San Franciscans disable robotaxis by placing a traffic cone on the hood
I used to be very very excited about self-driving cars. Now I&#x27;m 1000% certain they will not improve anything meaningful at all. There are no urgent, legit needs that make these things necessary or acceptable. Meanwhile there are concrete, easier, but &quot;boring&quot; things we could do today to improve safety and comfort on the streets and highways.<p>Here&#x27;s a dumb list of some of the automation I want to see:<p>- Automated speed and acceleration limits based on location. In cities, 20km&#x2F;h. From 0 to 20 in 5 seconds. On highways, whatever makes sense. But, sorry, you can&#x27;t go 200 km&#x2F;h unless you&#x27;re on a track, a train or a plane.<p>- Automated &#x2F; smart traffic lights to end unnecessary stopping and waiting, while giving priority to emergency vehicles, transit, pedestrians, bicycles over individual cars<p>- Automated emergency vehicle notification to drivers, without increasingly loud,blaring sirens (esp. at night when the streets are empty and response times are 2x better than during the day in the first place)<p>- Mandatory collision mitigation and other safety assists; you shouldn&#x27;t have to pay more money to get a safer vehicle (especially safer for others)<p>- ...but no autopilot allowed outside of specific places&#x2F;times (eg. certain highway segments at certain times)<p>- Automated, guaranteed fines when speeding, running red lights or driving recklessly.<p>- APIs for cities&#x2F;counties&#x2F;regions to influence routing decisions made by maps applications: people are free to drive on small streets but the algorithm should not send them there. Before I started using it, waze, in particular, often steered me to complicated routes via small streets to save 90 seconds in a 15 minute trip. Cities should be able to align traffic engineering decisions at all levels.<p>- Automated engine shutoff and notifications to prevent idling and educate folks. I see people browsing for minutes before&#x2F;after driving, with the engine on. People eating in their cars with the engine on, etc. In front of folks sitting at a cafe etc. Just ignominious stuff given the noise, heat and air pollution output (idling generates more toxic exhaust than driving).