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Comment by ratelimitsteve | Hacker News Reader

I disagree wholeheartedly. I think the most useful thing about robotaxis is that you can count on them to pay attention and react within a given timeframe and that speed limits will either be expanded greatly, eliminated or calculated as a function of the capabilities of the individual hardware in question rather than our best guess as to how an average person would probably react. I'm looking forward to driverless cars careening about at 200+ mph because they can actively communicate and coordinate with traffic around them in order to do so safely.

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I'd be terrified if we allow them to go really fast. They have software and sensor faults, the Teslas are just regular teslas without redundant hardware. They don't have extra sensors, they don't have two sets of their HW4 hardware. If there is a fault the driver has to immediately take over. They can't handle rain well, snow etc. FSD is interesting but it's not nearly ready to be a near fulltime driver. Waymo is much more advanced and experienced but I don't want to see them driving at high speeds. Maybe after 10 years of exp with reundant hardware and software.

Speed doesn't matter at all in city driving on regular roads. Going from 35mph to 25mph doesn't materially affect the trip time.

Think about SF, its size is (famously) around 7 by 7 miles. So it'd take 12 minutes to cross (as the bird flies) from one side to another at 35 mph and 17 minutes at 25mph. Which is completely unrealistic, because real travel times are dominated by traffic lights and congestion.

This calculation changes only when we're talking about long-distance travel on freeways. But honestly, I expect that fast long-distance trains with seamless transfer to self-driving taxis would be a better idea.

> Going from 35mph to 25mph

...dramatically reduces likelihood and consequences of a crash

I don't like the idea of them doing 200+ mph anywhere near me, but the Musk idea of them doing high speeds along dedicated tunnels would be quite cool if they could make it work.

(Musk 6 years ago saying it's happening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8X8NdcV7Wc It hasn't yet of course)

Reminds me of the .gif floating around years ago showing an intersection with cars blowing through it in both directions while very intentionally just missing other cars.

You're talking about long highway trips? Parent is probably talking local trips, where 200+ mph is never going to be safe, and would not even be useful.

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