is the economically advantageous option, but the politically advantageous option is to loudly claim you're doing option 1, whilst in reality doing option 3.
So no, their effect isn't outsized these days.
Also there's this little gem buried in the bottom of the article
> Lisa Johnson, UK director of public affairs for Starship Technologies, said the company would welcome regulation, ...“There needs to be some sort of national regulation that underpins all decisions because we have invested a lot of time and energy in our safety case. If we don't have regulation, what's to stop somebody coming into the market who isn't as safe as us? ... And we don't want a free for all,” she said.
And there's the push for this, a corporation already in the UK that wants to ensure that there are regulations to "keep people safe" (a.k.a keep competitors out.) and yes I understand regulation can be good and helpful, but regulatory capture can be an insidious b*h
I would start with banning these things from all public pavements.
I feel like this is a real Silicon Valley mission, I’m not so sure the rest of the world gives much of a toss about it?
2. Truckers
3. People reliant on public transport
4. Everyone else on the road who appreciates being alive
5. People who would like less traffic
6. People who drive long stretches in remote areas
This would 1. help the elderly have more freedom. 3. help people who already use public transport. 4,5. It would make roads safer and allow for less space being used for private vehicles which makes the remaining spaces safer.
Improving intercity and freight rail can also help many people in category 6 who can now do something productive or fun on the train rather than risk driving long distance, and can take some long distance freight off of roads.
The only people who need to have private vehicles are those would live in rural locations, who would still benefit from traveling to a more distant urban area, and people who's jobs demand it such as tradies (trades people). These would all be served by having less people on the roads when they don't need to be.
With fewer cars it's a lot easier and cheaper to get quicker and better public transit going. I don't know anything about Portland, but in general going by bus anywhere is mostly waiting in traffic (i.e. cars) instead of actually driving. This is why some places have bus lanes, which do help, but in a limited fashion.
I don't know how it compares exactly, but it's quite complex and there are a lot of factors and I'm not so sure public transport ends up being significantly more expensive in the end.
Trimet is competitive in downtown once you account for time spent looking for parking. The max is also pretty good when compared to rush hour traffic on the freeways.
Intercity transport really needs HS2 pushing through and increase electrification of other routes. This will speed up commuter routes and increase freight capacity.
This is in Tokyo.
Public transportation can't replace private vehicles. It can help. It can be useful. It can't replace them. It's like trying to replace traditional powerplants with wind - it doesn't work.
If you do get stuck, you do what everyone else does, get one of the probably millions of taxis to drive you home.
Let's face it the taxi driver will at least help you get out of the car :)
Lastly, many people who stay out that late are hammered and probably going to spew in the car, that won't be fun.
I don’t see how there’s be a significant benefit for people reliant on public transport. If people are stuck on public transport, it’s typically because of cost, and there’s no way a small passenger vehicle is going to beat out a bus or train on that metric.
- What level of reliability is actually feasible for such a scheme? If you don’t have 5 9s, are you going to be causing catastrophic accidents? Is that level even enough? Even with near instantaneous reaction times and perfect judgement vs humans, you’re still limited by basic physics/stopping distance.
- cars still take up physical space, no matter how close the cars get you eventually run into a flow rate problem. With the addition of self driving cars deadheading to pickups, you’ll also have added traffic volumes from entirely empty vehicles.
Add in the extra load of deadheading of self-driving cars, and I strongly doubt that there is any meaningful traffic benefit and in fact there could well be extra traffic costs incurred... and that's before anyone accounts for the effects of induced demand!
But autonomous vehicles do solve some real issues as well. Many of the women in my life have full on PTSD about certain aspects of driving. There are days they struggle to get themselves to work. Autonomous vehicles are a drop-in solution for that, with better safety and privacy than Uber/Lyft. Some people would say that better public transit would also solve this, but those people have never done infrastructure advocacy in the US. A moonshot like autonomous vehicles has a genuinely better likelihood of existing for most people in the US than effective public transit.
They're also a potentially safer and more enjoyable solution to the non-joy driving many people do daily. There's no need for those miles to be done by humans who are distracted by other concerns.
Companies also really want it to exist. Pretty much everyone with a large delivery program is in talks with one or more AV companies to automate their shipping. It's going to become a significant part of the industry as soon as the costs are competitive.
LOL if you really believe that. Self driving cars will be connected to cloud with camera pointed on you the whole ride. Reasoning for this will be simple - people are pigs without a bit of a care for property of others when they are not supervised
As for safety, have you ever been in an Uber? Waymo at least is already meeting that bar.