An "autonomous" car cannot be held accountable, therefore an "autonomous" car should never fucking go near a freeway
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
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Waymo says its self-driving taxis will take customers on freeways for the first time
(www.nbcnews.com)
There wouldn't be a need for an autonomous car to go on a freeway if we had decent intermodal public transit.
Just have cars like these patrolling the suburbs and picking people up for light/commuter rail, then a hub where you could get within a block of anywhere with no more than one transfer.
High Speed rail if you need to get to another urban center from there.
That's the dream, at least.
Nobody wants to use public transit, because it's starved dry. Nobody wants to invest in public transit, because nobody uses it. Everyone just drives, because everyone has cars. Everyone has cars because public transit is terrible.
But I do long for the day that this could pick me up and take me to the bus station/commuter rail stop.
E-bikes and E-trikes would be able to get you to the nearest station just as easily for most people, if there was proper infrastructure. I have an E-bike, and basically use that and the trolly/ Amtrak to get around in Southern California. It's not perfect, but it works, and I can actually do stuff while I am commuting.
Nobody wants to ride bikes because everyone in the cars are too dangerous to be sharing the road with.
Nobody wants to put in protected bike lanes because everybody drives.
Nobody wants to put in protected bike lanes because everybody drives.
If you build it, they will come. The Netherlands used to be very car dependent until the government put in a massive effort to build out bike infrastructure, and now it's the bike capital of the world. Here are a few things they changed to make it happen:
- eliminate routes through cities to push cars to go around on the highways instead of driving through the city center
- design traffic calming into roads - raised intersections, narrow roads, bollards to force cars to not travel in a straight line around residential areas, etc
- improve arterial mass transit, and build bike and pedestrian infrastructure to get to them
Once the cars started moving outside the city center, cycling and transit became became much more practical, but it all started by making driving less convenient so other modes of transportation became more attractive.
Define "held accountable"?
If you mean who will pay out if there's an accident, presumably Waymo will have found an insurer willing to cover them. But if you mean that someone out there must be punished to satisfy some sense of vengeance, then you may want to re-examine your values.
How about faces the same punishment someone that isn't an incredibly rich corporation would face? If that's insurance then sure, if thats jail time then yes someoen should be punished just like anyone else would.
Jail should be reserved for cases where there's intent/malice, or significant negligence. For example, drunk or aggressive driving qualifies, whereas speeding and most fender benders don't. An automated system likely doesn't qualify, so restitution should be sufficient.
Yes I did mean punished. Specifically whipped, in fact. With brake cables.
What's wrong with my values ???
Conditions on freeways are usually more controlled than conditions on surface-level roads, and Waymo's accident record isn't bad, unlike Tesla's. I suspect that this isn't going to generate any post-debut news stories of much significance. (If something bad and avoidable does happen, though, Waymo is 100% accountable—no handwaving it away.)
Yeah, I would be happier to have autonomous cars on the freeway than on other roads. There are usually no pedestrians on freeways that can be overlooked.
But I'm even happier that there are no autonomous cars driving by itself where I live right now.
My commute to work is about 90% highway, with most of it near my home. If I could take an autonomous car from a parking lot near the highway in my area to a park and ride near my work, I'd do it. Transit there is a nightmare and would take nearly 2 hours each way due to unfortunate transfers, and takes 30-35 min by car.
So yeah, I'm 100% in favor if them running fixed routes until mass transit options can catch up. Run them between park and ride areas near highways to destinations, and maybe a handful of routes within cities (certain designated roads with clear markings and whatnot).
How do they know if a customer has never been on the freeway before?
doing absolutely anything but giving people good free public transport. Do you want to use a self driving car that is run by companies that will start hiding things like heated seats behind a paywall, leave backdoors for governments that will eventually be used by bad actors to track exactly where you're going? i don't trust this shit at all waymo is google and google might as well have signed a deal with the devil
Obviously fuck this, but your arguments are the same for public transport. Government run, easily tracked and has paywalls.
It is an efficiency, decency, environmental and cost decision. Waymo loses all. Convenience currently is its seller.
public transit shouldn't have to track you to give you service, and for buses you can pay with change so unless they check the cameras which they need probable cause to do then no its not tracking anything about where you're going and logging it anywhere in some database
but i believe in free public transit anyway
Awesome, I hope we get something similar in my area in Utah. We have awful traffic, and I'm convinced a large part of it is awful drivers and road rage. If people could instead take a self-driving car and do other stuff, I am hopeful road rage would reduce.
If there was an option that would take me from a park and ride near the highway to a park and ride near my work, I'd take it. Mass transit to my work sucks, and this would fill that gap until the state prioritizes that area.
These things are literally known to make improper decisions and have been caught on camera crashing into things. What the fuck are people doing?
Drivers are literally known to make improper decisions and have been caught on camera crashing into things. What the fuck are people doing?
Puts on red!
- You always told me to stay off the freeway.
- Yes, that's true.
- You said it was suicide.
God help us,
oh yea there is no god...
this is a suicide carriage, but I guess its useful for when I lose the will to live lol
AFAIK nobody has died in a Waymo, and they have a very low accident rate, lower than human drivers. Calling it a suicide carriage is just not reflecting reality in any way.