alt Hacker NewsIt's a runaway process of prioritizing safety over convenience -- and it's wrecking their road base just before self-driving cars would allow them to have both.
Replies
If they're actually self-driving they should be able to drive around the obstacles just as well or better than human.
What an American framing. My convenience at the cost of your eventual safety. I guess this is why we also have toddler death machines with 5-foot grills that we call “full size” vehicles.
Gosh, no, the self-driving cars will be forced to drive at safe speeds in pedestrian corridors as opposed to voluntarily driving at safe speeds in pedestrian corridors. How awful.
> prioritizing safety over convenience
this sounds like exactly the right tradeoff, especially since these decisions actually increase convenience for those not in cars
I was wondering how much convenience is worth one kid's life. This thread reminded me of some interesting terms like "value of statistical life." It appears that all those annoying low speed limits and purposeful obstructions in residential areas really do save lives.
> An evaluation of 20 mph zones in the UK demonstrated that the zones were effective both in reducing traffic speed and in reducing RTIs. In particular child pedestrian injuries were reduced by 70 per cent from 1.24 per year in each area before to 0.37 per year after the zones were introduced
https://www.rospa.com/siteassets/images/road-safety/road-saf...
The "Vision Zero" program was started in Sweden, and is becoming more widely adopted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_Zero