Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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I saw a video recently by a car enthusiast who hates the idea of self driving cars for a novel reason.
Even if self-driving cars are safer than people it won’t stop bad owners. People who drive with unsafe mechanical issues they can’t or won’t get fixed are still going to exist, and bald tires and worn brakes would eliminate any potential safety benefits of self driving.
And by further removing people from the operation of a car, you’re making them worse owners. They won’t know what a worn tie rod bushing would feel like because they never steer. Making cars into appliances just makes them less safe.
He also made a point that I agree with: If we get people who don’t want to drive off the road, the roads would be nicer for people who do want to drive.
If we get to the point of self-driving cars, it'd make sense that the car would refuse to drive if it's unsafe enough
How would it know? Might be able to figure out that it has reduced braking capacity but most everything else could either just be seen as road conditions or require about a thousand pounds of sensors that may still not be able to figure it out. And that’s not talking about the person who will “fix their car” in the most unhinged ways possible, like the video I saw of the guy that replaced his brake lines with clear plastic hose.
I do all the work on my car myself, and can pretty confidently say that a lot of stuff just isn’t even possible to monitor. There are ways to monitor a lot more than we do right now but diagnosing issues is pretty complicated and without certain information it can be downright impossible. I took a friend’s car for a drive be auss he said it shook only when turning one direction and I nearly immediately clocked it as something loose with the outside wheel(it was the lugnuts) but for something like that a computer just couldn’t know.
These are hurdles that will need to be overcome, a required service schedule would probably achieve most of this though.
Most people will quite happily drive cars believing they are fine - I will often drive a car and have to point out to friends that their brakes are worn, or their tyres are unsafe, the majority of people driving unsafe cars aren't choosing to ignore safety issues, they don't know that they're unsafe in the first place. A computer that can look at the general trend in vibration or engine and braking efficiency would be a vast improvement for the majority of car drivers
You need to use propietary tires with propietary air, that resets a counter when replaced, if you choose to use generic air your car may randomly stop working