Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

You want your cab driver to drive on the shoulder and break the law? What?

You may want to become aware of the existence of New York City. It's a pretty interesting place.

Yeah, that sounds like NYC nonsense. I assume it's still illegal to drive on the shoulder in New York.

Perhaps. But if you have a taxi or car service driver who's not willing to ever break any traffic laws in New York, you will not arrive at your destination in anything approaching a reasonable amount of time.

For example, getting at the back of the line for an exit rather than trying to go to the front and cut your way in could be a multi-hour mistake.

I hope robocars get really good at maintaining close formation and keeping out asshole linecutters.

Haha, this is both entirely true and entirely the reason why NYC is pretty much stuck where it is. If cities were parables, NYC would be The Parable of the Tragedy of the Commons. Globally, among cities I've been to it would have to be Delhi, but NYC is certainly in that category of South Asian cities where the infrastructure is far outpaced by the population and the population is like a swarming rat king constantly jockeying for a few inches more.

It's a viral race to the bottom.

This is absurd, and it's a**hole behavior you're defending.

You don't need to break any laws to get to where you're going, what are you even talking about? And you think that just because you're in a taxi you should get to magically cut to the front of a line of cars, made of the vast majority of New Yorkers who actually respect each other? What could possibly make you feel so entitled?

And if you think waiting in line for an exit takes multiple hours, I question whether you've ever been to NYC in the first place.

Apart from not having to deal with a human, observance of traffic laws is the main advantage I see in autonomous vehicles. Once there are a decent proportion of them on the road we can ratchet up penalties against human asshole drivers, conviction aided by evidence gathered by the sensors on the surrounding non-human vehicles.

No, I don't think it's because you're in a taxi. I think everybody should try to cut to the front of the line. That's what everybody does in New York, and it works pretty well. It's pretty easy to understand what's gonna happen next.

I've lived in New York for longer than most HN posters here have been alive, most likely. A couple of times a year, I'll end up in a car with someone who doesn't understand how this whole thing works, and they'll do something insane like getting on the Brooklyn Bridge and then just staying in the right lane the entire time waiting to get off to the right. Or they'll sit on the BQE at the Flushing Avenue exit a mile back from the exit, causing me to waste large portions of my life that I will never get back.

> I think everybody should try to cut to the front of the line. That's what everybody does in New York, and it works pretty well.

I'm sorry, but you clearly don't live here, or at least don't drive here. You're describing some kind of Mad Max fantasy, like the image of New York people get from movies and fiction where everyone is flipping everyone else the bird every thirty seconds.

People in NYC are pretty cooperative. Driving isn't every-man-for-himself. I don't know why you're trying to paint this picture of some lawless fantasy. Maybe you think it's exciting, but it's not connected to reality.

This just sounds like an argument to ban cars for private use and invest more in transit.

Certainly it sounds like that. However whatever cultural transformation turns Man into Rat King has already occurred so you'll notice that it costs over a billion dollars per mile of subway in NYC. Everyone who hasn't figured out how to leech off the government is a fattened milk cow whose production is harvested industrially.

New Yorkers are already incapable of non-extractive development. Like the GP they have been transformed into zero-sum zombies by their city. A cautionary tale of culture.

I live and drive in NYC, and this is utter bullshit. To the extent that it's difficult to drive here, it's because of assholes who think they deserve to cut the line and fuck it up for everyone else.

Please stop driving here, you clearly aren't qualified to do so.

Come to the dark side.

Americans are increasingly adopting the kind of mindset Israelis have, where following the rules makes you a sucker. https://www.thejc.com/judaism/jewish-words/freier-fa15k306