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The story
Businessman Hiroyuki Nishimura raised a question on X (formerly Twitter) about the argument that “self-driving cars shouldn’t be introduced until they’re perfect.” He explained that autonomous vehicles could act like an unpaid chauffeur working 24 hours a day — helping elderly people get around in rural areas without public transportation, or getting people home from wherever they are. On 5ch, his comment sparked a flurry of responses raising concerns about who would be responsible in the event of an accident, worries that self-driving cars could cause traffic jams, and criticism that legislation hasn’t caught up — while others pushed back, arguing that “self-driving would actually save more lives,” leaving opinion divided.
Hiroyuki Questions People Who Insist “Don’t Introduce Self-Driving Until It’s Perfect”: “What’s the Logic There?”
Businessman Hiroyuki Nishimura (49) updated his official X (formerly Twitter) account by the 8th, laying out his views on the debate over self-driving cars.
Hiroyuki opened with: “Self-driving isn’t just at the level of ‘convenient because you don’t have to drive yourself.’ It’s like having a chauffeur working for free, 24 hours a day. You can drive to an izakaya and drive home. In rural areas without public transit, elderly people can go wherever they want, whenever they want, to see whoever they want. For domestic trips, you don’t even have to think about train transfers — you just tell it where you’re going and you arrive.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
No matter the situation, self-driving vehicles always have right of way — get hit by one and you're the one who gets arrested and hospitalized for obstructing an autonomous vehicle's passage.
But on icy, dead-slippery roads, I'd rather drive myself.
Japan has a lot of snow country, so winter self-driving is probably still a long way off.
Even now, self-driving in heavy downpours gets you messages like 'automatic braking disabled' — full self-driving is way too far off.
Level 4 is impossible.
AI can't predict human behavior — pedestrians sometimes do completely unpredictable things.
China's self-driving taxis are impressive — they even dodge scooters coming at them the wrong way (lol).
Well, humans can't predict that stuff either 😂
>completely unpredictable things
Apparently it's become a trend to deliberately walk up to Cybercabs to make them stop, just for fun.
(They actually do stop pretty reliably — which is exactly why they end up causing traffic jams too.)
Sure, there might be a few people out there saying that,
but they have zero influence, so just ignore them.
Hiroyuki's got that disease where he'll die if he doesn't win every argument (lol)
I mean, isn't that basically what the government is saying too? (lol)
No way.
Traffic is a flow — it's not like everything's safe just because one car drives safely.
If you followed the law to the letter, the whole country would be gridlocked.
So what?
Are they saying the death rate is already lower with self-driving than with human drivers?
I don't think it is~
It's still basically an RC toy car (lol)
U.S. data
https://jidounten-lab.com/u_58287
They'll probably land on that conclusion eventually.
That's how it is in China.
Guess that means China's got it right and Japan's just being stupid.
Legislation hasn't caught up yet.
Just make it the car owner's responsibility, simple as that.
Since manufacturers have to comply with traffic laws, and it can't improvise like a human, you'll get gridlock everywhere.
I couldn't stand being driven around by something that never goes a hair over the speed limit, or stops dead every single time at a yellow light at a busy intersection.
Just program it with the traffic laws and let it drive.
Elsewhere in the world, the speed limit is treated as an actual limit you don't exceed — Japan's the only place that encourages 'going with the flow' of traffic instead.
'Hiro' says: 'Don't introduce it until it's perfect! 😡'
What?????? Of course you program in the traffic laws.
Have you never driven before? Even when the road ahead is totally empty, if a patrol car or a driving-school car goes by, a long line forms behind it, right?
That's what happens if you follow traffic law to the honest letter.
Exactly this (lol)
Self-driving cars could end up causing traffic jams.
The speed at which cars and other vehicles move is essentially the speed of the economy —
in PC terms, it's like the core's processing speed.
And Japan is working hard to slow that down (lol)
It's an idiotic government slowing down the PC's processing speed while calling it 'efficiency.'
Don't you think it's unreasonable to pay millions for a car, have it go haywire and cause an accident on its own, and then get stuck with the responsibility?
It's self-driving — you personally did nothing wrong at all, right?
Maybe at first it doesn't need to be fully driverless — just put one responsible person on board.
Like those taxis in 'Damerica' (a jab combining 'dame,' meaning 'no good,' with 'America').
Self-driving will just mean more people getting killed.
https://youtube.com/shorts/EUIkwHu272s?si=GmkJaW7X8rtugSLo
Can you still say that after watching this?
https://youtube.com/shorts/pvlyfVjRjGY?si=QHywJi1KrBJuwXFk
Guess you don't know Japan is crawling with stuff like this.
On that point, there was footage from the U.S. of a self-driving car smoothly handling a narrow road with people darting out, no problem.
The tech is more advanced than people think.
People driving 80 in a 60 zone and crashing cause more traffic jams than that.
Plenty of people also crash from dozing off at the wheel.
Honestly, accident-caused traffic jams aren't that common anyway.
No, there isn't.
There's data on human-driven accidents, at least.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
In Japan, amendments to the Road Traffic Act made Level 3 (conditional automated driving) legally possible on expressways and similar roads in 2020, and Level 4 driverless operation under specific conditions possible in 2023. However, practical deployment remains limited to a small number of designated areas, such as Eiheiji Town in Fukui Prefecture, and has yet to see full rollout on ordinary public roads. The thread was most divided over two points: the legal question of who bears responsibility in the event of an accident, and whether there’s actual data backing up the claim that self-driving would save more lives. In the U.S., driverless taxis are operating in several states and releasing data, but large-scale statistics establishing a clear safety advantage over human drivers have not yet been firmly established. While Hiroyuki’s post emphasized the convenience self-driving offers for getting around, most of the replies focused on practical issues like traffic congestion and the state of legislation, resulting in something of a mismatch in the discussion.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Geisports Sokuho+) thread “Hiroyuki Questions People Who Insist ‘Don’t Introduce Self-Driving Until It’s Perfect’… “What’s the Logic There?” “Self-Driving Would Save More Lives”“.
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