I used to think automated cars might be a good thing because I expect them to behave more predictably than unqualified human drivers. Over time I've changed my mind. In the USA we currently have no way to stop harm from major companies like the ones investing in electric cars. A situation that feels incredibly likely will be that instead of facing jail time like an individual would, companies will receive trivial fines that they will price into the cost of the vehicle for harm caused by their fleets. This will prevent any sort of accountability for vehicles causing harm to living things.
Fuck Cars
This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
- to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
- to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Rules
-
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
-
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
-
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
-
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
-
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
-
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
-
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
I try to avoid Teslas and other automated vehicles on the road precisely because of how unpredictable automated driving is. When there is a human driver behind the wheel the vehicle behaves in human-like ways. It makes intuitive sense to me what the driver is doing and what they might do because it's basically what I would do.
With software there is no such connection to be made. The sensors might see something I don't and come to some conclusion a human never would. I find this to be inherently unsafe because it is unpredictable as a human.
In order for this to become safe all cars would likely have to be automated, but I don't think all cars could be automated unless all road infrastructure was updated and standardized otherwise there are going to be infinite tiny exceptions to the rules of how they operate.
Ultimately it kind of defeats the whole purpose. We might as well just build trains everywhere of various sizes. Trolly's, metros, subways, highspeed rail. Whatever it takes to condense the traffic and automate it on rails. Cars should be limited to the interstate and at low speed in suburbs. No cars should be in the middle of a dense city.
Amendments to anti-terrorism legislation incoming in 3.. 2.. 1..
Hilarious and non-violent protest. Win Win.
If you don't have a cone available, maybe a bit of tape on a sensor window?
I haven't tested this.
Tape a white page to their cameras, should be easy enough