4 ms·

In my opinion, these robots should just drive in the street with cars. If they get run over, nobody gets hurt. It might actually make things safer by forcing dr

In my opinion, these robots should just drive in the street with cars. If they get run over, nobody gets hurt. It might actually make things safer by forcing drivers to pay more attention!

foobar33333 5y ago
They can follow the road rules perfectly and every time one gets destroyed the driver gets sent the bill for reckless driving and potentially has their license status reviewed. Seems like a pretty good system.
tzs 5y ago
I think you are right that drivers will pay more attention to them, but I came to the opposite conclusion. They look big enough to cause serious damage to your car if you hit one, so I think you are right that drivers will pay attention to them. But I think drivers will also want to pass them, increasing the chances that drivers will use the bike lanes as passing lanes. Furthermore, I think drivers will not trust the delivery robots, so when they are passing they will be paying attention to the robot, increasing the chances the drivers will not notice a cyclist in the bike lane. Put the robots in the bike lanes and then that increases driver attention will be going toward keeping the car out of the bike lane.
- aeharding 5y ago
  The picture in the article is of a protected two way bike path. If the robot was in the car lane here, a driver could not pass in the bike path. I could envision problems with unprotected bike lanes, but those are dangerous by design [1]. However, a robot clinging to the rightmost side of a car lane next to an unprotected bike lane could easily make passing in the unprotected bike lane infeasible. But, this is all just speculation. [1] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/05/29/protect-yourself-separated-bike-lanes-means-safer-streets-study-says/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/05/29/protect-yourself-sepa...

4 ms·

In my opinion, these robots should just drive in the street with cars. If they get run over, nobody gets hurt. It might actually make things safer by forcing dr

by aeharding 5y ago

In my opinion, these robots should just drive in the street with cars. If they get run over, nobody gets hurt. It might actually make things safer by forcing drivers to pay more attention!

foobar33333 5y ago
They can follow the road rules perfectly and every time one gets destroyed the driver gets sent the bill for reckless driving and potentially has their license status reviewed. Seems like a pretty good system.
tzs 5y ago
I think you are right that drivers will pay more attention to them, but I came to the opposite conclusion. They look big enough to cause serious damage to your car if you hit one, so I think you are right that drivers will pay attention to them. But I think drivers will also want to pass them, increasing the chances that drivers will use the bike lanes as passing lanes. Furthermore, I think drivers will not trust the delivery robots, so when they are passing they will be paying attention to the robot, increasing the chances the drivers will not notice a cyclist in the bike lane. Put the robots in the bike lanes and then that increases driver attention will be going toward keeping the car out of the bike lane.
- aeharding 5y ago
  The picture in the article is of a protected two way bike path. If the robot was in the car lane here, a driver could not pass in the bike path. I could envision problems with unprotected bike lanes, but those are dangerous by design [1]. However, a robot clinging to the rightmost side of a car lane next to an unprotected bike lane could easily make passing in the unprotected bike lane infeasible. But, this is all just speculation. [1] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/05/29/protect-yourself-separated-bike-lanes-means-safer-streets-study-says/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/05/29/protect-yourself-sepa...