Self-driving cars will cause congestion disaster?

Have you seen this article?

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/self-driving-cars-might-be-coming-co...

It says self-driving cars will lead to more cars on the road because not only will it drive to and from work, the car will also go on extra errands during the day. Plus, to avoid paying for parking, the car will circle the block while the owner shops. Also, the cars will take longer trips because the passengers will use the time for leisure activities.

We're all doomed!!

Unless...if a way can be found to hack into the car's operating system, and 'convince' the cars to give us rides, and the owners would never know....Hmmm.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Schwab on June 10, 2016 at 4:01am

Sounds like driverless cabs.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjRXyWFLkEY

Permalink Reply by V W on June 10, 2016 at 4:03am
What about a per mile tax? Wouldn't that offset these concerns?
Permalink Reply by Yasmeen on June 10, 2016 at 4:06am

*GASP* I hope the cost of gas goes way up to make this prohibitive. Am I crazy in thinking we should consider a carbon footprint tax? Just something, anything to control the pollution.

Permalink Reply by V W on June 10, 2016 at 5:01am
A carbon tax is not a new idea by any means, it just hasn't happened for political reasons. The ones who generate the most carbon tend to be the wealthy, who also tend to have the most lobbying power. But yeah there should be a carbon tax.
Permalink Reply by Jeremy Bloyd-Peshkin on June 10, 2016 at 8:46am

I'm going to go ahead and ignore the majority of the point of this article, since it's not very well informed on driverless car technology. But I will go out on a limb here:

As a cyclist, I look forward to driverless cars.

Riding through traffic, I don't mind the cars. I mind the people driving them. A driverless car has no bias against cyclists. A driverless car doesn't forget that it should give three feet. A driverless car doesn't decide that traffic is really backed up so it should try to jump ahead a bit by driving in the bike lane or run a red to catch that next green. A computer has better spatial awareness than a human, better reaction time, and can be aware of many more inputs simultaneously than you or I ever could; they can react more quickly to dangerous situations and make safer decisions. Not to mention they don't get angry. In other words, they eliminate the overwhelming majority of the hazards to cyclists.

Of course, when I'm not being a cyclist I very much do not look forward to driverless cars. They have many other implications for vehicle regulations in this country that don't bode well for people like myself that love driving. Until the day an autonomous car can turn a faster lap around a track or clock a faster stage time than me, I'll be keeping my truck and it'll be pried from my cold, dead hands.

But from a cycling perspective, I rather like them.

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