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Comment by akira2501 | Hacker News Reader

> these types of conversations seem like they're going to be more and more in the (sorry!) rearview mirror because we won't own the car nor the cameras that are recording the world as we "drive" around.

Perhaps in the urban setting but the majority of this country is not contained within cities. Even then are you planning on banning motorcycles and RVs?

> because they will consider it their right to drive themselves

Until a law is passed otherwise they are absolutely correct.

> the right-to-drive-oneself into the state constitution.

I doubt it. The real fight is likely to be whether we continue using mixed vehicle and pedestrian infrastructure or if we force pedestrians off the roadway entirely. Then we'll have a "right to walk" constitutional crisis.

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> Perhaps in the urban setting but the majority of this country is not contained within cities.

83% of USA population live in urban areas, and that proportion is still steadily growing. The same trends apply everywhere else in the world as well.

According to the 2020 US Census, about 80% live in an urban area. However, the definition is not exactly what people think of when you say “urban”.

In 2020, the census lists 2,611 urban areas, including areas with a few thousand people.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...

Shouldn’t be too hard to break this down with a more colloquial definition (say, areas over 500k or 750k people). I’m just not at a real computer :)

Calumet park is a village right next to Chicago with under 7000 people. Northfield village has under 6000 people and it's located within about 15 miles of Chicago. It wasn't until I was about 18 that I realized what I thought was Chicago were actually small towns/villages. There's a whole slew of small villages next to or "in" larger cities.

Yes; the ordinary thing to compare is MSAs, which take this into account; Calumet Park (and Blue Island and Oak Lawn) are all part of the Chicago MSA.

> 83% of USA population live in urban areas

If you combine dense urban areas with suburbs. It's about 33% in dense areas and 55% in suburban areas. Which actually doesn't improve the driving situation.

> and that proportion is still steadily growing

Which is why I specifically mentioned motorcycles. In areas of the world with even greater urban density than the USA there are a lot of these on the road.

> The same trends apply everywhere else in the world as well.

These trends are influenced by economic policy and socioeconomic mobility of the population, which are not similar everywhere, so expectations do need to be tailored to them.

Editing to add, I actually think we'll see a new class of Drivers License, one that allows you to operate semi autonomous vehicles, and one that allows you to operate fully manual vehicles with a higher level of continuous written and on the road testing required to hold it. Which is a reasonable and non discriminatory solution to the problem.

> It's about 33% in dense areas and 55% in suburban areas. Which actually doesn't improve the driving situation.

Are the suburbs not one of the easier places for autonomous vehicles? I’d think the lower traffic, larger roads, and reliance on cars to get around (due to low density and lack of transit) would make them the ideal place for self-driving cars to succeed.

I don’t agree. The problem is suburbs have a lower cost-per-mile for trips than urban areas.

It’s way more common to take a taxi in the city than the ‘burbs. Behavior for car ownership and expectations around waiting on rides is different. Self driving taxis are an easy transition in cities. In the suburbs, you need to sell people on expensive vehicles that cost a lot per trip (whether owned or hailed).

Ultimately I think it’s the same city/rural (really dense vs less dense) divide between a lot of things.

In a suburban area, it could take 15 minutes for a taxi to get to you. In a rural area, 30 minutes to an hour. Inconvenient, especially since you could hop in the car you already have because of this situation, and probably already be where you want to go by the time they arrive.

In an urban area (especially a super dense city like Manhattan, Tokyo, Mumbai, etc.), you probably spend more time figuring out if you need a taxi than actually getting one (literally seconds in most cases), and god help you if you’re trying to park. It will not go well.

    > suburbs have a lower cost-per-mile for trips than urban areas.

Can you explain why?

Two ways to get these numbers. Consider the total miles driven, divided by cost of the car. Or consider the cost of a taxi if you don’t own a car.

I believe uber says their average cost per mile is roughly $1. So maybe $2 in urban areas. Waymo is $3 they said.

I saw some statistic that said a new car costs $800 a month now. Since we’re talking about selling new manual vs self driving cars, we can ignore people buying used cars or particularly cheap cars.

If you own a car in a city, you might drive to get groceries once a week and you may drive to a furniture store once every few years, and you take a couple trips to the airport every year. Cost city dwellers walk or take transit. Cities are dense, so the grocery store may be 2mi a way, so roughly 200mi a year, and then maybe 200mi a year for everything else. That’s 400mi a year (or 8mi/wk) with a car that statistically costs $800/mo in America - or 200/wk, so it actually costs $25/mi.

In the suburbs, you may drive 20mi round trip to the grocery store. Then 20mi a day round trip to commute, then 5mi a trip to a restaurant… it adds up to a lot more miles total. I googled it and the average American drives 1200mi/mo. That’s $1.5/mi assuming the same average $800/mo cost of a new car.

That means it’s cheaper for an urban dweller to take uber or Waymo instead of buying a new car. It’s almost but not quite cheaper for a suburbanite to take an uber but definitely not a Waymo.

> Editing to add, I actually think we'll see a new class of Drivers License, one that allows you to operate semi autonomous vehicles, and one that allows you to operate fully manual vehicles with a higher level of continuous written and on the road testing required to hold it. Which is a reasonable and non discriminatory solution to the problem.

I hard disagree. I think it’ll follow a path more like gun ownership (not trying to wade into that here though). In rural and low density areas, people believe guns provide safety, while in dense urban areas, people believe guns add risk. In low density areas, people will need to drive themselves (I doubt as many people would buy self driving cars vs use as a taxi, roads will be less well mapped, etc ), while urban areas with increased risk of driving accidents will want to restrict access of roads from humans.

This urban/rural divide doesn’t make for good licensure policy. People who depend on driving themselves are less “sophisticated” - they won’t want to spend more time getting a license, because they live farther away, they’re less likely to take drivers classes, etc. We already see states with smaller urban population have easier driver’s license standards and age requirements. Pride in vehicle ownership and car culture is already geographic simply because urban residents are less likely to own a car. So rural-leaning elected officials will want to keep human-driving easy to access.

> This urban/rural divide doesn’t make for good licensure policy.

Have you spent any time living in rural areas?

> People who depend on driving themselves are less “sophisticated” - they won’t want to spend more time getting a license, because they live farther away, they’re less likely to take drivers classes, etc

You do realize a lot of these people have class A license already because there are a lot of those jobs out there and farmers often get one to move their own product? You couldn't be _more_ wrong.

> We already see states with smaller urban population have easier driver’s license standards

They also have wildly different politics. It turns out density has more than one impact. The largest one is suicide rates. Lowest in New York highest in Alaska. You can accidentally measure population density in all kinds of ways.

> So rural-leaning elected officials will want to keep human-driving easy to access.

It's going to come down to who controls access to the freeways. I'm actually on the rural peoples side, but the interstates as a whole are a little bit out of their typical zone of influence. Given that rural life is already very different, much more so than some people can even imagine, I would expect to be the most likely point of negotiation and the most likely outcome given the parties involved.

Reasonable people could differ I guess.

> You do realize a lot of these people have class A license already

Admittedly, I didn’t know that.

> They also have wildly different politics.

Yes, I’m just assuming self driving will be a topic broken down by politics. Do you disagree?

My core thesis is that rural people won’t want self driving because it’s less compatible with their existing life, and the “saves lives argument is stronger in urban areas. I think, like guns and many other political topics, it’ll be polarizing, and the rural voters will get an outsized influence to fight it. Highways are an important part of the road system. I can’t imagine rural people being locked out nor forced to have two vehicles.

Some people hunt for sustainance, and we protect that right despite being irrelevant for 99.9% of people. Many more people use trucks or heavy equipment on their farm/homestead for work (or pleasure eg off-roading). I assume we’ll end up protecting that the same way.

I don't think you mean "you" as in me specifically, but in case that is what you meant I'm of course not banning anything and I'm not even advocating for that. I was predicting what I think will happen with self-driving cars and the privacy implications if that does to come to pass (still a big if).

As for urban vs. rural, I feel like rural will benefit just as much from self-driving as urban. I won't detail why, but it's pretty much the same reasons as urban. Economics will have to be better if it's going to be corporate-controlled cars, but, really, if Elon's right (huge if) and you can successfully have autonomy with a Model 3-level of hardware, then rural America may very well have widespread autonomous car access in the next couple of years.

Motorcyles? Great point. Not sure how that will shake out. RV's? Seems like a fantastic opportunity for autonomy. Sit in the captain's seat, beer in hand, actually watch the scenery as you drive on by. In fact I think the market for RV's will grow if folks don't have to drive them themselves because there are likely many people who wouldn't be comfortable driving an RV due to its size, but if it drives itself it could open up a whole new audience.

As for pedestrians, do you think pedestrians are being restricted more and more as the years go on? I see the opposite in both urban and rural areas in the US. Genuinely curious how your experience is different and where. I tend to think autonomous cars will make walking more pleasant. No more worrying about a car clipping you making a right turn, or a car driving unnecessarily fast and losing control, or a drunk driver losing control. All of those things may go away with autonomy (I say "may" because we're millions if not billions of miles away from anyone saying definitively that self-driving is safer/better/etc. In my limited experience riding in Waymos, though, I am incredibly optimistic about the technology. And I really look forward to us figuring out the privacy implications and other negatives that could come along with it because I think the benefits are so enormous that it'll be a massive shame if the tech does not work out long term).

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