4 ms·

Multiply the extra few seconds times how many ever millions of people end up using automated driving, times how many stop signs they end up at. The number of l

Multiply the extra few seconds times how many ever millions of people end up using automated driving, times how many stop signs they end up at. The number of lifetimes lost due to stopping at stop signs has got to be the equivalent of the circa-100's area. The real question is why anyone bothers stopping at all if all directions are clear.

iainmerrick 5y ago
Bikes and pedestrians? Although I understand a lot of cities don’t have those.
- notch656a 5y ago
  Anecdotally as a bicyclist it was infinitely easier to predict rolling stop drivers than those who stop. People stopped are rarely intelligent enough to follow the order of who's next, and constantly would randomly choose when to start up (sometimes just in time to almost hit me). the one rolling through I already know is going and I know the time is now that they're going, so little risk of accident. Biking isn't a game of who wants to kill you (all drivers) but rather _when_ they're going to attempt it.
acdha 5y ago
This is a fallacy popular with bad drivers since it lets them rationalize their decision to put other people at risk. It's designed to shift the focus away from agency — note how the people most at risk aren't given a decision? — and it relies on an assumption which becomes monstrous as soon as you think about it. Trying to phrase it as a math problem with the implication that time is fungible makes it sound like a minor optimization but you really want to consider just how uneven the impact is: you're saving an amount of time so small you'll barely even remember it but the person you hit may be losing the rest of their life or spending the remainder of it significantly degraded. Around here, a lot of the people getting hit are kids so it's an especially unfavorable cost in years of quality life. The other unquestioned assumption is that this is even a serious time savings. In my experience, the average driver _massively_ overestimates how much time aggressive driving actually saves them. In most cases, all it means is that they're spending more time at the next backup — I've had people weaving around me for literally hours on the interstate without appearing to notice that they were doing a LOT more work failing to improve their relative position at all, and in the city I routinely see the same driver “passing” me on every block. Then, of course, if we're talking about lost time, how many years of quality life do people lose because they're deterred from healthier transportation options? It would take rather an awful lot of stop signs to cancel out the savings from even 5% of people switching from driving to bicycling, walking, or transit. > The real question is why anyone bothers stopping at all if all directions are clear. Because the most common excuse for hitting someone is “I didn't see them” or “They jumped in front of me!” (which in the vast majority of cases really means that the driver's attention was directed somewhere else). It's not like traffic engineers don't know yield signs exist: they use them because they're intentionally trying to prevent drivers from staying at a high speed due to the risk to pedestrians and cross traffic. Most people who live in neighborhoods which are popular with commuters have to spend years begging to get a stop sign, often requiring a serious collision to force the local DOT to act.
- notch656a 5y ago
  It's a popular fallacy to consider the lives lost you see but not the lifetimes lost from wasteful practices. Think of the children is a nice trope to strut around to scared soccer moms during the elections, though. You can't make the presupposition that a rolling 'stop' is always more dangerous than a full stop, either.
  - acdha 5y ago
    > You can't make the presupposition that a rolling 'stop' is always more dangerous than a full stop, either. Actually, you can. Drivers who roll through a stop are far more likely not to notice pedestrians, bicyclists, or often even other drivers. They’re also unpredictable since everyone else has to figure out what they’re doing and react accordingly. I see the chaos on a daily basis where everyone else has to adjust their timing – and the selfish driver almost inevitably ends up no more than one car length ahead at the next back-up. In contrast, a legal stop is easy to understand - it works just like you learned in driver’s Ed and since you can’t read another driver’s mind, you have to plan on stopping anyway.
    - notch656a 5y ago
      Thankfully I design radar detectors for a living so that people like you who inevitably support insane and irrational laws, on the entirely convincing proof of just 'actually you can' and 'think of the children', have minimized impact on people like me. My whole life is making sure people such as yourself and the thieves from government cause me minimal legal hassle. So enjoy your opinion, I'll keep working to make sure your opinion has the least influence possible.
      - acdha 5y ago
        Thank you for at least being honest about your motivations. I hope you never hit someone.
        notch656a 5y ago

iainmerrick 5y ago

Bikes and pedestrians? Although I understand a lot of cities don’t have those.

notch656a 5y ago
Anecdotally as a bicyclist it was infinitely easier to predict rolling stop drivers than those who stop. People stopped are rarely intelligent enough to follow the order of who's next, and constantly would randomly choose when to start up (sometimes just in time to almost hit me). the one rolling through I already know is going and I know the time is now that they're going, so little risk of accident. Biking isn't a game of who wants to kill you (all drivers) but rather _when_ they're going to attempt it.

acdha 5y ago

This is a fallacy popular with bad drivers since it lets them rationalize their decision to put other people at risk. It's designed to shift the focus away from agency — note how the people most at risk aren't given a decision? — and it relies on an assumption which becomes monstrous as soon as you think about it. Trying to phrase it as a math problem with the implication that time is fungible makes it sound like a minor optimization but you really want to consider just how uneven the impact is: you're saving an amount of time so small you'll barely even remember it but the person you hit may be losing the rest of their life or spending the remainder of it significantly degraded. Around here, a lot of the people getting hit are kids so it's an especially unfavorable cost in years of quality life. The other unquestioned assumption is that this is even a serious time savings. In my experience, the average driver _massively_ overestimates how much time aggressive driving actually saves them. In most cases, all it means is that they're spending more time at the next backup — I've had people weaving around me for literally hours on the interstate without appearing to notice that they were doing a LOT more work failing to improve their relative position at all, and in the city I routinely see the same driver “passing” me on every block. Then, of course, if we're talking about lost time, how many years of quality life do people lose because they're deterred from healthier transportation options? It would take rather an awful lot of stop signs to cancel out the savings from even 5% of people switching from driving to bicycling, walking, or transit. > The real question is why anyone bothers stopping at all if all directions are clear. Because the most common excuse for hitting someone is “I didn't see them” or “They jumped in front of me!” (which in the vast majority of cases really means that the driver's attention was directed somewhere else). It's not like traffic engineers don't know yield signs exist: they use them because they're intentionally trying to prevent drivers from staying at a high speed due to the risk to pedestrians and cross traffic. Most people who live in neighborhoods which are popular with commuters have to spend years begging to get a stop sign, often requiring a serious collision to force the local DOT to act.

notch656a 5y ago
It's a popular fallacy to consider the lives lost you see but not the lifetimes lost from wasteful practices. Think of the children is a nice trope to strut around to scared soccer moms during the elections, though. You can't make the presupposition that a rolling 'stop' is always more dangerous than a full stop, either.
- acdha 5y ago
  > You can't make the presupposition that a rolling 'stop' is always more dangerous than a full stop, either. Actually, you can. Drivers who roll through a stop are far more likely not to notice pedestrians, bicyclists, or often even other drivers. They’re also unpredictable since everyone else has to figure out what they’re doing and react accordingly. I see the chaos on a daily basis where everyone else has to adjust their timing – and the selfish driver almost inevitably ends up no more than one car length ahead at the next back-up. In contrast, a legal stop is easy to understand - it works just like you learned in driver’s Ed and since you can’t read another driver’s mind, you have to plan on stopping anyway.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    Thankfully I design radar detectors for a living so that people like you who inevitably support insane and irrational laws, on the entirely convincing proof of just 'actually you can' and 'think of the children', have minimized impact on people like me. My whole life is making sure people such as yourself and the thieves from government cause me minimal legal hassle. So enjoy your opinion, I'll keep working to make sure your opinion has the least influence possible.
    - acdha 5y ago
      Thank you for at least being honest about your motivations. I hope you never hit someone.
      - notch656a 5y ago