• pedz@lemmy.ca
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    13 hours ago

    It’s another reason to avoid those things but TBF, I don’t really care about remote intervention on “autonomous” cars because I think the whole idea is stupid. It’s for car dependent people that shudder at the idea of taking a bus, but don’t mind being at the mercy of a giant corporation for getting everywhere. If your city is big enough to have a fleet of “autonomous” cars, it’s big enough to have public transit. And if you don’t live in a city, those “autonomous” cars will not be available anyway.

    I am car free and I avoid using taxis unless it’s absolutely necessary. My city has transit, with buses and trains. Otherwise I have a bike and can walk. Using a taxi means continuing to be dependent on cars.

    When those first started to come out and be introduced, I was kind of enthusiast and thought it would be great to have a service that could bring me in places where public transit wouldn’t. Like, it would be wonderful to have an autonomous car drop me in a provincial park, or in the countryside somewhere. But they are not made for this. They are made to replace public transit in cities, which is absolutely stupid.

    So if I am to pay to be driven somewhere by a taxi, I would feel safer and prefer to have someone behind the wheel locally rather than someone remote controlling the car from the other end of the world. Even if my experience with taxi drivers is less than stellar, it can’t be worse than being stuck in a car because it doesn’t know how to process a trafic cone placed on its hood.