Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That
There was nothing in the article to support the notion that self-driving cars won&#x27;t address the danger of cars. Sure, as long as there are human drivers there will be accidents caused by human drivers (and obviously there will be human drivers for a long time, just as horse drawn vehicles remained around for a long time after automobiles arrived [1]), but if the only argument related to self driving cars is that they won&#x27;t replace human drivers 100%, that is a weak argument.<p>The author completely avoids taking on the fact that self driving cars will eliminate -- for that vehicle -- the major cause of traffic deaths, human error, and the hypothesis that they will not significantly replace it with machine error. Obviously some people argue they will never get that technology right, and while I disagree with that, I&#x27;d at least appreciate it if the author even addressed it.<p>I&#x27;m all for getting rid of most cars, but I think the most realistic path to that is driverless taxis and small busses (i.e. vans) that are economical and efficient.  The latter can be highly efficient if enough people use them, especially if they reward people with a few cents discount for scheduling a few minutes or a few hours ahead of time, and for using them at least busy times of day, and for being willing to have a couple quick stops along the way.<p>You&#x27;d need far fewer of these vehicles total, since many would have multiple passengers at once, they would be in near constant use, and they aren&#x27;t wasting driving time and valuable space by the need to park near their endpoints.<p>1. and remain, especially in Amish country.