Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinion
The only reason roads are clogged is because people are controlling cars (badly) with their primitive monkey brains. Once automated driving is safe and fully adopted, road speed can be increased exponentially. Traffic jams will cease to exist. It'll start with one dedicated lane and eventually people in urban areas just won't learn to drive because they won't need to. Children and aging seniors will be able to transport themselves. It's closer than you think - at least close enough that the Massey crossing plans should be considering it.
Transit will never be preferable to private cars for most people.
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This is utter fantasy but keeps being repeated blindly with no regard to reality. Firstly, you don't know what exponential means.
Automated cars won't increase capacity on roads by a whole lot. Vancouver is lucky enough to have a perfect example of automated vehicles - Skytrain. Notice how the trains still have to maintain a full braking distance + safety barrier between them, not following closely together as I imagine you think driverless cars could. And this is on a perfectly controlled system with no intrusion, not a chaotic road with pedestrians. If anything, with automated vehicles the distance between cars will go
up, as human drivers often drive at unsafe following distances, while a machine will be required to drive very safely.
I guess you expect something like this:
Which is of course not in the slightest bit realistic. The slightest mishap in that sort of scenario would cause catastrophe. Just look at how railways operate to see how automated roads would have to function to be safe.
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