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I don’t think the main human behavioral problems are limited to cars. The things that frustrate me most during driving are equally present when running on a tr

I don’t think the main human behavioral problems are limited to cars. The things that frustrate me most during driving are equally present when running on a trail, waiting for a subway train or observing cyclists, for instance. They are: 1. Not knowing where the heck you are and what you are doing. Many people seem utterly unaware of themselves and the effect that their actions have on others. 2. Refusing to either speed up or move out of the way (doesn’t really matter which of those you do but if you refuse to do both then you will become a huge obstacle, whether it’s a sidewalk or a road). 3. Believing you are better at multitasking than you really are. If you’re blocking a sidewalk, you’re exhibiting poor “driving” in a walking scenario. If you’re blocking the entrance to the doors, you’re exhibiting poor “driving” in a train station. If you’re prioritizing your texting and interfering with me, you’re exhibiting poor “driving” in just about any situation (driving or walking or social for that matter). Automation is not required to fix the biggest frustrations with driving: rather, human beings need to start paying a lot more attention EVERYWHERE in life and being a lot more reasonable to one another.

AznHisoka 10y ago
the difference is that the former fristration can lead to injuries and serious accidents. the latter is just a minor inconvenience.
lsc 10y ago
The real problem is people who think that being slightly inconvenienced, say, by someone moving slower than they are on a sidewalk is somehow comparable to a driver who takes risks with the lives of everyone else around them in order to get to work a few minutes sooner.
- dsacco 10y ago
  I disagree, and I identify with the parent's comment quite a bit. The parent to your comment wrote a cogent "unifying theory" for explaining how humans are simply poor at situational awareness in general. Whether it's parking your shopping cart in an inconvenient place for passerby while you pick out a few oranges or driving significantly more slowly than you're expected to in the fast lane, the parent's narrative is compelling for connecting these behaviors. Now, "unifying theories" tend to be rather simplistic, and the parent did exactly publish a replicable study, but you didn't really rebut the thrust of the argument. Instead, you claimed the parent is the problem for expressing the argument in the first place. Even if the behaviors are not comparable in final effect (and I agree with you, they aren't), they are comparable in cause. On the face of it, there do appear to be strong, outward similarities in the frustrating obliviousness (or willful apathy) of people who inconvenience others while walking and people who inconvenience others while driving. One might result in death and the other might not, but that's really just a matter of nuance. The behaviors are fully comparable, it just happens that one takes place in an environment which is fundamentally more lethal. As an aside, I find my reactions are comparable as well. One of the most bloody frustrating things I frequently encounter is someone who suddenly stops their shopping cart in such a way that it blocks traffic, then walks away from it to roam for produce.
  - lsc 10y ago
    the problem I had is that I interpenetrated this as OP considering things that are merely annoying as just as important (or more important) than things that are really quite dangerous. That could, of course, be an incorrect interpretation of what was being said; I certainly agree that the immediate emotional response tends to more negatively weight things that are annoying and slowing me down more than things that are actually dangerous, which is part of why I think it's so important to say something about this sort of thing, and to make sure you change that weight. Guns get a lot of press and a lot of emotion; really, a lot of emotion that I think would be better focused against cars. If there's not a gun in your house, you are dramatically more likely to be killed in an auto accident than by a gun. (or, if you want to put it another way, as an American, if you remove suicides, you are a lot more likely to be killed by a car than by a gun.)
yason 10y ago
Walking is not often from-A-to-B traffic. Walking is part of human behaviour, a way to immerse and express with regard to themselves and their surroundings. Similarly to how humans pause to think while they're speaking―or writing, as I am now―they also tend to pause to wonder while they're walking. Humans aren't robots and a sidewalk, a cafe, or a department store are good places to exhibit this natural behaviour. That should not come as a surprise to anyone and people who need to rush fast through will simply dodge any such obstacles. And people blocking entryways get soon nudged to the side by the stream of people. It's not much different from that when a human is driving. The conditions do dictate some limits to how the driver can wander about (you can only mostly go straight on a highway) but everyone will stop to think something at times and maybe happens to slow down or slowly steer left/right until they refocus on driving again. However, on the road, this behaviour is very irritating for those who are in their from-A-to-B mode because, unlike in a busy railway station where they can just snake through the crowd, with the worst case of gently bumping into bypassers while at that, they can not easily go around the slower drivers in busy traffic. Driving is basically monotonic robot work, or should be. It's not a natural way of being that lends to distracted behaviour as walking about does.
M_Grey 10y ago
Any solution that boils down to, "Human nature needs to change" is just a fantasy.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  That assumes that it's down to human nature, which is a dangerous assumption to make given we have no conclusive definition of what "human nature" consists of. Having traveled over the world , I tend to chalk most human behavior up to cultural or personal quirks these days. If an issue is cultural in nature, the culture can be changed.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Given the rates of things such as traffic accidents around the world, I'd argue that you have your results.

AznHisoka 10y ago

the difference is that the former fristration can lead to injuries and serious accidents. the latter is just a minor inconvenience.

lsc 10y ago

The real problem is people who think that being slightly inconvenienced, say, by someone moving slower than they are on a sidewalk is somehow comparable to a driver who takes risks with the lives of everyone else around them in order to get to work a few minutes sooner.

dsacco 10y ago
I disagree, and I identify with the parent's comment quite a bit. The parent to your comment wrote a cogent "unifying theory" for explaining how humans are simply poor at situational awareness in general. Whether it's parking your shopping cart in an inconvenient place for passerby while you pick out a few oranges or driving significantly more slowly than you're expected to in the fast lane, the parent's narrative is compelling for connecting these behaviors. Now, "unifying theories" tend to be rather simplistic, and the parent did exactly publish a replicable study, but you didn't really rebut the thrust of the argument. Instead, you claimed the parent is the problem for expressing the argument in the first place. Even if the behaviors are not comparable in final effect (and I agree with you, they aren't), they are comparable in cause. On the face of it, there do appear to be strong, outward similarities in the frustrating obliviousness (or willful apathy) of people who inconvenience others while walking and people who inconvenience others while driving. One might result in death and the other might not, but that's really just a matter of nuance. The behaviors are fully comparable, it just happens that one takes place in an environment which is fundamentally more lethal. As an aside, I find my reactions are comparable as well. One of the most bloody frustrating things I frequently encounter is someone who suddenly stops their shopping cart in such a way that it blocks traffic, then walks away from it to roam for produce.
- lsc 10y ago
  the problem I had is that I interpenetrated this as OP considering things that are merely annoying as just as important (or more important) than things that are really quite dangerous. That could, of course, be an incorrect interpretation of what was being said; I certainly agree that the immediate emotional response tends to more negatively weight things that are annoying and slowing me down more than things that are actually dangerous, which is part of why I think it's so important to say something about this sort of thing, and to make sure you change that weight. Guns get a lot of press and a lot of emotion; really, a lot of emotion that I think would be better focused against cars. If there's not a gun in your house, you are dramatically more likely to be killed in an auto accident than by a gun. (or, if you want to put it another way, as an American, if you remove suicides, you are a lot more likely to be killed by a car than by a gun.)

yason 10y ago

Walking is not often from-A-to-B traffic. Walking is part of human behaviour, a way to immerse and express with regard to themselves and their surroundings. Similarly to how humans pause to think while they're speaking―or writing, as I am now―they also tend to pause to wonder while they're walking. Humans aren't robots and a sidewalk, a cafe, or a department store are good places to exhibit this natural behaviour. That should not come as a surprise to anyone and people who need to rush fast through will simply dodge any such obstacles. And people blocking entryways get soon nudged to the side by the stream of people. It's not much different from that when a human is driving. The conditions do dictate some limits to how the driver can wander about (you can only mostly go straight on a highway) but everyone will stop to think something at times and maybe happens to slow down or slowly steer left/right until they refocus on driving again. However, on the road, this behaviour is very irritating for those who are in their from-A-to-B mode because, unlike in a busy railway station where they can just snake through the crowd, with the worst case of gently bumping into bypassers while at that, they can not easily go around the slower drivers in busy traffic. Driving is basically monotonic robot work, or should be. It's not a natural way of being that lends to distracted behaviour as walking about does.

M_Grey 10y ago

Any solution that boils down to, "Human nature needs to change" is just a fantasy.

wavefunction 10y ago
That assumes that it's down to human nature, which is a dangerous assumption to make given we have no conclusive definition of what "human nature" consists of. Having traveled over the world , I tend to chalk most human behavior up to cultural or personal quirks these days. If an issue is cultural in nature, the culture can be changed.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Given the rates of things such as traffic accidents around the world, I'd argue that you have your results.