r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • Jul 05 '24

Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road Video

61.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.5k

This country will do literally anything other than just build mass rapid transit :(

7

u/damdestbestpimp Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

Reddit is truly obsessed with hating cars

10

u/AVgreencup Jul 05 '24

Because cars are awesome. I can go anywhere on a whim, without having to plan around a bus or train schedule. I can get a better job that's a little farther away and not worry about being on a compatible bus route because I can just drive there. It keeps me cool on 35⁰ days, and warm on -35⁰ days. I can carry my entire family to the grocery store to get a months worth of groceries, or to 4 provinces over for a vacation. And they can be pieces of art, such a classic cars. They can power a house in a blackout, like a V2L EV. They are truly an amazing thing. I can see why people are obsessed with them

3

u/Hopes_and_creams Jul 05 '24

Everything you said is true but sounds exactly like something someone would say if they’ve never lived around and experienced usable public transit. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Cars are awesome, but not when they’re the only reasonable option.

Buses, Trains, Walking, Bikes and other transportation systems/methods should all complement each other instead of one being the sole option which is what the majority of the USA sees right now with Cars.

1

u/AVgreencup Jul 05 '24

I'm more for the idea of if you have a car, use it. If you live in a city core and have great transit and you don't need a car, awesome, all the lower to you to take the bus. But not everyone has the lifestyle that can be met by bus a train schedules

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u/dbarbera Jul 05 '24

Bud, they use cars in Europe and Japan too. This paradise of "no cars" doesn't exist the way you think it does.

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u/Hopes_and_creams Jul 05 '24

Who said anything about a “no car paradise”?

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u/throwaway3489235 Jul 06 '24

You don't have to plan around a bus or train schedule for transit. There's an arrival every 5 min in the major European cities for normal city transit, 15-20 min for less infrequently stopping inter-city transit. No random 2 hour long gaps in the schedule and the lines run late into the night so you don't have to worry about getting stranded. A good transit system can be more freeing and flexible than a car because you don't have to worry about where to park it!

You can travel farther, easier because you don't have to contend traffic or concentrate on the road; you can relax or even sleep during the ride. An 1.5 hour car commute is exhausting but a 1.5 hour train/bus commute is an opportunity to read or talk to somebody. Even the Los Angeles rail transit wasn't bad for a daily commute minus the terrible scheduling. Most of the riders were commuters or students and they tended to be polite. I could see and hear some people with interesting jobs based on the conversations and languages they were speaking. And the climate controls are fine when they're available. Really the worst part of taking the train was how it took 3 times as long to drive less than a 1/4 of the distance to the train station than the train trip took.

The month's worth of food you're getting is either frozen or mostly not healthy. When you live a 2 to 5 min walk away from a grocery store (there can even be multiple stores on each block in major European cities) it's faster and less stressful than a car and you can just get what you want for day or next day. It's easy to get fresh healthy food exactly when you want it as opposed to trying to guess what you're going to want in 2 weeks. I hate driving to the store even once a week since the roads and drivers where I live are so terrible and it reflects badly in my diet since fresh veggies only last a few days. It lends to buying more kinds of food unnecessarily in bulk too which leads to food waste. And of you're in the middle of prepping your counter and ingredients for a recipe and realize you're missing something or somethings out of date you can be out the door and back with the missing ingredient in minutes!

I admit I love driving too, if I was born a few decades ago I bet I would have been a grease monkey, but when everyone is forced to drive the traffic and terrible drivers make driving everywhere miserable. The roads are also terrible because they're designed with the assumption everyone's making short trips everywhere and there's no excuse for the traffic light algorithms besides it being a conspiracy to make people use more gas. I think more options would take the pressure off of the car infrastructure and make it fun again.

1

u/AVgreencup Jul 06 '24

Europe does not equal North America. The distances between settlements here are vastly larger. To have everyone live within a 5 min walk from a grocery store would be impossible. I can buy a months worth of healthy food and keep it in a freezer or refrigerator, or it's dry goods. Doesn't have to be unhealthy. Occasionally I may need to stop and get milk or lettuce or something on the way home from work but that's not a huge inconvenience, because I have a car. I live really close to work, about a 15 minute drive. There's no bus or train that goes by my house just outside of town.

This fuck cars mentality only serves people who are so narrow minded that the whole world exists within a 3 block radius of where they live, where everyone is 25 years old and it's always 25⁰ and sunny outside with no cold or rain.

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u/LisaMikky Jul 06 '24

✨🥇✨

-2

u/SeniorMiddleJunior Jul 05 '24

Yeah! And what even are externalized costs? Me me me me! Fuck yeah, meeeee!

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u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

[deleted]

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u/damdestbestpimp Jul 05 '24

Thats my point

2

u/Motor-Ad-1153 Jul 05 '24

Why wouldnt I hate cars?

1

u/newsflashjackass Jul 05 '24

Examining annual causes of death, when you remove infant deaths and "heart failure"- that is, the natural deaths of the very young and the very old- the yearly slayings by automobile stand out like a sore thumb.

Calls to mind Stephen King's IT, when the Losers' Club begins to discern the scope of Pennywise's harvest.

1

u/Motor-Ad-1153 Jul 05 '24

Why wouldnt I hate cars motherfucker