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Florida Senator: No Permit Needed For Driverless Cars In Florida (politifact.com)
In response to the California Department of Motor Vehicles ordering Uber's autonomous vehicles off the roads in San Francisco due to a lack of a permit, Florida state Sen. Jeff Brandes said he welcomes the company with open arms. Brandes tweeted: "Hey @Uber, unlike California we in Florida welcome driverless cars -- no permit required. #OpenForBusiness #FlaPol." PolitiFact reports: Several car companies are developing fully autonomous or self-driving cars operated by computers and testing them in some states. But it could be several years before they are broadly publicly available due to the cost, questions about liability and the technology and as state government officials grapple with oversight. While California's law requires a permit, that's not the case in Florida. "Florida has the least restrictive active state laws for the operation of autonomous vehicles," said John Terwilleger, an attorney at Gunster, Yoakley -- Stewart in West Palm Beach. Terwilleger represents a company that is involved in developing and using autonomous vehicles in Florida. In 2012, the Florida Legislature passed a law co-sponsored by Brandes that allowed a person with a valid driver's license to operate an autonomous vehicle. Before companies could test autonomous cars, they had to submit proof that they had $5 million in insurance. But in 2016, the Florida Legislature passed new rules that eliminated some of the previous requirements, including the $5 million in insurance. The new law also got rid of the requirement that a human operator be present in the vehicle, as long as an operator can be alerted in case of technology failure and stop the vehicle. Since there is no permit for autonomous vehicles, the state has no information regarding how many Floridians own one, said Beth Frady, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Florida law treats an autonomous vehicle in the same manner as any other motor vehicle operating on our roads, said Chris Spencer, a spokesman for Brandes. "There are no requirements for additional permitting, licensing, or approval from any state or local government body to operate an autonomous vehicle on our roads," he said. That's still the case, even though Florida was the location of the first fatality involving a self-driving car. In May, Joshua Brown, was killed when his Tesla while on autopilot crashed into a tractor-trailer in Williston.
Fuck it bro let's do it! 3 FL
Sweet. I could trivially conect my car to ardurover an have it drive across town. Of course it doesn't have any collision detection capabilities, but I could hack in some simulink vision code with some effort.
At first I was shaking my head at how reckless the idea of allowing completely uncertified automation systems on a 3-ton slab of metal hurtling down the road at highway speeds was. Then I remembered this is Florida we're talking about—it certainly can't be any worse than things already are...
Who cares if there's no driver in the car. The real question is who pays if the car gets into an accident and there's no human driver to take the blame?
If you've ever driven in or around Miami, you'd be aware that having a human in the driver's seat is not necessarily saying the same thing as having a driver in the driver's seat. A computer-driven car just formalizes what is already a common state of affairs.
So FL is like AZ, which is where Uber already loaded up their cars and drove to?
This seems too little, too late, when the cars have already been unloaded from their trailers in AZ....
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Read the news about Aussie man punching Kangaroo in the face a few weeks ago.
Read the news about Canadian man punching a cougar in the face earlier today.
Read the news on slashdot about Florida senator punching California in the face.
I love reading about random men punching wild life in the face :)
California! Fuck you!
Well Florida continues to confirms it's the loony bin of America (It takes a lot of work to outdo the Texans in idiocracry).
But we all knew that.
The way people drive down there I'm not convinced permits / licenses are required for human drivers, either.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Amazing. Yet another example of a state totally and thoroughly owned by big business.
My one question is - will Trump drop Florida into the Gulf for allowing Big Business to run roughshod over the population, or promote it to the nation's capitol - for the same reason ?
redneck geek
I live in a certain european western country, am amongst the 10% poorest but I have a dwelling (being a welfare queen) and I'm covered up to €100 million if my flat were to blow up. Although there's no natural gas, so in this case I wonder what I'd have to do to cause this much damage.
How is that that a couple megacorps can't afford $5 million assurance if they were to run over kids or plow into a bus stop?
... will Trump drop Florida into the Gulf for allowing Big Business to run roughshod over the population,... ?
By ignoring Climate Change Trump and his moronions will only need to let nature take its course – the Gulf will swallow Florida all by itself.
Sounds like they have played Nightmare On Elm Street on the NES
I live in FL and this just seems like the best idea and nothing could go wrong.
Dear god, anything that will get the old farts off the road that can not drive I am in support of. even if automated cars kill 4 people a day it will be less than what the old farts do.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... who is liable? If they're truly assistance systems, there's somebody in the driver's seat so they have an operator. Presumably a license driver, as I assume Florida requires drivers to be licensed? But otherwise, do they just sue the software developer? Are they going to try and claim the owner is responsible even though they might have no control (or ability to control?) the car's actions?
Would be rather cynical if Florida requires more licensing/testing for meat-bag drivers than chip-based...
The moronions will still deny Climate Change and attribute it to a nefarious plot by Clinton to deny the golf course of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named its rightful proceeds to Presidential Graft.
How would a cop stop that kind of vehicle?
... will Trump drop Florida into the Gulf for allowing Big Business to run roughshod over the population,... ?
By ignoring Climate Change Trump and his moronions will only need to let nature take its course – the Gulf will swallow Florida all by itself.
No one will leave though. Though the government will try and force them to leave their now sea ridden homes people will stay anyway. They will just build higher on stilts, trade out their cars for boats and eventually become New Venice, the 52nd state in 2071.
Lack of regulation is where real corruption happens.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
California is not nearly as wild as it once was...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Uber could easily buy $5 million in insurance, of course, but there's little reason to do. If you destroy your house, you need insurance because you can't afford to replace the house amd everything in it out of your own pocket. If Uber causes a crash, they just pay the damages directly - no point in putting an insurance company in the middle.*
Generally, you should insure for costs you can't readily pay directly. For something you can afford, paying the insurance company's overhead and profit is stupid.** Uber has a billion dollars in their "shit happens" fund, so they can easily pay for any crash they cause. $5 million in insurance wouldn't change that at all.
Further, to save even more money, when you're unsure whether to buy insurance on something, such as a mobile phone, here's what you can do instead. Suppose the insurance costs $10. Put the $10 in an envelope marked "small insurance" or "shit happens". Do that every time you think about buying a protection plan - for tickets that offer cancellation insurance, whatever. After two years you might have $200 in your "small insurance" envelope. Right about then maybe your phone breaks. So you go get the money out of your envelope. You've bought insurance from yourself, and you don't pay the insurance company's profit (or the retailer's 50% commission on protection plans). Over time, your "shit happens" fund will grow and you'll find you no longer need to buy insurance on a $1,000 purchase, and aren't completely screwed when you're car breaks down.
* Which is what frustrates me about Obamacare. I can easily afford a $10 flu shot; I don't need insurance company overhead making it cost $25. I can pay $45 for a checkup, but insurance company paperwork makes it cost $65. I preferred ten years ago, when I could insure against major illness and injury for 75% less than I pay now.
** Even though Uber can easily self-insure for car accidents, an insurance company *might* provide some value by providing an objective, independent view of their safety protocols. The insurance company might say "to get insurance from us, you must make it safer by _______".
What is this 'clinton' you speak of??
you have that backwards. there can be no corruption without a system to corrupt.
if climate change is real... how come beach front properties are still worth so much? money talks, bullshit gets government funding for extreme predictions that are always 20 plus years out.
when you've lived through a few 20 year predictions that never come true, you'll start to see that earth death cult of yours is nothing more then a money grab.
Wait - So if FL doesn't require any special permits or licenses for "driverless" cars, how exactly do they define "driverless"?
This seems like a loophole big enough for people who've had their licenses revoked to drive a Scania R 450 through - Just stick a computer between yourself and the car's controls, and bam, no need to worry about that pesky "license" thing.
Hell, some people might do that just for kicks - I've always wondered why we can't just have a simple joystick to control our cars... Well, in FL, we apparently can!
Finally someone who understands why ObamaCare fucked the US.
When I came to the US, I had the best health care and insurance options, better than Europe's which I was forced to pay into and cheaper too. There are obviously retards that spent their money on drugs and alcohol over insurance but even at minimum wage you were always able to afford insurance if you *chose* to do so. Sure you would have to not spend money on frivolities or perhaps you'd even have to *gasp* cancel your cable bill. And yes, there are always people that fall through the cracks, happened in Europe too.
Now my insurance premiums and copays have risen 3-fold in the last 4 years to the point even with a decent income I can no longer comfortably afford going to the doctor if I'm not sick because I have to absorb the $10k out of pocket costs for the rest of my family. All ObamaCare has done is make the numbers look good. 2M people (10% of the population) now have insurance... except they still can't afford to go to a doctor and at this point there are many in 2017 that will rather pay the fine than the new premiums.
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Bugs Bunny had the right idea. Why didn't we elect the Bronx Bombardier?
In Florida over half the drivers are senior citizens and their motto is "drive slow, sit low". The state flag of Florida should be a steering wheel with a hat and two sets of knuckles on it.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
It's the lack of principle of the thing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Thanks for beta testing this stuff with your lives
MIT's Technology Review has an interesting article about the safety - or lack thereof - of self-driving cars. I'm rooting for the cars but I don't think they are quite ready yet. https://www.technologyreview.c...
...two Florida meth addicts build an autonomous car from a mid-90's Camaro, a Dell laptop, a GoPro camera, and duct tap which, upon completion, immediately proceeds to blow through a crosswalk and kill a dozen kids.
I preferred ten years ago, when I could insure against major illness and injury for 75% less than I pay now.
Have you ever tried to use this major illness insurance you had then? That may not apply to you -- but my understanding is that some pre-Obamacare insurance plans were (effectively) fraudulent and covered nearly nothing (e.g., $1000 payout limit, after which you were on your own).
Obamacare actually defined what "counts" as health insurance because insurance against major catastrophe seemed quite a good and cheap deal until you tried to use it. So unless you have used your insurance to pay you for major illness, it may be just your luck for not getting that sick.
Because capitalism tends not to look at the long term.
But even if we restrict ourselves to people who voted in at least 2000 or 2016 in Florida, I suspect that there are few Floridians who voted for both Bush and Trump.
I'd be surprised if 10 percent of Floridians (2M out of 20M) voted for both Bush and Trump.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
And can you afford a major illness?
Here's an article from 2005 about the cost of cancer treatment for a child. As was legal then, insurance companies could put a yearly and lifetime cap on treatment - which the insurance company did, at $500,000.
The child reached that limit in less than a year.
Insurance isn't for the $10 flu shot or other routine care - insurance is for the expensive illness or accident. Now perhaps we should let children like that die because they are too expensive. Perhaps we should let anyone who needs expensive care die. But lets be honest with ourselves when we are comparing costs between systems.
I would love to have a discussion on this but I don't want to lose mods.
Circa 1994, I left college. $20 dollars a quarter for insurance. Didn't cover much, but the college I went to has a world renowned medical research facility and it gave me access to this. Left college. I had to get my own insurance. $80 dollars a month for high deductable major medical. I joined a self-employed co-op and got a little lower deductible for $47 a month. 6 months later, $56. 3 months later $63. regular increases of over the next 15 months. 2 year anniversay arrives. Renewal was $264. A month. And this was through a co-op. What's that? Almost 6x increase in 2 years? I went uninsured for many years and found doctors that gave large discounts for cash. This can't be blamed on the ACA. It didn't exist. This has been the pattern in healthcare since the insurance industry found a way to insert themselves into the picture in the late '40's and it has been used as a shackle for the common working person. It has been used to keep people chained to poor jobs since the beginning. You say, get a better job? Sure. As soon as i can guarantee my family can go to the dr. You checked out COBRA? Another rip-off. Do you understand the fear of having something bad happen to you while you are in a period of uninsured? Seen that. Don't want to go there.
I'm open for suggestions. Single payer seems logical. MC/MC have the highest efficiency ratings of any insurance program. Somebody has to put a check on the insurance, medical, and drug industries. This shit is out of control.
> Have you ever tried to use this major illness insurance you had then?
Yes, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas was a good company then, as it is now.
Medical INSURANCE is/was regulated by state law. "Health discount plans" not so much.
The really bad ones said "Health Care Discount Plan" or whatever at the top, at at the bottom said "this is not an insurance product". In most states the less-regulated plans couldn't use the word "insurance" in their marketing, other than a disclaimer stating that it's not insurance.
> Obamacare actually defined what "counts" as health insurance
Completely REDEFINED. You can't legally just buy actual insurance anymore. Now you have to buy a health care plan. The difference, as noted above, is that insurance insures you against unforeseen high costs. Home insurance is for if your home burns down, not a new toilet flapper ($12); car insurance covers a wreck that totals your car, not new spark plugs. Imagine if you and your mechanic had to deal with 100 pages of insurance and government paperwork for each oil change. An oil change wouldn't cost $35 anymore!
The state-regulated medical insurance had a range pf different plans at different prices, appropriate for different people. At least where I've lived, they all did okay on the catastrophic coverage, which was most important to me, what varied the most was the lower cost stuff, under $5,000. That made a big diference because $25 of administrative costs on a $25 service doubles the cost; $200 of administrative cost on a $2,500 procedure has less impact. It was important to understand that with the state regulated insurance you did get what you paid for - plan with a lower monthly premium probably had a higher deductible etc.
* Which is what frustrates me about Obamacare. I can easily afford a $10 flu shot; I don't need insurance company overhead making it cost $25.
I had really good private insurance before Obamacare and flu shots were never $10 at a doctor's office then, either. They'd still charge for an office visit just for the pleasure of walking in the door. A flu shot meant a $35 co-pay at the very least, even if the injection itself was "free" under the insurance policy.
If you want a $10 flu shot, go to Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, shit even Wal-Mart's pharmacy will do one. Sometimes they'll even give them free of charge if you're buying stuff in the store.
Yeah, I know, they get to regulate inside their borders. But man, look at them fighting among themselves to see who's gonna let these things on the road. I'm a cyclist and these things have been caught drifting into bike lanes. A lot. They've also been caught running red lights several times. You damn well better believe I want them to have a permit and I want a special license required to drive one. Similar to what most driving instructors have so we know the person driving the damn thing is used to keeping tabs on a (bad) driver. Otherwise we're gonna have Uber's risk review department pulling that trick from the opening in "Fight Club".
Hurray for races to the bottom!
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
When (not if) a driverless car breaks a traffic law, who gets the ticket? Seems like a permit is required at a minimum to track responsible parties. Florida is a fool's paradise where technology is concerned.
... will Trump drop Florida into the Gulf for allowing Big Business to run roughshod over the population,... ?
By ignoring Climate Change Trump and his moronions will only need to let nature take its course – the Gulf will swallow Florida all by itself.
People who live in the economic engines, Tampa, Orlando, South Florida, Naples, Jacksonville, those whose livelihood, property and trade will get affected by rising tides, we all get a big collective fuck you from our remote state capitol. Local governments in South Florida are all over the issue working right now on countermeasures, beach preservation barriers, pumps, etc. All by themselves, pretty much we are all by ourselves because the fuckers in Tallahassee are pretty much non-existent. They exist there just to appease rural Florida and snow birds (most of them away from the coasts.)
I've always been skeptical of South Florida politics, having a unique streak of banana republic corruption here and there. But on the other hand, I've been quite impressed by how city mayors have mobilized.
Because we don't give a shit what Rick Scott and his circle up in Tallahassee or the far fringe right morons think, we see the effects of climate change. We see this shit is real, the rising tides, ocean water creeping through our walkways and sewers, etc.
This is the type of thing for which state and federal governments ought to exist, to assist local governments in tackling these kind of things. But shit, no, that's not how we roll.
Whether we can deal with it by technical means, it remains to be seen. But no one can say we did not try. And none of these Repuke motherfuckers in Tallahassee have a fucking right to claim participation if we do get to deal with sea level rise successfully. Because unless they sent the invisible man to help us, our governor is with his bald head shoved right up his ass on his state capital, denying a reality we see down here every damned day.
> If you want a $10 flu shot, go to Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, shit even Wal-Mart's pharmacy will do one.
Which tells you the actual cost of the flu shot.
> A flu shot meant a $35 co-pay at the very least, even if the injection itself was "free" under the insurance policy.
"Free under the insurance (healthcare) policy" means "paperwork for the insurance company". The difference between the $10 shot and the $35 is paying for the insurance bureaucracy.
> I'm open for suggestions. Single payer seems logical.
From my research, it appears that there are lot of problems, requiring a lot of fixes. Anybody who says "x will fix it" is either uninformed or lying, for any x. There are also a lot of compromises, though choices. Everybody I know in Canada makes trips to the US to buy medical care that they've already paid for in Canada - ut has a two-year wait. "Better" generally costs more, for most measures of "better", so there are tough choices to make.
In general, much of the cost, many of the problems, are gigantic mountains of paperwork. When you go get a prescription, it might take 30-60 minutes to get it filled. Counting out the pills takes 2 minutes; the paperwork takes the vast majority of the time (and therefore money). This is something to keep in mind when you talk about "Somebody has to put a check on the insurance, medical, and drug industries". A lot of people have put a lot of checks on the companies. Guess who ends up paying the check?
"except they still can't afford to go to a doctor"
As I look at my medical card - Copay: $0 Deductible: $0 Medication: $0
You very obviously have zero clue what the fuck you're talking about. Obamacare takes all of this into account.
Can't afford it? You must be doing something wrong - I live in expensive-as-hell California and I've got zero problems.
You are missing an important point: Uber certainly has $5 or even $50 million laying around. However, "Uber Autonomous Fleet Industries of Florida, limited", or whatever shell company will officially "own" the cars might not have 50 bucks. Putting legal distance between you and possible liabilities is the first rule of business, the $5 million insurance policy is a way of keeping that somewhat in check.
Permits are just a money grab by the state, ultimately.
These states already require a permit, it's called a registration. They can pull this registration at any time for any reason. They can also track via the registration.
They also require insurance for liability reasons.
Have gnu, will travel.
if climate change is real... how come beach front properties are still worth so much?
When coastal leftists begin moving inland, then maybe I'll be more open to what they have to say on the subject. Actions speak louder than mindlessly regurgitating the "we're all gonna die AGW did it" narrative.
> whatever shell company will officially "own" the cars might not have 50 bucks. Putting legal distance between you and possible liabilities is the first rule of business
If a shell company didn't have reasonably sufficient capital, that would actually do the opposite - it *exposes* the executives to *personal* liability. To shield the executives (and major investors), you separate different lines of business different companies, each with appropriate funding for their operations, including potential liabilities.
I didn't learn this from a book. Well I did, but right now the government is giving me a painful reminder. They are making every effort to find an excuse to come after me personally for the liabilities of a company I used to work for. I did things correctly, more or less, with no shenanigans involving shell companies, so I don't think they'll win. They'll get the business assets and I'll have to personally pay off the original amount due, but I won't have to pay the late fees, interest, etc. Had I messed around with an underfunded shell company, that would give the government the excuse they want to hold me personally liable for the late fees and interest as well.
Sir, your comment is so stupid it almost caused my Windows 10 machine to have a green screen of death. Sod off...
As I look at my medical card - Copay: $0 Deductible: $0 Medication: $0
Your card doesn't say what your premium is. I'm betting you have the "Platinum" level plan which for a family cost around $1500/mo if you are in your 50s.
Finally someone who understands why ObamaCare fucked the US.
The ACA doesn't work because it doesn't make the rich pay their fair share. If you're going to accept that healthcare is a basic necessity in the USA (like K through 12 education, roads, military, etc.), then you make the rich carry a larger proportion of the burden.
Of course, the average Jane and Joe voter in this country buys into the "Politician X is a socialist and they'll take half your paycheck if you vote for him/her!" propaganda, so we're stuck with systems which don't work.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
You live in broke-ass California, your care is heavily subsidized by both state and federal taxes.
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If I did, I'd cancel them, and I'll never willingly go there.
As you said, you found doctors that give large discounts for cash, you could find good discount insurance across state lines if you rates went up significantly, I just threatened to move and they instantly went down. I never had $20 insurance, that's not realistic unless it was subsidized but my rates were relatively flat for ~5 years. We used to be protected from medical debt collection by state law, an expensive operation could be placed on a 0% credit forever if you didn't have insurance, ACA erased that provision since now they are allowed to have medical debt collection anywhere in the US but you're not allowed to shop insurance across state lines anymore.
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Amazing. Yet another example of a state totally and thoroughly owned by big business.
My one question is - will Trump drop Florida into the Gulf for allowing Big Business to run roughshod over the population, or promote it to the nation's capitol - for the same reason ?
Central Florida is pretty much Trump's dream for a "Great Again" America, realized. We were draining swamps before it was cool. Thanks to the tourism industry, we've got plenty of jobs. Sure, they're soul-destroying, low-wage and you can't afford rent on them, but they're jobs and that's what counts, right?
If you've been paying attention, Trump only cares if your job is outsourced, sent overseas, or taken by a foreigner. Lose your job due to automation or Ray Zalinsky buying up your small town factory? Well, that's just good old American business. If you think there's something wrong with that, you're probably some kind of diaper pin wearing, socialist pussy who needs to go your safe space.
Warning: This post contains sarcasm
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
The ACA doesn't work because it was written by and for the general profit of insurance companies.
Either health care has to be fully subsidized by the government (which should be possible through existing taxes) or it has to be mandated with a free and open market for both insurance companies and medical providers to compete.
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Trump only cares if your job is outsourced, sent overseas, or taken by a foreigner. .
He really doesnt even care if your job is taken by foreigners especially if its a job at his golf courses in Florida. He only cares enough to blame foreigners for taking American jobs.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/28/news/donald-trump-foreign-workers/
So, Floridians have been selected to be cannon fodder for IT and automotive corporations' experiments. [sarcasm] Live guinea pigs to sacrifice to the almighty IT gods of Silicon Valley, yay![/sarcasm]
Really upsets me when people put politics and ideology over lives. Here are the really simple facts about self driving cars. 1. It's an amazing technology that could change the world and save a lot of lives. 2. That technology is not yet ready for release. It can't deal safely (yet) with a lot of common situations. 3. Until we get those problems fixed, anyone who puts a self driving car on the road without a human ready to intervene at a moment's notice is putting lives at risk.
None of those should be controversial. They're all simple facts. But hey, let's score some political points! Regulation bad! Having to register your car is evil! We're not like those stupid Californians!
And people are likely to die because of this. Because some politicians decided playing politics was more important than lives.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Because millionaires and billionaires – who are the only people how can afford those beachfront properties – have contrived to have FEMA reimburse them when they are destroyed in hurricanes and mudslides.
But don't worry, Trump is going to drain the swamp and once said swamp is drained, FEMA will no longer bail out the one-percenters at the taxpayers expense.
The property values won't drop though. those losses will cull the weaker one-percenters out of the market and then the point-one-percenters – who can afford to swallow losses – will move in and snap it up. Well, until it's completely under water, at which point they'll write it off and get a giant tax deduction.
LOL - THANK YOU ! ! ! I didn't think about that bit of righteous (in)action - and totally fitting for the legislators that aGREED to this.
Sad part would be that the rest of the country would have to take in these sniveling cretins (the legislators - NOT the population) as 'disadvantaged' and 'catastrophically dislocated' welfare burdens.
It's a shame that the legislative bodies would be provided luxury accommodations and relocation benefits, while the real victims (the populous) would be dumped into Katrina-like 'temporary' shelters that many of the actual Katrina victims are STILL living in - years after their ordeal of just surviving the disaster.
Still, I have to temper my pity for those poor souls, as THEY are the ones that put their legislative body in power over their lives.
redneck geek
this is not surprising.... In Florida bikers are still not required to wear an helmet. And back when Jeb Bush was the governor, he vetoed a bill that would have required parents to use carseat, because you know "personal freedom" and other nonsense....
Also there is no annual car inspection in Florida, none. Again, in the name of personal responsibility/freedom. So you may get rear ended because the driver behind you did not replace his brakes or his bald tires because that was his holy personal freedom not to do so, yep, welcome to Florida.
Of course no emission inspection neither. You can see trucks spewing dense black clouds of diesel fumes, and it is perfectly legal.
M'hurica!
Try looking up flood insurance for a beachfront property in southern FL- they're basically the same (or more!) then the mortgage payment itself. And insurance companies aren't stupid-- their rates have to be based on a statistically realistic outcome.
I think his point is that insurance was mostly for catastrophic illnesses or accidents, so it was cheaper.
Now it covers everything down to a $10 flu shot and other routine care, so the bureaucracy alone makes it more expensive.
Of course it's more complicated than that, medical care is more concerned about making money than helping people nowadays, but I'm simplifying.
America
You misspelled Jumhuriyat Islamiyya al-Murika.
Captcha: politics
While I think the skateboard wheels described in Snow Crash are not something that will come to fruition any time soon, at the end of the day, the reason I (and possibly many other people) don't do that sort of thing often is due to concern that a human driver would get annoyed with someone tagging along, and throw a little english into their driving to throw you.
As I imagine roads with a decent population of these autonomous vehicles, all I see are free rides, from (depending on the make of the vehicle) actually hopping on when the vehicle is at a stop light and getting across town to catching a lift while on your own bike.
When/if this becomes rampant, an arms race will ensue between freeloaders and deterrents, but there will be a wonderful gap before this becomes a thing where the roads will be lush with free rides.
Florida highways and byways are already rife with driverless cars... with drivers whose heads barely come up to the height of the dashboard, they certainly look driverless, and with the way they are driven there certainly doesn't SEEM to be a properly trained and experienced human driver behind the wheel. I've driven through Florida.
I don't plan to drive there ever again, and thank Christ I don't have to. Last time I was there I was almost run off the road... by a mosquito.
Why would you go to a doctor if you were not sick?
California is far from broke. California has had a sizeable budget surplus for years once the Repubs lost control of the governorship and were no longer able to block everything in congress.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
You're the loony for not embracing technology.