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> 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 quali
by pwaai 9y ago
> 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.
- dionidium 9y ago> 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.
- pwaai 9y ago> I suspect we can find a place for them outside of our most densely populated urban cores. That seems unconstitutional and a bit like North Korea where they restrict cars to specific areas and ban it in others.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> That seems unconstitutional There is no Constitutional right to bear cars.
- ChiliConKanye 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_United_States_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...
- Sharlin 9y agoPersonal cars are already banned in the centers of many cities. Or if not forthright banned, heavy congestion tolls levied. As it should be. It's about your freedom to drive vs. my freedom to not suffer from the negative externalities your driving causes.
- dozzie 9y ago> it's that most cities no longer function properly for the carless I think the world outside USA would want a word with you about that "most cities" part.
- closeparen 9y agoYou can have high-throughout roads into cities, or hypergentrification in urban neighborhoods as people move closer to minimize transportation needs. The existing suburban masses are not going to vanish into thin air.
- eqtn 9y agoIt will be illegal to drive a car. There will be car clubs where people interested driving car can go and have the experience.
- upvotinglurker 9y agoAs 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.