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by walleeee 1453 days ago
I hope we continue to wise up

If a core goal is really to make thoroughfares safer and reduce traveler injuries/fatalities, we seem to be ignoring or discounting some pretty obvious options, like minimizing car traffic

This vision where we all get around in low-passenger-count autonomous robot cages on existing roadways is just one possible future but we seem to fixate on it. At the end of the day the car is a tool but we've allowed it to burrow into the collective psyche

What about making cities walkable, bikeable, segway-able, wheelchair-able, scooter-able, whatever, with proven public transportation options like trains or buses running fixed routes for longer commutes? Much more energy efficient, way easier than autonomous cars, and conducive to much more livable urban areas imo

It will take some effort to change habits and expectations and revamp infrastructure but surely that's as worthwhile as all the time and money going into FSD?

2 comments

Completely agree, there are lots of things that can be done to reduce car related fatalities, like reducing car usage, lowering the maximum speed, designing better roads (that encourage lower speeds), improve road signage, more stoplights, better pedestrian crossing and protection, reducing distances between useful places.

In parts of the city I live in it has become very uncomfortable to drive a car, there are just too many pedestrians and bikers, and this has encouraged be to bike even more. For distances of less than 6km there is no time advantage when using a car. And in the highway I just use normal driver assist functions like lane keeping and adaptive cruise control, and it's enough.

I will go even further and say that reducing injuries and fatalities is just an excuse for FSD development, so the public thinks it's a good idea to go with it. The real reason is that a fleet of autonomous taxis can be very profitable.

There is really no evidence that FSD fleets will reduce car usage or fatalities, so really it could be the wrong solution for the wrong problem.

"there is really no evidence". It's not a statistical question, we can deduce it. For example, autonomous cars don't drink and drive.
Then autonomous cars should be better than drunk drivers, but that's still not the case.
the ll$300 xiaomi electric scooter has beem a bigger improvement to piblic transport than the $50000 tesla.

Electric rideables are the future, and if we could give them storage on public transport and a lane of road, they would go a long way.