Elon Musk

i always assume now that every vehicle around me is being driven by someone who will make the worst possible decision w/r/t me and my safety.

huge thread, can't load it, so maybe this was posted already.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/briefing/us-traffic-deaths.html

the Tesla hype from like 2017-2019

Afaict, that's still the hype fans buy into. Full self-driving, any day now. Any ... day ... now ....

And yeah, I didn't mean that self-driving cars were in some way better than human drivers, just that human drivers already suuuuuuuuuck and it's hard for me to believe (as much as I don't want them) that self-driving cars would necessarily be worse, at least statistically. Literally every single day I see something that either enrages me or shake my head or makes me breathe a sigh of relief. People blowing through stop signs and red lights. People driving at night with their headlights off. People making insane u-turns in busy intersections during rush hour. I have friends that have witnessed literal gun fights between speeding cars, like something out of an action movie. There's a hot dog stand here that has been boarded up since October, when a car crashed into it. Needless to say, the hot dog stand is not in the middle of the street.

It does blow my mind that even a relative handful of self-driving cars are out there. I don't even know how the insurance works on that, or how the legality works. Who is at fault if a self-driving car crashes? The car manufacturer? The software maker? The passengers? The owner of the company? All of the above and more, probably. I'm shocked there hasn't been a big multi-pronged lawsuit yet.

someone asked why elon’s mom needs all those dalmatians and now I can’t see her without thinking about it

these fruits never fall far from their poisonous trees
https://globalnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/trump8.jpg?w=2048

that's Donald in prosthetics i can't be fooled

That image explains so much about his hairstyling choices, and much more besides

It does blow my mind that even a relative handful of self-driving cars are out there. I don't even know how the insurance works on that, or how the legality works. Who is at fault if a self-driving car crashes? The car manufacturer? The software maker? The passengers? The owner of the company? All of the above and more, probably. I'm shocked there hasn't been a big multi-pronged lawsuit yet.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 13 December 2023 21:53 (yesterday) link

it makes no sense to me at all

it was already a fraught proposition to force me onto the road with the average driver, now I might get killed because a car didn't see me or mistook me for a traffic light

the self-driving thing is dumb and nearly every other automaker has lane detection, emergency braking, and some version of adaptive cruise control now, and most work better than tesla

if you want something that approaches self-driving, I think the comma.ai openpilot kits outperform tesla’s offering and they work in a bunch of vehicles

recall tesla decided to go with some cheaper version of self driving tech that the entire rest of the industry thought was dumb and bad

tesla self driving tech: why is it so bad and hated?

xpost Iirc the standard is Lidar but Tesla went with something else.

Here's another question I have. Do you need a driver's license to be driven by a self-driving car? Isn't the presumption that if something went wrong, the passenger could take over?

The self-driving taxis, do you still sit in the back? Do you have access to the wheel/radio/A/C? Can you control those things with your voice?

https://web.archive.org/web/20231211123948/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/11/briefing/us-traffic-deaths.html very distressing

the answer is for no one to leave their dwelling

older teslas did have lidar. apparently elon’s bluster about how they didn’t need it was because he stopped paying the lidar vendor and

The bar set for my young Aussie relatives is sooooo much higher than it is here. In Australia there are all these license levels that limit where and how you can drive until you're, like, 20. (ILX Aussies can correct me.) My sister in the UK, it took her at least a couple of tries to pass her license test, something she assured me was quite common there. But here in the US, states like Iowa let you get a permit at 14. 14! Iirc, one time my wife went in to take a test to renew her license and somehow forgot to do an entire page, but still passed.

i passed my test in the uk and new york state. the NYS test is a joke.

luckily all the drivers i see in new york are excellent, the best in the world, so i guess the test doesn't matter.

PBKR's Dad: Did you pass?
PBKR, Age 16: Yes!
PBKR's Dad: You got lucky.

Florida's driving test doesn't include parallel parking (I learned how to via Youtube). in fact, my test didn't even leave the parking lot.

keep these things in mind if you ever plan to visit here and wish to bring your own vehicle

Montana roads have weird quirks (a center lane that's just for turns, the fact that you can make a turn directly from a 25 mph road onto a 70 mph highway) but I passed the road test on my second try and now have a driver's license for the first time in 30 years. (I originally got my license at 19 in NJ but was a terrible driver, so I literally surrendered it — mailed it back to Trenton — in the early 90s because car insurance was ruinously expensive after multiple accidents. But there's no public transportation where I live now, so just letting my wife drive me around was untenable.)

I never took a driving test because you could do well enough in a drivers education course and skip it, unless you ended up getting randomly selected

I probably could have used a little more instruction. I think I’d rate my driving as average now, although the number of absolutely bizarre moves I’ve seen people make lately make me think that maybe the average is slipping

All you bad drivers confessing your road sins explains so much of what I see out there. Have you considered self-driving cars?

xxp I took several amazing drives across Montana in the summer of 91. IIRC, at least back then, the speed limit was more of a suggestion.

In the absence of stringent licensing standards, I keep hoping that the specter of a vehicular manslaughter trial is at least occasionally enough to encourage motorists to pay some modicum of attention to the world around them. Even though I'm sure we all can agree that concerning ourselves with the well-being of others and the actions we can take to avoid actively compromising that well-being is soooo dumb and boring, gah.

half of all drivers are worse than average! I’m just realistic

I am an excellent driver.

My eldest is a tow truck driver. She regularly extracts cars from situations that are truly mystifying. You might be surprised at the number of cars that end up in trees.

half of all drivers are worse than average! I’m just realistic

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Thursday, December 14, 2023 2:27 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

has this country ever considered raising the skills of the average driver via education and testing? something to think about.

Counterpart: thinking is stupid.

The keys to good driving are alertness and patience. Most drivers lack these qualities even when they aren't behind a steering wheel.

It's hard to be patient when you're surrounded by stupidity. Of course, being surrounded by stupidity is what makes it important to be alert.

Raising license standards would require us to have more alternatives to driving, can’t have that. Buses create poor people out of thin air!

Haha, one of the Metro Atlanta counties voted down light rail a few decades ago because they thought it would bring crime. Right, someone's gonna jack your 72" TV and carry it home on the train.

In Australia there are all these license levels that limit where and how you can drive until you're, like, 20. (ILX Aussies can correct me.)

Yeah basically. You can get a license at 16 but its a Learners permit, you have to have a fully licenced driver with you at all times and can have zero BAC. I think theres also limits to the kind of car you're allowed to drive (you cant drive overpowered V8s for example). You have to have the Ls for 120 hours of driving and then pass a full driving test for Provisional (P) license which is in 2 parts,12 months on P1 then 3 years on P2. after that you're good to go on a full license with none of the speed/car restrictions.

My (takes breath) brother-in-law's sister's son bought a beat up truck at the start of his license process. As he got his hours and gradually moved up his ranks he fixed up the truck, and the truck was more or less good to go just as he was. And a week later, he crashed it.

I kinda feel like all prospective drivers should have to log like 100 hours with a psychologist in the passenger seat gauging their general mental and emotional fitness to pilot a multi-ton death machine.

Driver's ed used to be part of the public school curriculum. I think some schools still offer it, but most do not. Private driving schools are an alternative. Having three kids who took the course, I'd say it produced . . . mixed results.

xpost And then the only way to pass the test is to admit you shouldn't be driving. The only way to win the game is not to play the game!

Our high school offers driver's ed, it's super useful, and if you pass it, you don't have to take the test at the DMV.

Speaking of curriculum

Elon Musk has plans to open a new university in Texas, according to tax filings.

Bloomberg reported the filings show Musk donated $100m to his charity, The Foundation, to establish a primary and secondary Stem school in Austin – and later to seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges for launching a university.

The Foundation said the curriculum for the school and university would “combine formal instruction by experienced faculty in subjects such as mathematics, science, engineering and physics, alongside hands-on learning experience including simulations, case studies, fabrication/design projects, and labs”.

Not the 'Musk Foundation' - THE FOUNDATION, as if there were no other

Further echoes of Kanye. Will the teachers be AI terminals?

Cool, yes, let's get more people out there making cars crash and rockets explode and creating online nazi hangouts, please and as quickly as possible

Nazi Moon Mars Base

They can have it, I would be thrilled if every Nazi moved to Mars.

With no space suits.

Driver's ed used to be part of the public school curriculum. I think some schools still offer it, but most do not. Private driving schools are an alternative. Having three kids who took the course, I'd say it produced . . . mixed results.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, December 14, 2023 4:46 PM bookmarkflaglink

anybody can drive around on a closed course in circles, but at least it teaches you how to start the car and get it moving without running over someone in a parking lot

supposedly someone in my brother's driver's ed class crashed the car while dicking around

Give that man a license.

I nearly ran the car over a raised median in driver's ed. TBF I really had like zero idea what I was doing or how to control the dang thing.

our teacher tried to scare everybody by showing videos of people burning alive in car wrecks and the aftermath and calling them "crispy critters" and warning us we'd turn into critters if we didn't learn how to drive and that maybe 25% of us would be critters even if we drove perfectly

One day of our class was spent watching a video of a Jeep using its winch to get out of a sand dune. Maybe useful info for future Cybertruck owners.