>(absent regulatory capture)

Yes trial attorneys will keep the bar very high for safety. As they should. But the bar in not infinitely high. Tech companies are salivating to disrupt the transportation market. They want a piece of your car payment, your insurance payment, your taxi spend. Insurance converts the minute risk of large accident costs into fixed premium payment. Lobbying helps convert financial capital into political capital and then into regulatory change. Our political process tends to follow the desires of the top 0.1% more than the bottom 40% combined.

Our current regime of car infrastructure was once unthinkable. Entire neighborhood were bulldozed to make way for highways. Yet today the government paying for highways, roads, and mandating each building be surrounded with amble parking is the status quo.

I’m not sure the original intent of the national highway system can be chalked up to the interests of the 0.1%. It’s generally attributed to national security, which is a very public interest.

While Eisenhower was inspired by the German autobahn, military use of roads was a sales talking point. The real reason for highways was to allow favored Americans to live in detached houses while still accessing city jobs. We could have it both ways!

Rail is a much more efficient way to move troops and equipment. Modern warfare requires lightning fast movement which means cargo planes. Eisenhower himself used a “New Look” policy of relying heavily on nuclear weapons so that the army could be scaled back.

After looking into a bit, I think you're right about the impetus of the national highway system. But, while rail is more efficient way to move materiel, it's also less flexible and more vulnerable. I think in that aspect, a highway system is probably preferable.

I probably should have said better than the average taxi driver as those generally don't include teenagers, 90 year olds and so on. Re the politics say human drivers in an area cause 10 deaths a year vs robot causing 6. Do you think voters are going to say we should have more deaths because humans doing it is better? That said I think people generally expect automated systems to be safe and probably self driving cars will be when they de glitch them. And then self driving cars will compete against other self driving cars more than against humans.