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by pwthornton 3007 days ago
This is more an argument for better land-use policy (allowing more density), more public transportation (proven technology) and more remote work. All of these much better solve giving humans more time than self-driving cars.

Self-driving cars don't promise to save time. It's still driving. Their promise -- their only real promise -- is to save lives. And I think saving tens of thousands of American lives every year is a worthwhile goal. Worldwide, more than 1 million people die in car crashes every year. Humans have proven that they can't drive cars well, but we have put up with it because it is convenient.

I know some people will say that they could work on their way to work, but I can't do work in a car. Staring at a laptop in a car gives me motion sickness, along with a lot of other people. And, of course, this would only apply to people who do computer work in the first place.

As someone who has been in serious car crashes and lost friends to them, I for one am all for self-driving cars. It's going to be a revolution, but we shouldn't be testing them on public roads if they are this bad.

3 comments

>I know some people will say that they could work on their way to work, but I can't do work in a car.

But some can, and they would benefit from a self-driving car that can drive _at least as safe_ as themselves. Granted, it'd be great if they could improve on safety, but I think GP's point is that this is not their only possible use.

But why we should allow such a car that is not safe, it could be 10 times faster but 10 times less safe, for years we are trying to make transport safer, this included making cars more expensive so why should we go back in our investment in safer cars because company X wants to be the first on the market.
> Self-driving cars don't promise to save time. It's still driving.

Not having to drive the car from and to the parking lot saves a lot of time. Also many people can get work or other things done while being driven to their destination, for example doing phone calls.

That is a negative. Sometimes walking from my car to the door is all the exercise I get. I make it a point to park far from the door.
Way more time is saved not by letting commuters do more stuff, but by letting people who drive for a living work on something other than that.
They'll have so much time free to work on waiting in the bread lines.