[nowaymo6237]

Unoccupied driverless vehicles need taxed. In the same way you have HOV lanes, the inverse should pay.

[denysvitali]

Quite the opposite IMHO. This helps reduce people who would hypothetically drunk drive on a Saturday evening, which in turn decreases the possibility that someone dies because of that (either the driver or a victim that was just passing / driving by).

Tbh, the sooner we remove the human from the equation, the better. It's scary to think that we allow so many careless people to drive vehicles that can kill people. I'm not talking just about drunk driving, but all the sort of distractions (smartphone, looking somewhere else, ...).

London specifically, AFAIK after midnight has no tube service. This means that Waymo (or whoever takes a similar initiative) actually helps towards creating a public transportation service that is cheaper and even safer than the current one. I'm personally all up for it - don't tax innovation!

[lm28469]

> This helps reduce people who would hypothetically drunk drive on a Saturday evening

This was solved by taxis, and now uber, decades ago. If you're dumb enough to drive under influence in 2025 the cure isn't a driverless taxi it's 10 years in jail.

[badgersnake]

London has public transport all night, including the tube at weekends:

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/tube/night-tube

[lowdownbutter]

> London specifically, AFAIK after midnight has no tube service

If only such things were googleable.

[Reubend]

What on Earth will you use as a justification for that? We pay taxes for roads, for fuel, and for the cars themselves. The last thing we need is more.

[pastage]

One argument would be that a driver in a cab will pay tax, a robot taxi will pay a lot less. That is quite a lot of money that is funneled to private companies instead of being used to improve our infrastructure.

[throawayonthe]

roads are functionally subsidized by non-motorists

[tim333]

I'd wait till there is actually a problem with them cluttering things before going there.