I, For One, Welcome Our New Self Driving Overlords

McKenna Approved

The shuttles can seat up to six people at a time and can travel at speeds of up to 25 km/h. Typically, the shuttles travel along a pre-programmed route and use sensors and software to detect their surroundings and avoid obstances.
 
Those sensors proved to be very sensitive during Monday’s test. Light snow, blowing leaves, and even geese that can frequently be found around Tunney’s Pasture brought the shuttle to a halt.

24 Replies to “I, For One, Welcome Our New Self Driving Overlords”

  1. The silly servants haunting Tunney’s Pasture would be better off walking anyway. Bunch of lazy, overfed buggers. It’s not like the complex is that huge.

    1. A dog team would work better, provided she hadn’t eaten the critters.

    2. https://globalnews.ca/news/5285857/beaumont-autonomous-shuttle-no-driver/
      They tried this same type of vehicle in Beaumont, Alberta in 2019. They had to set aside an entire existing traffic lane just for their little golf cart. It carried about 135 people PER DAY which means it displaced far more people traveling in automobiles than it actually carried itself. Notably, they didn’t test it in the winter.

      “The $200,000 price tag was paid for by the city as part of its economic development strategy.”

      https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/beaumont-s-driverless-shuttle-can-now-talk-to-traffic-lights-road-infrastructure-1.4585011
      From May, 2019 to Sept. 9, 2019……”So far more than 4,000 passengers have used the shuttle.”

      It cost them $50.00 per passenger to test this thing.

  2. If you rip the robot driver out of your Ottawa Johnny Cab can you outrun the bad guys and then get your ass to Mars?

    Because I would agree we need to fund that.

  3. Oh look! Virtue-signalling Climate Barbie is wearing a mask in her twit picture! It should be a ball-gag.

    1. “Enhance people’s lives” ?

      How? Are rides “FREE”? It’s a small, driverless, Bus? How is that an “enhancement” of life?

      Yeah … her OBEDIENT mask conformity signaling … is nauseating

      1. They tested the same vehicle in Beaumont, Alberta in 2019. It cost $50.00 for each passenger it carried to test the thing. And they had to remove an existing lane of traffic on their main street. See my comment (and links) close to the top of this page. Definitely NOT FREE.

  4. Why not just go with a more snow-worthy golf cart? Oh I forgot, snivelling servants are too important to drive themselves.

  5. ” . . . can travel at speeds of up to 25 km/h.”

    So I’m going to have to be figuring out how to get around these things safely on my bicycle, instead of being able to catch a nice little draft from them. Great. Just great.

  6. And I’ll bet anything she still can’t figure out why she gets the amount of ridicule that she does.
    But then she wasn’t hired to cabinet for being astute.
    If she ever figured that out she would be really pissed.

    1. If she ever figured that out she would be really pissed.

      As in upset or drunk? Both, maybe?

  7. According to the release, the software can…”detect their surroundings and avoid obstances.” Yessiree, you gotta look out for them “obstances” thingies.

  8. Okay let’s try a thought experiment. The National Research Council solves the environmental impediment formerly called winter. You are a woman trying to get home when it gets dark in Ottawa (late afternoon right about now). One of these munchkin size shuttles pulls up and you note that there are five sketchy drugged up and/or inebriated looking men inside with one seat not occupied. Do you get in or do you let it glide by and remain in the sub zero freezing Ottawa wind waiting for a cab? Let’s say it is just one stranger with five empty seats. Do you really want to be sealed inside with that stranger?

    I thought so …..

    1. At my alma mater, in the wake of a lone assault by a female student on the weekend in a park some distance from campus the student government instituted a safety van program, with a 12 passenger cargo van driven by a Federation of Student employee to act as a free cab service to women living off campus. The ridership policy was “only if every woman waiting for a seat is seated, and there are empty seats, may a man board the van”.

      Unintended Consequence #1: The most common incidences of assault of off-campus students were male students being robbed at knifepoint on their way home from night classes.

      Unintended Consequence #2: Several incidences of sexual assault by the van drivers were reported, until they eventually just stopped the service.

  9. L-The article w/map shows the programmed route is a 1.5km loop.
    In other words, it goes around endlessly in circles.
    The Trudeau Liberals have found their meme.

    Justin Trudeau can use it for a campaign bus !
    Opposition parties will stop it with snowballs?
    Would geese notice popcorn left on the roof?

    If the electric batteries burst into flames, like some Tesla’s have?
    What would Climate Barbie say to protect the EV auto industry?
    She’d blame the deaths on spontaneous human combustion.

  10. The new “short bus”

    The absolute best comment under the climatebarbie link, by Jim @jfinn1971 Replying to @cathmckenna

  11. Why the Hell aren’t these things lying on their sides! What the Hell is going on in the Universities? Didn’t we just have Halloween?
    I’ll never forget the sound – the clatter, of a wood pile leaning at one moment against an upright toilet and then falling/descending into a toilet hole as the toilet (thankfully unoccupied) fell face down onto the ground!
    Beauty!!

  12. In the capitol, huh? Somehow, it figures. I hope it doesn’t get high centered on a cow pie in that “pasture”.

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