Hey pig half-man, you don’t punch a guy with a helmet!
Learning yet? Oink Oink.
& lol
Not sure I can concur there. The first time I ever encountered the zipper merge was on my very first day in the Bay Area. I immediately understood what they were doing, and was kind of shocked that any random group of humans could actually agree long enough to accomplish something like that.
The merge behavior in every other city I had lived in prior to that was utter chaos. Maybe there are other places in the US that can manage the zipper merge, but I’ve never seen it.
The lack of coordination always amazes me. For instance, when the signal goes green for stopped traffic, why do they each start driving one at a time, instead of simultaneously? Typical of the reasons why I don’t drive cars…
Are you the guy from the video?
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Not sure if you’re playing the alien anthropologist again and trolling wildly, but here goes. 
Basically you have to have space in front of you to move off. Until the car in front moves it’s in your space.
Take a couple of driving lessons and then you’ll understand.
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Yes, I understand that they do this. But like I said, it is not very coordinated.
The only way it’ll ever be coordinated is when they’re all autonomous vehicles that communicate their intentions with each other. Roll on the day.
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That’s why it strikes me as odd! We already have autonomous drivers who can communicate their intentions to each other…
My take on the technology is that it is better to use it to augment our own abilities, rather than to rely upon not being able to do it ourselves.
Good news, with autonomous cars, it doesn’t take the relatively sluggish 300ms or so the human visual system requires to even notice the car ahead of them has started moving. Adding on of course, the time it takes for signals to travel to the feet and hands, and subsequently the engine and steering system in the vehicle.
Taking the squshy, slow, highly imperceptive human body out of driving has lots of potential to get people around faster and safer.
But I have a very high level of confidence that you already knew that.
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I argue that this doesn’t actually help them at all. Increasing their own capabilities does.
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In the future, only cyborgs will ride motorcycles?
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Sadly, unlike whichever alien race you come from, we humans don’t have the ability to telepathically communicate between each other. I have absolutely no way to know for sure that the person in front of me is paying attention enough to start driving as soon as the light turns green. And without knowing that for sure, if I start driving as soon as the light turns green, there is a very good chance of me bashing right into the back of their car.
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It hardly requires telepathy, as there are mandates that cars be sold equipped with “signalling devices”. But despite having horns, I have never heard of anyplace teaching people actual code to communicate actual information with the horn to other drivers as a requirement for getting their license. So every remark thus issued is effectively only an inarticulate grunt. Also, cars are sold with radios, but it is a deliberate choice to use them as a distraction rather than a means to communicate.
You’ve never heard anyone honking to get the car in front to move off at green lights? Or you want people to use them to communicate in Morse?
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There is no code, no semantic value, no actual message.
It would be a more effective way to communicate than electronically grunting at people.
Needing to develop a whole complex, expensive system such as autonomous cars because the human drivers lack the bandwidth to communicate sounds farcical.
Yes there is, it’s “The fucking light is green, moron! Are you asleep, blind, or fucking about on your phone? Get out of my way, you’re making me 1/2 second late to the next red light”
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Then they should say so. If people can’t be bothered to communicate their actual message, they shouldn’t be surprised that the results are lacking. Using one single “word” for everything is daft.
How about those radios in practically every car? Why not network them so that drivers are talking with each other, instead of listening to irrelevant and distracting broadcasts?
How, exactly, would one “say so”?
Because (I know that on your planet the beings don’t behave this way) I can guarantee you that humans would use this technology to hurl abuse at other drivers, or harrass pretty girls, or any other number of shitty behaviours, as opposed to using it for civil communication. Not to mention, how exactly would you direct your communications to the appropriate car effectively? Or are you arguing for a simple “broadcast to everybody” model? With thousands of cars on the road, that would get pretty noisy.
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You were around for some strange alignment of the stars. The Bay area can not zipper merge. It is amazing.
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By saying so, in coded speech? How does one say anything? If a single tone, shaped entirely by situational context was sufficiently robust, then I doubt if people would resort to using language in other areas of their daily lives. But since driving cars is easier, with less at stake, I suppose we can lower the bar all of the way.
Earth has insects, and fish, and birds. Many of them seem to be able to coordinate their movements. People could do the same - unless they feel special enough that they’d rather exempt themselves and complain about everybody else.
There are any number of ways. It be automatically by proximity, by street, directional, by license plate number. The surprising bit is that nobody seems to even try.
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