alt Hacker NewsWe've already lost the war on outward visibility. Virtually every bit of our safety regulatory system encourages or demands vehicles that you can't really see out of anymore. Side impact standards and higher door sills all around, curtain airbags, etc. Hell, they encourage (more profitable) SUVs because they don't have to be built to passenger car safety standards. And the market's doing the rest.
The only response from the safety industry is more doodads. Auto braking, backup cameras, lane departure warnings, blind spot warning.
Cars going too fast in your neighborhood? Build huge speed bumps you need an SUV to navigate to navigate at any speed over 5mph!
I don't think there's actually any hope for human-driven cars, long-term. The system doesn't want them.
We've lost a more general war against the social acceptability of demanding something must be done while simultaneously being stupid to think a few steps ahead.
All these concerns were raised back when vehicles were getting crappy to see out of in the late 00s but "something must be done" and "the statistics say" screeched the exact same demographics if not literal individuals, and so, things were done, and now here we are.
And this is just the tip of the goddamn iceberg. Seems like every axis of discourse and policy is afflicted by this. I have no idea how we fix it.