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kscherer
Which way is up?
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Boyzeee
 
2021-11-19, 12:14

The "everyone rents" model is fine for the inner city, but in widely-spaced suburban areas it's just a fool's errand. In the U.S., suburban life is the norm, and distances to/from whatever are long. Sitting around waiting for a rental car to get to you is just bananas. Most people out here where I live do things all at once, meaning commuting, going out to eat, shopping, etc. That means all of those cars have to get to all of those places at nearly the same time, which means we still need a car for pretty much every single household. So, why not just own the car?

I'll rent a car when I travel if I have to, but no way am I going to rent a car for daily chores/commuting/shopping/going out. No way! It gets back to my example earlier: Who gets the car first? Is it money or boobs? Or do I have to plan my grocery outing three weeks ahead like it's an airline ticket?

Stupid!

Where this makes sense is in densely populated urban areas like New York where ride-hailing is already the norm and the distance from point A to point B is relatively short on average. Out here (even in Boise) some commuters are traveling 30+ miles and need to stop at the store/restaurant/bar on the way home, so car-pooling doesn't work because car-poolers and their plans cannot and will not ever line up. To work and back? Sure. But what happens when I have plans with friends? How far ahead do I have to plan that in order to guarantee a car will even be available?

And what about all those work trucks PB PM is talking about? That means street signs and lane markings still need to work for both humans and robots, which means the robots need to understand both and, worse, so do humans.

What about dump trucks and other construction vehicles?

And what happens when the system goes down because "we are experiencing technical difficulties." What happens to all of those woefully unprepared folks stuck in robots with no food, water, or clothing because why would a robot car have any emergency supplies for emergencies?

What about police vehicles? Do they have to hail a ride?

Fire trucks?

The ambulance?

Where does the silliness end?

Chucker is 100% correct. This tech is light years away. Too many variables, stubborn freedom-lovers (like me), traffic direction issues, etc. Also, the technical/security barriers (in terms of keeping the system running without hackers hacking in) will keep me from trusting the system for, like, ever!

You can't protect my email account? No way in hell will I trust you with my life.

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