I think part of the problem is the lax licensing standards in the US. For everyone's benefit, we should have higher standards. There also can and should be regional differences. Someone who has learned to drive in a rural or suburban area has not necessarily had the training and experience necessary to safely drive in a city alongside pedestrians and cyclists.

I think we’re not really willing to up the standards because you need to drive to survive in a lot of places.

You can’t change your genetics, you can’t necessarily change where you live, and you can’t just fix transit without rebuilding an entire city that took 100+ years to build so the standards are just what they have to be

Over the last many decades, we’ve starting requiring things like backup cameras because cars naturally break down and so it’s something we can actually change on a short timescale (but it does add a lot of cost)

Fixing transit is a long timescale thing

A lot of cities were rebuilt in the 1950s to accommodate cars and car oriented design, destroying neighborhoods in the process. Before that they had public transport and better walkability. The real solution is to undo that.

Yes but how would you give a downtown Boston experience driving test in North Dakota?

I still remember the time my mom almost drove into a tram tunnel! She wasn't used to the city.