Now is an opportunity, perhaps first in ~100 years, perhaps last, to recover the streets for unaugmented humans: slow down cars in urban areas, increase qualifications for humans to drive, eventually ban human drivers entirely, leaving only automated vehicles with enough sensors and going slowly enough to reduce auto-related deaths for pedestrians and passengers alike to zero.
If automated vehicles become popular, I predict new crimes will be added in addition to jaywalking. Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers. If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways. I suspect calls for AI regulation by people like Elon Musk are really attempts at regulatory capture to make automated vehicles possible and dominated by the first market entrants.
Absolutely. I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily. People are completely ignoring the existence of pedestrians and cyclists. It would not be surprising to see a new crime of "hindering an autonomous automobile" be lobbied for.
We could end up with roads dedicated to cars being separated from roads dedicated to pedestrians or cyclists. You could imagine if a city was designed from scratch the vehicles could move around almost in tunnel-like back-alleys, with periodic embarkation points into pedestrianized open plazas and boulevards. If Musk's reduction in cost of tunnelling is more than just a pipe-dream, then you might be able to retrofit something like that into an existing city.
But I agree that if autonomous cars come to pass, there will be a lot of pressure to go down the route you discuss.
> If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways.
I doubt that attitude will ever catch on. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but it seems to me that there's a healthy suspicion about AI drivers.
So far at least, the attitude taken by, well, everyone, is that AI drivers are untrustworthy until proven trustworthy. If AI drivers can't cope with the various challenges of real driving, then the AI drivers are to blame, not the external factors.
If they work well, AI drivers will be permitted to drive. If they do not, they will not be permitted to drive. At no point will they get to dictate what other road-users may do. Our Ludditism will see to that.
Yup. The first thing I think about wrt to driverless cars being adopted en-masse is how trivially easy it would be to DDoS them.
Literally just stand in front of them and there will be nothing they can do. Once people get used to zero social repercussions (driverless cars will be empty probably 50% of the time en-route to pick someone up or go park themselves by my estimation) I imagine you will see things like certain folks simply crossing streets blindly comfortable in the fact that the cars will stop for them regardless of right of way.
Many will disagree that this will happen, but I think many underestimate the antisocialness of folks when there are no consequences.
> Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers.
I don't think that will ever happen. It may even be the opposite: AI will drive in a way it will always be able to stop if there's a possibility that there's someone behind some obstacle that may jump to the road at any moment.
Worst case scenario, beacons become mandatory. Cheap and anonymous beacons you have to carry when you're near a road. Smart phones may include such functionality.
let's make walking and biking cool, but not at the expense of fast personal transport (cars).
the best solution isn't to try to slow down the cars but rather to make mixed-use urban areas the default so that walking and biking become the norm. you also get all kinds of other benefits with that (less traffic, healthier air, more fit people, etc)
i agree that driving qualifications should be more strict, but probably in a different dimension than you: test drivers on situational awareness and predictive decision making. fail people for both distracted driving and indecision (and lack of follow-through), as well as not communicating intent (e.g, signaling) to other drivers.
The concept of jaywalking is great for busy roads with high speed traffic. 30MPH+ (50KMPH+) roads should become much better and faster by reducing the amount of pedestrian crossing significantly.
Slower roads (max 20MPH/30KMPH) should be bicycle and pedestrian-first. Cars there should be "guests" catering to the slower non-motorized traffic.
This way we have the best of both worlds: nice & livable urban roads and faster driving in connecting roads.
I the city cars are already not much faster than bikes. For distances below 10km or so there is hardly any difference. During rush hours bikes are much faster.
I'd wager that you can reduce the top speed cars are allowed to travel significantly before the effective speed goes down by much, especially if you can improve traffic flow by e.g. vehicle-vehicle communication.
We'll always keep roads with high speed limits just for cars (highways). But this expectation that you should be able to drive within your neighborhood at 50 mph is not sustainable.
>the best solution isn't to try to slow down the cars but rather to make mixed-use urban areas the default so that walking and biking become the norm.
hopefully you're not suggesting that cars should be travelling 50km/hr in mixed-use urban areas? Because "slowing down the cars" is a synonym for mixed-use area. That's the same thing, if you continue with car-only roads there's no need to slow down the cars.
This is actually happening. Portland has recently fallen in line with other cities, like Seattle, and lowered thousands of miles of streets from 25 MPH to 20 MPH.
That's interesting, because Cambridge, MA made a big deal about lowering the limit to 25 MPH in 2016 - which is still way too fast for most neighborhoods. I'd much rather see it taken down to 20 and even 15 for side streets. The funny thing though is, I haven't noticed one iota of difference in the speed that cars are actually traveling.
That seems to be happening, at least in some European cities. Paris for instance is (very) slowly chasing cars outside of the city. London has the congestion tax. The problem of course is that you need the infrastructure to replace all the cars and public transportation in Paris is close to saturated. Still, it's probably a move in the right direction IMO.
> Now is an opportunity, perhaps first in ~100 years, perhaps last, to recover the streets for unaugmented humans: slow down cars in urban areas, increase qualifications for humans to drive, eventually ban human drivers entirely, leaving only automated vehicles with enough sensors and going slowly enough to reduce auto-related deaths for pedestrians and passengers alike to zero.
What about people who genuinely love to drive cars & ride motorcycles? Are we a danger this utopian self automated future? I just don't see it happening. There's so many people that are enamored with cars and motorcycles, who love the sensation, independence and freedom derived from the experience. Older manual Ferraris or air-cooled Porsches appreciate in value for a reason.
I almost lament at the future where an entire generation will grow up without experiencing such "archaic, manual and dangerous vehicles" because it will be too expensive, much as classic supercars will remain out of reach for majority of the population.
> What about people who genuinely love to drive cars & ride motorcycles?
I suspect we can find a place for them outside of our most densely populated urban cores. The popularity of cars isn't in itself a scandal. The scandal is that cars still enjoy undue priority in places like Midtown Manhattan, it's that urban neighborhoods were destroyed and divided by interstate highways, it's that most cities no longer function properly for the carless.
As a hobbyist horseback rider, I can tell you what happened to people who genuinely love to ride horses: they became a hobby accessible to those with enough interest and money, and more common in rural areas (since as other comments have pointed out, horses - like cars - make much less sense in dense urban areas).
In my part of the rural US, one can get an isolated hour of horseback riding for $20 or so, or maintain a personal horse for a few hundred a month (if kept at a stable run as a business for that purpose; cheaper if you have your own property suitable for housing the horse).
I can see car garages and designated driving areas becoming the riding stables of the future.
I truly cringe at the thought of a ban on human drivers. There's a considerable amount of freedom in that ability to get in the car, and drive. Otherwise you're beholden to a machine, a corporation, and likely, a government. Trapped and unable to go anywhere unless they authorize it.
This is a huge deal to me that keeps me up at night.
I already see this with public transit. Public transport is a method of population control. You can keep classes of people confined to their neighborhoods simply based on how and where you choose to route buses/trains.
I can get in my car and go anywhere. That to me is the true spirit of America.
Remind me who's building the road infrastructure again?
Your freedom comes at a high price, direct and indirect. Countries with functioning public transportation are providing a lot of this freedom, to a broader population and at a fraction of the cost compared to personal cars.
I think the answer to pedestrians versus cars is the same as for cars versus trains: grade separation.
Turn the sidewalks into elevated walkways. Or use pedestrian tunnels underneath the road surface. Pedestrian crosswalks are a money-saving measure, ignoring one of the many externalities involved in automobile manufacture. Cars simply should not be driving on pedestrian walkways, and pedestrians should not be walking anywhere that does not have a significant physical barrier between them and the massive objects moving at high speed.
Elevated walkways? Half my city doesn't even have traditional sidewalks today, who's going to agree to pay to elevate them?
Around my area, people don't walk for pleasure, mostly, they walk because they're too poor for a car and the public transit system is terrible. Forcing them to climb stairs (assuming they're even physically able; a fair number of pedestrians near here are in wheelchairs) to get out of the way of cars is a non-starter.
Some traffic engineers¹ argue that the problem comes from humans adopting the mechanical role of a "driver" who is entitled to seek the quickest route by a set of rules which they understand and adhere to imperfectly. Instead of trying to encourage everyone to pretend to be a robo-driver they emphasize returning to self-evidently confusing and complex environments which put the onus on the driver to negotiate.
This was tried on a fairly large scale in Milton Keynes, a new planned city in the UK founded in 1967. The traffic grid is high-speed (and roundabout-heavy), and there was an extensive network of grade-separated pedestrian and cycle lanes.
The results are... mixed. Some people love the place, but the grade separated cycle paths are not popular. Well worth looking at, if this is an area you're interested in.
Umm, sidewalks are a separate right of way with significant barriers (parked cars)? Most train crossings are at-grade and use simple traffic lights. In congested areas, they install gates that prevent cars from barreling into trains.
Underground tunnels have a mythos of danger surrounding them. Somehow a tunnel as long as the width of the road is supposed to be a hiding spot for a mugger.
I think we should limit the mass of urban cars, so that they would not be heavier than a golf cart. This way, most accidents would be of no consequence (I remember an out-of-control cart in a football stadium that hit several people and none were hurt), and we could let even younger people drive.
It really makes no sense for an 80Kg person to go around in a 1000kg vehicle.
Mass is only part of the equation. If you move a golf cart at 45mph it's still going to do damage if it hits someone. We have to reduce speed as well and that means it takes longer to get to your destination. There are solutions there (mixed use/high density residential?) but it's not as simple as "smaller cars".
The 1000kg vehicle protects the 80kg person from harm because the 80kg person is not designed to go 100kph.
People tend to get less motion sickness when they are in control of the motion (i.e. drivers are not as susceptible to motion sickness as their passengers). So in this future world you might still be allowed to hold the steering wheel (if you paid for the option of having one in the car at all), but the car will take control from you immediately as soon as it decides that someone might be in danger (just like some present-day cars can auto-brake if they sense an impending collision).
The appearance of control might be a better solution for that problem, as the many of the efficiencies gained with self driving cars are not just accidents avoidance.
Part of that makes sense - only automated vehicles will be a great boon. Going slower in already-congested urban areas is a non-starter; it doesn't solve the problem and makes it worse. Automation could tremendously improve the accident rate all by itself anyway.
And until ALL the human drivers are gone, automated ones are going to have to drive 'on eggshells' in case an uninstrumented car happens by. IF it were known for a fact that all cars were instrumented (so the software knew where ALL of them were) then we could even do away with stop lights etc - the cars could regulate intersections 'in the cloud'. And so on.
Which leaves the interesting problem - what do we do to cross the chasm - from all human drivers to all automated drivers? There are few good solutions in the middle.
I would be stunned to see this happen in the US. Culturally we are a long way from accepting such draconian ideas and I don't see that we're getting closer. And even as liberal as I am, I'm glad.
Reporters could send in the basic details of a traffic accident and would get in return a complete article to print the next day. These articles, printed widely, shifted the blame for accidents to pedestrians
To me, that is the craziest sentence in the article. Reporters were outsourcing writing to the auto industry? Of course they blamed the pedestrians! In what world is this ethical?
What is next? Sending overdose details to pharma companies for them to blame the drug users?
The auto companies presumably were providing significant advertising to the newspapers. It's reasonable go along with what a significant customer wants. The papers were probably spinning everything for their major advertisers as a matter of course.
Even today it is fun to compare media articles with the original police press release. The media tends to spin such articles against any involved cyclists/pedestrians for free. There doesn't have to be much of a conspiracy, most of the media's consumers are drivers and don't want to hear bad things about that group.
No one's linking to pg's famous article about it the dynamic? [1] He makes the point that that kind of thing happens because reporters are pressed for time and good journalism is hard. And generally, a PR person who feeds them such an article won't lie, they'll just selectively include facts.
I'm just impressed it was going on even then.
I agree that this kind of thing should be disclosed, just as same as if it were "here's $500 and remember where it came from". It's something of value being provided by an interested party that taints the publication. Not so much that it shouldn't be printed, but definitely enough that it should be disclosed ("I'm just parroting what GM told me").
How many people would be willing to let someone else do their job for them when the cost is adding a little extra bias, something that isn't even a big deal in a single case (but which adds up over time)? It feels like ethics will quickly take a back seat for some small boon.
Suddenly that ecologically unsound packaging was no longer their problem; disposing of it properly was the consumer and the government's shared responsibility.
In much the same way I'm happy we no longer empty chamber pots by heaving the contents out the front window, I don't really care where litter or rubbish comes from but I'd prefer it not pile up on the sidewalk.
Same, or that we have to dodge or wait for pedestrians when we're trying to get somewhere. I mean we do but only rarely if people abide by the laws / common sense.
I can't watch the vid right now, but I don't see how it's not the consumer's responsibility of where they put their trash. It's also the consumer's responsibility to demand environmentally friendly packaging.
Can HN please stop it with this "not owning a car is virtuous" shtick? I went most of my younger life not having a car, only learning to drive at age 28. I lived in a new england suburb close enough to go to my work and shopping services at a ten minute walk at the time, and it still was horrid.
People here don't get how limited your life is without a car. You are limited to a ten-fifteen mile radius for everything, unless you use inefficient public transport which tacks on a huge time tax for even basic trips. You are captive to that transport, which means something like being called in is hard to impossible, as well as many duties of your workplace; dropping deposits off to a bank after hours as a manager, for example. That transport doesn't even expand your range that much, maybe one or two towns over; the time for further is so long as to be prohibitive.
Even with walking, you wind up spending far more time and expense on basic tasks. Instead of shopping one day you need to shop five, just because you can't fit more than a couple bags of goods. If you are on the bus, you can't even easily use perishables; 30-45 min one way is the norm. You can't do things like buy a mattress without tacked on delivery fees and more time spent waiting to receive it. If anything happens where you simply can't walk like doctor or dentist visits (because doctors don't always stay in walking distance of most people) that's an expensive cab or uber both ways. Sometimes its even worse...jury duty can be in the county courthouse 30 min by car and an hour and a half by bus.
You have no social life with no car. Not every town can simply cluster everything in one place; the downtown can easily be 30 minutes away from where people live. It took me an hour to walk to the comic shop one way; the bus would had made that longer, not shorter. Dates are impossible because of that; if the nearest date spot or bar isn't within five minutes, what do you do?
A life without personal cars would be a rather limited and even serfish one. Everyone assumes driverless cars might save us, but they have yet to prove they can even navigate a highway during a New England winter, which is what you'd need to do to replace a commute. People talk about bicycles, but 0 degree or snowy weather makes that horrid, as well as high heat. Please stop assuming cars are this evil thing that more walking and biking will solve; they wont, not at all.
> A life without personal cars would be a rather limited and even serfish one.
This is highly dependent on your location and life circumstances. I live in Eastern Europe, have resources to easily buy a couple of cars, yet choose not to. I prefer to walk or cycle.
> People talk about bicycles, but 0 degree or snowy weather makes that horrid
In Amsterdam, people cycle in -10°C when there's 10cm of snow on the ground (I did so myself). While a little unpleasant, apart from walking it was the only viable means of transport: the metro and trains were cancelled because of snow, and cars and buses were mostly stuck in traffic jams because there were so many crashes everywhere. (Someone tell the Dutch about winter tires!)
I have walked in that temperature. Its only something the young and very healthy can do, and the wind cuts like a knife. I wouldn't bike in that weather due to wind chill and the slushy nature of most roads, as well as the fact its very hilly where I live.
I cannot see an entire society doing this, in areas that range from small towns to medium sized cities.
I'm in my 30s / no license / live in nyc my whole life
I would be surprised to learn someone over the age of 16 doesn't have their license in a new england suburb. In my limited experience public transit is terrible in smaller US cities.
The truth is in NYC I don't even think about owning a car. In fact the opposite is true, sometimes I think to myself "wow, I'm so glad I can live my life and don't have to worry about all that car related stuff."
I'm not saying that's true anywhere else. I'm not telling you to feel guilty about owning a car. All I'm saying is that in NYC in 2018, no, life really isn't limited without a car. This isn't virtue signaling this is a calculated part of life for many people living in major cities. Public transit isn't perfect but the cost/benefit of car ownership overhead just isn't worth it in some places.
Edit: I retract what I said below taking verylittlemeat's comments into account.
i dont know what the value of 'i live in nyc and i dont need a car' provides. everyone already knows most people in nyc doesnt need a car. the problem is getting people in the densely packed urban areas to understand not all people can (or wants to) live without a car. likewise europeans, we get it, a lot of you dont need a car.
there is very few places in the US most people can function without a car. Philadelphia, NYC, and DC that I can think of. I guess SF, but walking around there was really hard for me.
In Philly, I can walk nearly everywhere and get what I need. like you, it would cost me a ton of money even if I were given a car. I dont need it, and I dont want one. However, I am also a bit trapped in the city. if I want to do any hiking or anything 'outdoorsy', I either have to ask someone to give me a ride or I simply cant do it.
Counter point. Late 30s here, family, no car, no license. I use cabs all the time, it's great. I have a fine social life and can drink safely. I can rent houses and move about for work, then change countries without offloading assets at fire-sale prices. I choose not to live in an unpleasant climate, so snow is a non-issue for me. Have you considered the option that maybe you just don't get it?
Cars are responsible for many problems including wasted space, noise, visual and air pollution, danger, and unpleasant urban space breakdowns.
The Highway and Automobile culture are symbols of totalitarian cultures which deny people more sustainable and equitable alternatives for mobility and transport - Vandana Shiva, February 19, 2004.
The reality is that most people live in dense Asian urban environments, and this trend is increasing. More and more people rely solely on public transport, and this is a good thing for society and the environment. If everyone carried on like Americans or Australians, global warming would be insane. Let's encourage pluralism and change. Cars have had their chance - the 1950s called and wants its suburban utopia back.
That's called "being wealthy." Being wealthy enables you to escape a lot of the problems that not having a car involves, because you can just throw money at the problem to overcome it. A lot of people are not wealthy and cannot do this.
There's also a bit of good fortune involved. I was young, single, and healthy. But I'm older now, and there are times when I simply cannot afford to use public transit or walk. If you get the flu, you don't even have the choice; walking fifteen minutes to get medicine or food is agony. And you always have to walk fifteen minutes, just to get to the transit spot. You feel the weather a lot more as you age; a brisk rain shower is rougher on you at 40 than at 20.
And come on, what can be more totalitarian than restricting the ability of people to move beyond a tiny radius apart from communal vehicles that can be shut down on a whim?
I agree that not owning a car would be better than owning. But simply saying "you should move to a better place" is not only a privileged statement but also a callous one. You assume people are not in a place for important reasons like staying close to family, working for a company they like, simply loving where they live or not being able to afford living to an urban environment. These are all valid and if not owning a car is too prohibitive to basic life needs than a person should own a car.
Also, the Americans or Australians comment is a bit of a broad stoke, no?
>Counter point. Late 30s here, family, no car, no license. I use cabs all the time, it's great. I have a fine social life and can drink safely. I can rent houses and move about for work, then change countries without offloading assets at fire-sale prices. I choose not to live in an unpleasant climate, so snow is a non-issue for me. Have you considered the option that maybe you just don't get it?
There's nothing to "get". His experiences are his experiences. I've also tried the living-without-a-car thing, and in both Atlanta and the Bay Area, it's about as fun as... I don't know, walking on hot coals or something. The fact that you feel otherwise (while living on a salary that allows you to talk about "offloading assets") doesn't invalidate his actual life.
How is calling a taxi every time you need a car any better than using a car you own in these areas? I do agree that the need for parking spaces is improved.
All of your complaints are US centric. I'm visiting the US right now for the first time, and it's incredible how reliant on cars you are. We had to drive for dinner tonight, and we did not see _one_ pedestrian.
In the UK, a 10 mile radius will probably encompass 4 or 5 different towns, each of which will have their own centre, and will provide _most_ of what you require, and public transport is sufficient for most people (there will always be exceptions).
> A life without personal cars would be a rather limited and even serfish one.
I invite you to come and live in the UK. Many of the cities, and even towns, are perfectly liveable in without personal cars. Yes there are things you can do with a personal car that you can't do without one, but that applies to most products in our lives.
>Not every town can simply cluster everything in one place
Of course they can. Why can't they? They have chosen not to. We can agree on that. But you think they can't? Why not? What do you think people did before cars?
Is there an argument against "not owning a car is virtuous" here? "The world owes me year round luxury climate controlled transport in Maine"? Daily private car use is nearly always ecologically unsustainable. Refraining from selfish acts, and accepting some discomfort, to benefit others is pretty close to the dictionary definition of virtuous.
You're in a tough spot because where you live forces you to have a car. Nothing wrong with that.
But not having a car is virtuous! It takes an incredible toll on our world to enable cars. Mining is the most polluting industry of all time, followed closely by oil extraction and then refining. Then you gotta burn all that oil to actually drive the car.
In the UK jaywalking doesn't exist; technically people still have right of way on roads, but try telling that to a car. In the 1930s, when the first footbridge over a road, Western Avenue in London was built, there were protests:
The Bridge of Fools, the first footbridge over a road in Britain
In 1938 the inhabitants started to protest about the rising death toll on Western Avenue, the "Avenue of Speed and Death". They petitioned the Ministry of Transport to impose a speed limit of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. The ministry said that would be an "ingenious provision" to save lives, but it would be against "the whole object of constructing a road free from congested traffic".
On 21 July 1938 the protestors filed across Western Avenue from the Approach, and then back, causing a huge tailback. The next day the Ministry arranged to build two bridges, one here and one by Gipsy Corner, much to the disgust of the protestors, who thought it would encourage cars to drive faster and to force pedestrians off more roads onto bridges and subways. A week later a thousand people demonstrated again for "their right to cross on the level".
In September the hastily erected bridge was complete, and five hundred people demonstrated against it again. The bridge became a tourist attraction and it was "quite usual to see people from other districts coming to look at it".
In October torchlight processions were held on the road every evening for a week, with a dog with a red light attached to it and four bearers carrying a coffin, and placards saying "We want crossings not coffins".
The war brought and end to the protests, and for a few years the traffic.
(from Leadville: A Biography of the A40 by Edward Platt)
Point taken. However, when new tech comes along, new laws follow in their wake.
When people moved from farm to city and suddenly we had massive amounts of worker abuse, labor laws got introduced.
Barnstorming aviation gave way to regulated aviation.
It's not exactly the same, but it's similar in that it's a reaction to change in the operating environment. I mean, before cars, streets tended to be narrow and generally ad hoc. Today streets are prescripted and need to meet various contextual requirements (volume, traffic flow, vehicle types, pedestrians, weight limit, wear characteristics, etc.)
When a car gets crushed on the tracks, it's usually not blamed on the train. It's typically thought of as the responsibility of the car driver.
Now, sure, trains are constrained by tracks and don't enjoy manoeuverability, but same with ships, the little ones get out of the way.
Cars can't stop on a dime, so we put the ones on the entity with the most manoeuverability, in this case people.
It follows urban design, in most of Europe jaywalking isn't a concept, because most urban roads are not large or fast-moving enough to justify it. Most people would not cross dual carriageways just by default, but that is a rare enough case not to require enforcement. And people carrying those ideas of pedestrian-friendly streets into the way new urban areas are designed. When urban motorways and dual-carriageways are the default, then the idea of what is normal is different, and those ideas are applied more generally to enforcement on other roads and planning new roads.
It would be interesting to see data about the existence of the crime, and its enforcement. I know about the US and Europe, not so much elsewhere.
> I mean, before cars, streets tended to be narrow and generally ad hoc.
It's also worthwhile to consider all that cars have added to our society. People stayed in the streets because that's as far as they could go. Vendors came to the streets because that's where their customers could get to. Travel was limited, the movement of goods was basically nonexistent compared to today and "moving for a job" was not even a possibility for the majority of Americans.
We introduced cars, then made them faster because that enabled more of what we wanted for ourselves, and sure, we made a sacrifice in that trade but I don't understand this modern trend of decrying our future for love of navel gazing through the past.
The role of technology in society is a perpetual balancing act negotiated by the actions of the people. Perhaps it isn't so much "navel gazing through the past" as recognizing that the balance has, for some, shifted too far in the direction of sacrifice.
Luckily, there are other societies that have managed to achieve most of the benefits of cars with fewer of the costs. We can learn from them as we try to find a balance that is acceptable to a broader population.
I sold my car 3 years ago, and am lucky to live in a city where I no longer need one to get around. If someone wants to ban/inconvenience cars in a place where public transit is up to snuff, more power to them. But until then, let's get realistic. Most Americans need to drive in order to live their personal/work lives. We can punitively punish drivers all we want, but ultimately, the only people we're punishing is ourselves.
Having a combination of sidewalks and roads is the best of both worlds - both pedestrians and cars are free to go as fast as they want, without having to get in each other's way. I've personally experienced the chaos of driving through unruly streets, where pedestrians can get in your way at any second. It's intensely stressful and frustrating to spend half an hour on a drive that could have been easily accomplished in 15. I'll take the smooth roads, demarcated lanes and traffic lights, thank you very much.
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But I agree that if autonomous cars come to pass, there will be a lot of pressure to go down the route you discuss.
I doubt that attitude will ever catch on. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but it seems to me that there's a healthy suspicion about AI drivers.
So far at least, the attitude taken by, well, everyone, is that AI drivers are untrustworthy until proven trustworthy. If AI drivers can't cope with the various challenges of real driving, then the AI drivers are to blame, not the external factors.
If they work well, AI drivers will be permitted to drive. If they do not, they will not be permitted to drive. At no point will they get to dictate what other road-users may do. Our Ludditism will see to that.
Literally just stand in front of them and there will be nothing they can do. Once people get used to zero social repercussions (driverless cars will be empty probably 50% of the time en-route to pick someone up or go park themselves by my estimation) I imagine you will see things like certain folks simply crossing streets blindly comfortable in the fact that the cars will stop for them regardless of right of way.
Many will disagree that this will happen, but I think many underestimate the antisocialness of folks when there are no consequences.
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I don't think that will ever happen. It may even be the opposite: AI will drive in a way it will always be able to stop if there's a possibility that there's someone behind some obstacle that may jump to the road at any moment.
Worst case scenario, beacons become mandatory. Cheap and anonymous beacons you have to carry when you're near a road. Smart phones may include such functionality.
the best solution isn't to try to slow down the cars but rather to make mixed-use urban areas the default so that walking and biking become the norm. you also get all kinds of other benefits with that (less traffic, healthier air, more fit people, etc)
i agree that driving qualifications should be more strict, but probably in a different dimension than you: test drivers on situational awareness and predictive decision making. fail people for both distracted driving and indecision (and lack of follow-through), as well as not communicating intent (e.g, signaling) to other drivers.
Slower roads (max 20MPH/30KMPH) should be bicycle and pedestrian-first. Cars there should be "guests" catering to the slower non-motorized traffic.
This way we have the best of both worlds: nice & livable urban roads and faster driving in connecting roads.
I'd wager that you can reduce the top speed cars are allowed to travel significantly before the effective speed goes down by much, especially if you can improve traffic flow by e.g. vehicle-vehicle communication.
hopefully you're not suggesting that cars should be travelling 50km/hr in mixed-use urban areas? Because "slowing down the cars" is a synonym for mixed-use area. That's the same thing, if you continue with car-only roads there's no need to slow down the cars.
This is actually happening. Portland has recently fallen in line with other cities, like Seattle, and lowered thousands of miles of streets from 25 MPH to 20 MPH.
http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2018/01/portla...
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/red-light-cameras-can-catch-yo...
What about people who genuinely love to drive cars & ride motorcycles? Are we a danger this utopian self automated future? I just don't see it happening. There's so many people that are enamored with cars and motorcycles, who love the sensation, independence and freedom derived from the experience. Older manual Ferraris or air-cooled Porsches appreciate in value for a reason.
I almost lament at the future where an entire generation will grow up without experiencing such "archaic, manual and dangerous vehicles" because it will be too expensive, much as classic supercars will remain out of reach for majority of the population.
I suspect we can find a place for them outside of our most densely populated urban cores. The popularity of cars isn't in itself a scandal. The scandal is that cars still enjoy undue priority in places like Midtown Manhattan, it's that urban neighborhoods were destroyed and divided by interstate highways, it's that most cities no longer function properly for the carless.
In my part of the rural US, one can get an isolated hour of horseback riding for $20 or so, or maintain a personal horse for a few hundred a month (if kept at a stable run as a business for that purpose; cheaper if you have your own property suitable for housing the horse).
I can see car garages and designated driving areas becoming the riding stables of the future.
There will be car clubs where people interested driving car can go and have the experience.
Aside, you might find this short-fiction story from Vice interesting: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xygzvz/one-star
I already see this with public transit. Public transport is a method of population control. You can keep classes of people confined to their neighborhoods simply based on how and where you choose to route buses/trains.
I can get in my car and go anywhere. That to me is the true spirit of America.
Your freedom comes at a high price, direct and indirect. Countries with functioning public transportation are providing a lot of this freedom, to a broader population and at a fraction of the cost compared to personal cars.
Turn the sidewalks into elevated walkways. Or use pedestrian tunnels underneath the road surface. Pedestrian crosswalks are a money-saving measure, ignoring one of the many externalities involved in automobile manufacture. Cars simply should not be driving on pedestrian walkways, and pedestrians should not be walking anywhere that does not have a significant physical barrier between them and the massive objects moving at high speed.
Around my area, people don't walk for pleasure, mostly, they walk because they're too poor for a car and the public transit system is terrible. Forcing them to climb stairs (assuming they're even physically able; a fair number of pedestrians near here are in wheelchairs) to get out of the way of cars is a non-starter.
1. http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/controlled-chaos...
The results are... mixed. Some people love the place, but the grade separated cycle paths are not popular. Well worth looking at, if this is an area you're interested in.
It really makes no sense for an 80Kg person to go around in a 1000kg vehicle.
The 1000kg vehicle protects the 80kg person from harm because the 80kg person is not designed to go 100kph.
And until ALL the human drivers are gone, automated ones are going to have to drive 'on eggshells' in case an uninstrumented car happens by. IF it were known for a fact that all cars were instrumented (so the software knew where ALL of them were) then we could even do away with stop lights etc - the cars could regulate intersections 'in the cloud'. And so on.
Which leaves the interesting problem - what do we do to cross the chasm - from all human drivers to all automated drivers? There are few good solutions in the middle.
a) during transition, human-driven cars must be instrumented. Automatic moving violation for speeding.
b) automatic moving violation for driving a non-instrumented vehicle in a zone where they are mandatory.
Such a utopia: not only do the police have a monopoly on violence, but also private transportation.
To me, that is the craziest sentence in the article. Reporters were outsourcing writing to the auto industry? Of course they blamed the pedestrians! In what world is this ethical?
What is next? Sending overdose details to pharma companies for them to blame the drug users?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/car-accident-car-crash-...
https://www.transalt.org/news/releases/9545
https://archives.cjr.org/language_corner/language_corner_100...
Even today it is fun to compare media articles with the original police press release. The media tends to spin such articles against any involved cyclists/pedestrians for free. There doesn't have to be much of a conspiracy, most of the media's consumers are drivers and don't want to hear bad things about that group.
I'm just impressed it was going on even then.
I agree that this kind of thing should be disclosed, just as same as if it were "here's $500 and remember where it came from". It's something of value being provided by an interested party that taints the publication. Not so much that it shouldn't be printed, but definitely enough that it should be disclosed ("I'm just parroting what GM told me").
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
How many people would be willing to let someone else do their job for them when the cost is adding a little extra bias, something that isn't even a big deal in a single case (but which adds up over time)? It feels like ethics will quickly take a back seat for some small boon.
News and Advertising have always been closely linked.
Suddenly that ecologically unsound packaging was no longer their problem; disposing of it properly was the consumer and the government's shared responsibility.
People here don't get how limited your life is without a car. You are limited to a ten-fifteen mile radius for everything, unless you use inefficient public transport which tacks on a huge time tax for even basic trips. You are captive to that transport, which means something like being called in is hard to impossible, as well as many duties of your workplace; dropping deposits off to a bank after hours as a manager, for example. That transport doesn't even expand your range that much, maybe one or two towns over; the time for further is so long as to be prohibitive.
Even with walking, you wind up spending far more time and expense on basic tasks. Instead of shopping one day you need to shop five, just because you can't fit more than a couple bags of goods. If you are on the bus, you can't even easily use perishables; 30-45 min one way is the norm. You can't do things like buy a mattress without tacked on delivery fees and more time spent waiting to receive it. If anything happens where you simply can't walk like doctor or dentist visits (because doctors don't always stay in walking distance of most people) that's an expensive cab or uber both ways. Sometimes its even worse...jury duty can be in the county courthouse 30 min by car and an hour and a half by bus.
You have no social life with no car. Not every town can simply cluster everything in one place; the downtown can easily be 30 minutes away from where people live. It took me an hour to walk to the comic shop one way; the bus would had made that longer, not shorter. Dates are impossible because of that; if the nearest date spot or bar isn't within five minutes, what do you do?
A life without personal cars would be a rather limited and even serfish one. Everyone assumes driverless cars might save us, but they have yet to prove they can even navigate a highway during a New England winter, which is what you'd need to do to replace a commute. People talk about bicycles, but 0 degree or snowy weather makes that horrid, as well as high heat. Please stop assuming cars are this evil thing that more walking and biking will solve; they wont, not at all.
This is highly dependent on your location and life circumstances. I live in Eastern Europe, have resources to easily buy a couple of cars, yet choose not to. I prefer to walk or cycle.
> People talk about bicycles, but 0 degree or snowy weather makes that horrid
In Amsterdam, people cycle in -10°C when there's 10cm of snow on the ground (I did so myself). While a little unpleasant, apart from walking it was the only viable means of transport: the metro and trains were cancelled because of snow, and cars and buses were mostly stuck in traffic jams because there were so many crashes everywhere. (Someone tell the Dutch about winter tires!)
I cannot see an entire society doing this, in areas that range from small towns to medium sized cities.
I assume that the parent post meant 0°F which is around -18°C.
I would be surprised to learn someone over the age of 16 doesn't have their license in a new england suburb. In my limited experience public transit is terrible in smaller US cities.
The truth is in NYC I don't even think about owning a car. In fact the opposite is true, sometimes I think to myself "wow, I'm so glad I can live my life and don't have to worry about all that car related stuff."
I'm not saying that's true anywhere else. I'm not telling you to feel guilty about owning a car. All I'm saying is that in NYC in 2018, no, life really isn't limited without a car. This isn't virtue signaling this is a calculated part of life for many people living in major cities. Public transit isn't perfect but the cost/benefit of car ownership overhead just isn't worth it in some places.
i dont know what the value of 'i live in nyc and i dont need a car' provides. everyone already knows most people in nyc doesnt need a car. the problem is getting people in the densely packed urban areas to understand not all people can (or wants to) live without a car. likewise europeans, we get it, a lot of you dont need a car.
there is very few places in the US most people can function without a car. Philadelphia, NYC, and DC that I can think of. I guess SF, but walking around there was really hard for me.
In Philly, I can walk nearly everywhere and get what I need. like you, it would cost me a ton of money even if I were given a car. I dont need it, and I dont want one. However, I am also a bit trapped in the city. if I want to do any hiking or anything 'outdoorsy', I either have to ask someone to give me a ride or I simply cant do it.
Cars are responsible for many problems including wasted space, noise, visual and air pollution, danger, and unpleasant urban space breakdowns.
The Highway and Automobile culture are symbols of totalitarian cultures which deny people more sustainable and equitable alternatives for mobility and transport - Vandana Shiva, February 19, 2004.
The reality is that most people live in dense Asian urban environments, and this trend is increasing. More and more people rely solely on public transport, and this is a good thing for society and the environment. If everyone carried on like Americans or Australians, global warming would be insane. Let's encourage pluralism and change. Cars have had their chance - the 1950s called and wants its suburban utopia back.
There's also a bit of good fortune involved. I was young, single, and healthy. But I'm older now, and there are times when I simply cannot afford to use public transit or walk. If you get the flu, you don't even have the choice; walking fifteen minutes to get medicine or food is agony. And you always have to walk fifteen minutes, just to get to the transit spot. You feel the weather a lot more as you age; a brisk rain shower is rougher on you at 40 than at 20.
And come on, what can be more totalitarian than restricting the ability of people to move beyond a tiny radius apart from communal vehicles that can be shut down on a whim?
Also, the Americans or Australians comment is a bit of a broad stoke, no?
There's nothing to "get". His experiences are his experiences. I've also tried the living-without-a-car thing, and in both Atlanta and the Bay Area, it's about as fun as... I don't know, walking on hot coals or something. The fact that you feel otherwise (while living on a salary that allows you to talk about "offloading assets") doesn't invalidate his actual life.
How is calling a taxi every time you need a car any better than using a car you own in these areas? I do agree that the need for parking spaces is improved.
Um. Do you have... kids? Spouse?
In the UK, a 10 mile radius will probably encompass 4 or 5 different towns, each of which will have their own centre, and will provide _most_ of what you require, and public transport is sufficient for most people (there will always be exceptions).
> A life without personal cars would be a rather limited and even serfish one.
I invite you to come and live in the UK. Many of the cities, and even towns, are perfectly liveable in without personal cars. Yes there are things you can do with a personal car that you can't do without one, but that applies to most products in our lives.
Of course they can. Why can't they? They have chosen not to. We can agree on that. But you think they can't? Why not? What do you think people did before cars?
But not having a car is virtuous! It takes an incredible toll on our world to enable cars. Mining is the most polluting industry of all time, followed closely by oil extraction and then refining. Then you gotta burn all that oil to actually drive the car.
The Bridge of Fools, the first footbridge over a road in Britain
In 1938 the inhabitants started to protest about the rising death toll on Western Avenue, the "Avenue of Speed and Death". They petitioned the Ministry of Transport to impose a speed limit of twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. The ministry said that would be an "ingenious provision" to save lives, but it would be against "the whole object of constructing a road free from congested traffic".
On 21 July 1938 the protestors filed across Western Avenue from the Approach, and then back, causing a huge tailback. The next day the Ministry arranged to build two bridges, one here and one by Gipsy Corner, much to the disgust of the protestors, who thought it would encourage cars to drive faster and to force pedestrians off more roads onto bridges and subways. A week later a thousand people demonstrated again for "their right to cross on the level".
In September the hastily erected bridge was complete, and five hundred people demonstrated against it again. The bridge became a tourist attraction and it was "quite usual to see people from other districts coming to look at it".
In October torchlight processions were held on the road every evening for a week, with a dog with a red light attached to it and four bearers carrying a coffin, and placards saying "We want crossings not coffins".
The war brought and end to the protests, and for a few years the traffic.
(from Leadville: A Biography of the A40 by Edward Platt)
It makes sense, having the right of way won’t save you if you decide to dart out in front of a car without warning
When people moved from farm to city and suddenly we had massive amounts of worker abuse, labor laws got introduced.
Barnstorming aviation gave way to regulated aviation.
It's not exactly the same, but it's similar in that it's a reaction to change in the operating environment. I mean, before cars, streets tended to be narrow and generally ad hoc. Today streets are prescripted and need to meet various contextual requirements (volume, traffic flow, vehicle types, pedestrians, weight limit, wear characteristics, etc.)
When a car gets crushed on the tracks, it's usually not blamed on the train. It's typically thought of as the responsibility of the car driver.
Now, sure, trains are constrained by tracks and don't enjoy manoeuverability, but same with ships, the little ones get out of the way.
Cars can't stop on a dime, so we put the ones on the entity with the most manoeuverability, in this case people.
It would be interesting to see data about the existence of the crime, and its enforcement. I know about the US and Europe, not so much elsewhere.
It's also worthwhile to consider all that cars have added to our society. People stayed in the streets because that's as far as they could go. Vendors came to the streets because that's where their customers could get to. Travel was limited, the movement of goods was basically nonexistent compared to today and "moving for a job" was not even a possibility for the majority of Americans.
We introduced cars, then made them faster because that enabled more of what we wanted for ourselves, and sure, we made a sacrifice in that trade but I don't understand this modern trend of decrying our future for love of navel gazing through the past.
Luckily, there are other societies that have managed to achieve most of the benefits of cars with fewer of the costs. We can learn from them as we try to find a balance that is acceptable to a broader population.
Having a combination of sidewalks and roads is the best of both worlds - both pedestrians and cars are free to go as fast as they want, without having to get in each other's way. I've personally experienced the chaos of driving through unruly streets, where pedestrians can get in your way at any second. It's intensely stressful and frustrating to spend half an hour on a drive that could have been easily accomplished in 15. I'll take the smooth roads, demarcated lanes and traffic lights, thank you very much.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern...
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