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Comment by mixedbit | Hacker News Reader

Passengers won't be anonymous and Uber already has reputation system. Also you can already rent a car, and rented cars are usually not vandalized.

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I imagine it'll be kinda like car2go or ZipCar where if you get in a car and it's messy or damaged you're supposed to report it. Presumably the person before you did the damage. If you don't report it you risk the next person reporting it and you get the blame.

Car rentals are fairly expensive. People tend to take better care of things they've put a lot into. Case in point, rental cars tend to be in much better condition than the back seats of taxis, which in turn are in better shape than the back seats of buses. I think people's concern is that single rides in self-driving cars might even rank below buses.

Still, Uber knows who you are. If you damage their car they can invoice you. Presumably they will have CCTV in these things?

Rental cars aren't vandalized because they are inspected before and after every rental by rental company employees.

Driverless rental vehicles will very quickly look like the back of public buses. "Dave {hearts} Christina" inscribed on every surface.

Have you heard of Zipcar? There are lots of reasons to be skeptical that we'll see autonomous taxis in less than decades but this doesn't seem like one of the bigger problems.

A car sharing company accused me of leaving a dirty vehicle. Apparently I had picked up smoking and gotten a dog without knowing it. They were quite adamant about charging me a cleaning fee until I got American Express involved.

Presumably there were one or more intervening drivers between whoever caused the issues and you who didn't notice or didn't think enough about it to complain. (Both the things you describe are probably way more irksome to some people than others.)

They are driven carelessly, smoked in, eaten in, etc...

You have a lot more liability as a renter.

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