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"guarantees a collision free ride for all participants"? The only way to win is not to play. I was stationary in a traffic jam when I was rear-ended by the ca

"guarantees a collision free ride for all participants"? The only way to win is not to play. I was stationary in a traffic jam when I was rear-ended by the car in back of me. Fortunately, I was not hurt at all. How could I have avoided this? (see above)?

yholio 6y ago
I think you missed the "when correctly used" part. Clearly, the person who hit you was not correctly using the system which places the whole responsibility of this situation onto them. When obeying all rules of the road, situations where rear-ending someone is probable should not arise. The systemic failure here is expecting people not to phase out and pay less attention to the road when driving for hours at high speed on monotonous highways.
JadeNB 6y ago
> I was stationary in a traffic jam when I was rear-ended by the car in back of me. Fortunately, I was not hurt at all. I believe yholio's statement about "when correctly used" was meant to be "when correctly used by all participants"; i.e., no single participant can guarantee their own, or anyone else's, safety, no matter how careful they are. On the other hand, the guarantee is, as yholio notes, of an almost entirely theoretical nature even given universal cooperation: > The safety guarantees work only when humans demonstrate almost super-human regard to the safety of others, are never inattentive, tired, in a hurry or influenced by substances or medical conditions etc.
bobthepanda 6y ago
Well, traffic doesn’t exist in a vacuum. One could engineer a system where this is less likely to happen, by simply engineering a system where people are less likely to drive. Many European cities are systematically reducing incentives to drive at all, by improving alternative means like public transport and biking, removing parking, narrowing or eliminating car lanes, and cutting off through streets for cars.

yholio 6y ago

I think you missed the "when correctly used" part. Clearly, the person who hit you was not correctly using the system which places the whole responsibility of this situation onto them. When obeying all rules of the road, situations where rear-ending someone is probable should not arise. The systemic failure here is expecting people not to phase out and pay less attention to the road when driving for hours at high speed on monotonous highways.

JadeNB 6y ago

> I was stationary in a traffic jam when I was rear-ended by the car in back of me. Fortunately, I was not hurt at all. I believe yholio's statement about "when correctly used" was meant to be "when correctly used by all participants"; i.e., no single participant can guarantee their own, or anyone else's, safety, no matter how careful they are. On the other hand, the guarantee is, as yholio notes, of an almost entirely theoretical nature even given universal cooperation: > The safety guarantees work only when humans demonstrate almost super-human regard to the safety of others, are never inattentive, tired, in a hurry or influenced by substances or medical conditions etc.

bobthepanda 6y ago

Well, traffic doesn’t exist in a vacuum. One could engineer a system where this is less likely to happen, by simply engineering a system where people are less likely to drive. Many European cities are systematically reducing incentives to drive at all, by improving alternative means like public transport and biking, removing parking, narrowing or eliminating car lanes, and cutting off through streets for cars.