As much as I love node and typescript i am forever bummed it never achieved a railsy or Laravellian framework

True, the closest thing i like in the node.js backend world is nestjs. It’s a solid framework for building apis, but as an mvp framework, it’s not quite on the same level as laravel, rails, or phoenix.

I used to feel the same way, but at a certain level of Node.js experience I came to prefer the backend JavaScript idiom. It's much lighter and more pragmatic, and gives the knowledgeable engineer a lot of flexibility. So stick with it.

Have you checked out t3 stack? Curious which pieces are missing from that that you'd deem critical

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

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!

> 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.

Sadly jail time doesn't often come to those who do it (at least, from experience / hearing stories of intoxicated drivers) and the consequences are paid by those who aren't intoxicated (e.g: getting killed by a drunk driver).

It's definitely not a cure, but removing the human factor (aside from the intoxication part) is anyways a very good goal IMHO.

Oh and btw, I've seen also taxi / uber drivers that were under the influence of alcohol / cocaine. Humans are the problem.

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

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

> London specifically, AFAIK after midnight has no tube service

If only such things were googleable.

Just based on my experience from a few visits here and there. Sorry for not fact-checking this.

As another comment pointed out, there are a few lines open during the night on weekends, and there are buses.

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.

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.

Should we put 2 drivers in each cab so that more taxes will be paid?

roads are functionally subsidized by non-motorists

But non-motorists still benefit from roads.

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