Increase the unsupervised driving age to 18 (unless in an area with no robotic transport) and massively increase penalties for driving infractions. As in you lose your license on your second DUI or third at-fault collision, reckless-driving ticket or cell phone violation. (Maybe make a DUI count as two infractions for the second list.)
We pretend like driving is only a privilege, but it's more necessary than most rights that OSHA or other agencies have "discovered".
And if they’re not getting in accidents more frequently than population, that’s fine. I didn’t include this common citation for good reason.
> How else are getting to your job? Getting groceries?
Calling (or buying) a robotic car. We’re looking decades into the future when manually piloting a car is a privilege. (Or less than a decade in cities with public transit.)
If you’re driving drunk, hitting things, recklessly speeding or texting while driving, you shouldn’t be driving. We tolerate it, extraordinarily, because driving is almost a right in America. What’s changing is it’s going from a necessity everywhere but New York to a necessity where there isn’t Uber.
(In practice, at least from the few folks I know close to the incoming White House, it will happen through increasing liability for insurers. Nobody will be banned. It will just become expensive to human pilot. Or, if your FSD or equivalent isn’t engaged, hard to dispute fault.)
If it's cost effective, sure.
Until that's significantly cheaper, people need to drive.
> increasing liability for insurers. Nobody will be banned. It will just become expensive to human pilot.
Why would human driving insurance cost significantly more than it does today?
Not in cities, even today. That region is simply broadening.
Public car insurance for poor, risky drivers has zero popular appeal. This will happen gradually then quickly.
And it's only some cities where it's similarly or more affordable to not have a car. Not nearly as many as it should be.
The risk of hit-and-run accidents, uninsured drivers, and unlicensed drivers on the road are increasing.
While public transit could be a great solution, much of the poorest in the US cannot afford to live in places with good public transport because these areas have higher housing costs.
> We tolerate it, extraordinarily, because driving is almost a right in America.
Partially. But even the laws we do have are currently being ignored, because rates of compliance are so low that it isn't even practically feasible to enforce the law. In several US states, more than 20% of drivers are driving around without insurance. The underlying problem here is beyond what can be solved merely with enforcement.
I'm hopeful it eventually happens, but I think we're a very long way from a world where someone in small-town Mississippi can ride around in a robotic car on a McDonalds wage.
That problem isn't a hard concept. You have to work with the framework that currently exists.
I understand how bad the reality is in the US, but public transportation is a solved problem.
Sorry, but this is still too lenient.
People should immediately lose their driving licence with a substantial fine for being caught drink-driving—even if it's just the first time, and be permanently barred from ever getting one again. If their driving under influence causes the slightest injury to other people they should receive a substantial jail sentence, and should their driving cause death they ought to receive at least a first-degree manslaughter charge. I know this will sound appalling to Americans, but driving is a privilege, not a right.
If pilots have so much stricter rules about operating their machinery, so should road users.
They will lose their jobs, and then housing, etc. People need their cars to feed their kids, do all sorts of things. And of course, they will drive illegally if they have to - wouldn't you?
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-...
As self driving becomes more and more commonplace and even safer we’ll likely be focusing more on the 40k human caused fatalities.
What I mean is: if the bicycle got to the intersection before the Waymo, then it would have had right of way.
Of course, it's also possible that the cyclist failed to stop at the stop sign.
But neither of us has seen footage of what happened. Presumably Waymo has a recording but, if the cyclist was hidden by the truck, that won't show what happened.
At a contended intersection, it should never be the case that two vehicles coming from the same lane take consecutive turns.
That’s not the law. Vehicles take turns at an intersection - there’s no total queuing order based on arrival time.
If the Waymo stopped at the intersection after the bicycle stopped at the intersection, or if the Waymo's path was blocked and it was thus not entering the intersection, the bicycle would not be required to yield.
At a contended intersection, it should never be the case that two vehicles coming from the same lane take consecutive turns.
1. The lorry arrives (from the North) first and stops at the stop line.
2. The lorry begins turning at the intersection, and is completely past the stop line but still in the intersection.
3. The bicycle arrives (from the North) and stops at the stop line.
4. The Waymo arrives (from the South) and stops at the stop line.
5. The Waymo waits at the stop line because, if it were to proceed, its path would intersect with the turning lorry's path.
6. The bicycle proceeds into the intersection, following the lorry.
How would the cyclist's actions in this scenario violate something in California Vehicle Code sections 21800 to 21809?
DMV handbook: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/california-driver-handboo...
Law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
If the Waymo could not see the bicycle then them cyclist could not see the Waymo.
A) There is no Waymo, and the cyclist need not yield, or
B) There is a Waymo, but its path is blocked by turning lorry, and the cyclist need not yield.
So either way the bicycle has priority, no?
I don't think you're supposed to start moving again until you can see whether a waiting vehicle would intersect your path.
B sounds wrong to me.
This whole sub thread started because someone claimed the bike must have broken the law. I'm trying to explain why that's not necessarily the case. Most people 'stating the law' are making things up that aren't written in the law.
I am honestly curious to know what I may have misunderstood, but based on the actual law not based on what seems to make sense if we were to design ideal laws.
Even if it's not explicitly written, it's a natural consequence that once two opposite cars go, the perpendicular cars were there before the replacements, so they get to go first, and it falls into taking turns.
> Consider the sequence of events in this hypothetical scenario
They meant when vehicles are waiting for each other the entire time, since obviously with nobody waiting multiple vehicles can go the same direction. In your scenario nobody is waiting after step 2.
I disagree. Legislation does not abrogate drivers of all moral responsibility. Quite frankly, if a child jumps out from behind a parked car and you hit them despite following the law to the letter, you share some of the blame. I would argue that in all cases where a driver hits someone, they share some blame, because they chose to drive at a speed beyond their ability to react. It is the driver after all that causes the damage.
Obviously, the only solution is to drive at a much, much slower speed, which at some point becomes impractical, so we don't do this.
That's just not possible to solve in practice. Unless you're moving at an extremely slow pace, there's always the lag of noticing + decision + activation. You can drive 10km/h and if someone walks right in front of you, there may be physically no way for you to prevent a collision.
Sure, slower speeds prevent many accidents, but always sharing the blame is a very bad idea.
This is intended to reflect the inherent danger of driving a heavy machine in a public space.
It is never a necessity to drive so close to people that 10km/h is too fast to notice someone who may veer into the path of your vehicle without you having the ability to stop. Likewise to drive at a speed at which someone could appear from behind a nearby obstacle leaving you no time to react. It is a convenience that most people assume they are entitled to - largely due to it being codified in law (there are lots of things we do that are like this).
You may consider it to be a necessity, and I would have once too. But I never do this now. I gave up the convenience - something I couldn't have done if it was a necessity.
I understand this is not a choice everyone feels free to make. But it is a choice.
You can also see the recent video of a Tesla avoiding a person falling onto the street and crashing into another car. There's no reason to keep the speed lower in that area, no extra source to be away from the sidewalk and no time to react to the change.
There is a legal doctrine in the US called the 'last clear chance'. Even if the other person was breaking the law, you still have the responsibility to avoid an accident if you can.
If not, I would be well within my rights to push speeding drivers (the vast majority in my experience) off the road when I drive, and I'm for very obvious reasons not allowed to do that.
Self driving cars do not eliminate risk to pedestrians or cyclists but they reduce it by multiple orders of magnitude, and they are trending in the right direction, whereas human drivers seem to be trending in the wrong one.
Yes, I believe that in the distant future humans will look back on the late 20th and early 21st centuries and be appalled that people were ever allowed to operate cars like this. It will be like how we think about ancient practices of human sacrifice or gladiatorial combat.
Of course, we'd have to implement unlimited liability for the self-driving car companies as to make them not hide behind their limited liability scheme to not treat safety with the utmost priority.
They are expanding the areas the self driving cars can operate in year by year.
As much as I hate nanny state laws and acknowledge that self drivings not there yet I can see a future where humans are barred from driving. 40k deaths a year in the USA from humans driving and a fear of rightfully using the road for non driving activities due to poor human behaviour. I’m actually pretty hopeful we get there.