Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey to get self-driving taxis
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Oli Brown on
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I'm not sure how a self-driving taxi would cope on Green Lanes. It's one thing for prototypes to perform well in ordered grid like streets in Califormia where there is lots of space. Its entirely different on Green Lanes with fake-plated mopeds driven by often unlicensed drivers weaving between traffic combined with cyclists who ignore traffic lights, pedestrians who wander onto the road without looking and shop delivery vans whose drivers think nothing of doing a three point turn in the middle of peak hour.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Sounds like a typical day on Market Street, San Francisco (where they also have to deal with cable cars)
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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I'm not sure how a self-driving taxi would cope on Green Lanes
I'm not certain either, which is why they are currently in testing mode in London. However self-driving taxis enjoy fundamental advantages including:
- no ego
- no anger
- no illness
- no drug-use
- no tiredness
- no tail-gating
- no aggression
- no showing off
- no heart-attacks
- no use of cup-holders
- no one-handed driving
- no aged slow-reactions
- no youthful inexperience
- no hatred of other road users
- no revving of big engines - as can be heard among the boy-racers ofGL
- no forgetting to check mirrors (this omission killed a cyclist in Camden)
Apart from these items (and more), what have self-driving taxis ever done for us?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Oli Brown, can you tell readers of this website about your own situation? For example whether you live or work in Haringey; use Green Lanes as a walker; cyclist, car driver or otherwise? Do you have family members who use the local roads. Are there particular concerns for their safety e.g. kids going to school and restrictions on school streets? Have you or a family member or close friend who is elderly or disabled?
Do you perhaps have some general aim or hope in raising this issue? I sometimes think back to my diabetic grandmother who was killed crossing the road near her home in East London. Or reflect on times when I used to regularly bike around as a young man and narrowly escaped possible injury.
Please note that in posing these questions I'm making no assumptions about your own views.
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Hmm. A strangely emphatic set of seemingly coordinated responses to a simple observation on my part. It appears that disenting views must be policed.
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Happy Christmas Oli
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Hmm... Oli,
1. "Strangely emphatic?"
Yes, you're right. I'm emphatic about trying to prevent road deaths and injuries. To my knowledge, over the years at least three family members of mine were killed in car accidents. (Two of them a small child and their young mother.) Turning this over in my mind, I wonder how many people do not have such a tragedy in their own families?
Your challenge leads me to ask myself why I'm not and should be utterly rigid on the issue of road safety.2. "seemingly coordinated responses"? You're partly right in that Clive Carter is a friend of mine and has given me strong and repeated arguments about self driving taxis; persuading me that they stand a realistic chance of reducing road deaths, accidents, and injuries. Michael Anderson's posts have been informed and helpful. Also contributing to my change of mind/emphasis on this issue.
3."Dissenting views must be policed? Absolutely not!! So please dissent away! But with sensible, informed, well argued dissenting views. Surely one of the excitements of being alive is when someone comes along and tips the received wisdoms in surprising new directions.
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I expect that, for the foreseeable future, there will be accidents where a driverless vehicle is involved.
And irresponsible commentators may draw undue attention to them. Such accidents are unlikely to be caused by the Driverless vehicle. For example, being rammed in the rear by a human driver, or a human careening their car out of a hidden side street and T-boning the Driverless vehicle.
Even Musk's second-rate Tesla RoboTaxi may be safer than humans.
Although such accidents may happen, the big picture is that Driverless will kill and maim fewer road users and at a lower rate … than human drivers.
For all the reasons already advanced, and more.
Plus, a good human-diver will react to a sudden risk in about half a second. If WayMo's reaction time is anything approaching a cat—about a 25th of a second—then Driverless looks excellent for cutting accidents.
In this video clip, a WayMo is stopped at lights and then moves forward. From the left, a car with a human at the controls flies into the intersection. The WayMo reacts quickly and safely … before two other human-controlled vehicles are hit by the human.
Maybe in 100 years' time all—or nearly all—vehicular traffic will be Driverless and accidents will have been eliminated. By then, the current very high standards in aviation will have been applied to motor vehicles and not before time.
In my view, Driverless cannot come soon enough!
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Oli Brown, By coincidence I spotted a book I bought and had put aside a while ago to read later. It's called Road To Nowhere and has a highly critical chapter on self-driving vehicles.
HEALTH WARNING
The author shares a surname with a historic Highgate related figure (who as far as I know had no views on self-driving motor vehicles). But I have no wish to upset the few people on Hol who are allergic to certain politics. Please bear this in mind before you type the address of his website.
https://disconnect.blog/self-driving-cars-still-arent-the/
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Road To Nowhere and has a highly critical chapter on self-driving vehicles.
This article is now inaccurate and misleading. It makes the mistake of lumping all self-driving vehicles together, whereas the technologies differ significantly as I have tried to point out above.
The article is two years old and focuses on Tesla's "Robotaxi" and General Motor's "Cruise".
Driverless taxis are likely to have improved in the two years since the article was written, whereas human drivers are unlikely to have improved in the same period.
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Clive I accept your counter arguments and would add a major point which supports your general view. Namely that Verso only published the book in 2022. I am though, someone who enjoys fair and rational argument, Including the notion of "the devil's advocate" as a counter to the current consensus.
In addition, as I admitted, I bought the book and then put it aside. Even now I have read only one chapter. I also have no idea what the author would say to your current strong view. That's an almost inevitable outcome of the delays inherent in book publishing.
However I would imagine it would be possible to reach the author, Who may well be engaged in heated public debates. A large amount of cash is riding on this. More important; a substantial number of lives depends on getting it right.
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