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This article presents one facet of automobile risk that is interesting. Essentially there is no governing body tasked to analyze and mitigates these risks to th

This article presents one facet of automobile risk that is interesting. Essentially there is no governing body tasked to analyze and mitigates these risks to the same degree as with public transport. Rather, general consensus (maybe not majority but still some level of consensus) must be reached before safety measures begin to see widespread adoption in a very distributed system. > For auto crashes, we’re talking about block level interventions, the kind of fine-grained design details that transportation departments are not able to perform. To point out an alternative, transportation departments, if endowed with the authority, could mandate centralized control of all motor vehicles. There is no technical (nor practical) reason you couldn't turn over the whole thing to properly engineered centralized computer control. It would be incredibly expensive but it could certainly be done in such way to reduce the risk by orders of magnitude. And that is exactly the kind of top down intervention transportation departments are capable of implementing, at least structurally, if not with their current budget levels. And I think the question of why we haven't done this, and probably won't any time in the foreseeable future, is a fascinating way to explore our approach to risk.

TylerE 4y ago
NHTSA?
sonofhans 4y ago
> There is no technical (nor practical) reason you couldn't turn over the whole thing to properly engineered centralized computer control. This is an extraordinary claim for which IMO you must provide extraordinary proof. I see zero evidence that this is technically possible today, regardless of expense or politics. It would be at-minimum a decades-long effort to computerize every car and develop central control for them. Putting aside the tech, we’re talking about a world where many people refuse to get vaccinated due to mistrust of government. How on earth will you talk these people into government-controlled vehicles? From my POV, the answer to “why” is not a mystery: (a) it’s literally not possible, (b) most people would be vehemently against it.
- intrepidhero 4y ago
  Mythbusters set up radio control for cars all the time. There's a GPS, compass, and accelerometer in your pocket. The FAA seems to be pretty good at directing airplanes through airports. USAF has pilots operating drones on the other side of the world. It seems like all the tech is extant. It'd be hugely expensive like I said.... But that claim wasn't really the point I was trying to make. Pick some other more plausible (but still radical) safety measure we could take with cars. Way more stringent licensing, speed limiters, self-driving, or massive increases in public transport. > (b) most people would be vehemently against it. Why is that? 40,000 people die in the US every year. Why don't we allocate more resources to solving that? That's the question I think is interesting.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    FAA still relies on humans, particularly for super manual areas like takeoff and landing. And ATC is notoriously stressful, overworked and understaffed. We’d need a lot more bodies to manage all road traffic. There is a world of difference between the reliability you need for a one off experiment, and the reliability you need for something expected to operate 24/7/365, in all weather from -40C to 40C, in a complex real world environment, and where legal liability gets involved in the case of an incident.
Spooky23 4y ago
It does, but as Strong Towns is wont to do, they do so in a way that aligns with their agenda in a borderline disingenuous way. Every traffic fatality is documented and investigated by a trained police officer. The techniques are trained, data collection is standardized, and transportation planners have access to the information and use it to guide engineering processes. Does the NTSB investigate car accidents? Mostly no, but they have the authority to investigate bus accidents and other livery vehicles like limousines. And the USDOT/FHA extensively regulates motor carriers with a scientific approach that removes bad operators. That’s because of the law and resource limits - but that doesn’t mean society closes its eyes and ignores everything. For all of the vague critique of transportation departments, they are evolving and improving safety on the roads imo. There’s no question that the roads I drive on today are safer by any measure than the roads I was driven on as a child in the 80s. Strong Towns is like the EFF. They have a compelling message, but slather enough bullshit to undermine it.
Sevii 4y ago
Centralized control of motor vehicles is tantamount to centralized control of all human movements throughout the country. Even if we could do it, I don't think we should. Right now driving is a situation where you take your life into your own hands and have to accept some risk. But in return you have the ability to go anywhere anytime. Centralized control inverts that. Now you need permission to go anywhere. Does the government approve people like you going to a particular neighborhood? It becomes trivial to enforce basically anything you want. Especially, since people will not have any other options. Digitization enables new levels of control that we haven't really explored ethically. In the 1980s building a central automobile control system was unthinkable because it was impossible. Today it could be accomplished in a couple decades. So now we have to answer the question of 'do you have a right to go wherever you want on the public roads without government oversight?'

TylerE 4y ago

NHTSA?

sonofhans 4y ago

> There is no technical (nor practical) reason you couldn't turn over the whole thing to properly engineered centralized computer control. This is an extraordinary claim for which IMO you must provide extraordinary proof. I see zero evidence that this is technically possible today, regardless of expense or politics. It would be at-minimum a decades-long effort to computerize every car and develop central control for them. Putting aside the tech, we’re talking about a world where many people refuse to get vaccinated due to mistrust of government. How on earth will you talk these people into government-controlled vehicles? From my POV, the answer to “why” is not a mystery: (a) it’s literally not possible, (b) most people would be vehemently against it.

intrepidhero 4y ago
Mythbusters set up radio control for cars all the time. There's a GPS, compass, and accelerometer in your pocket. The FAA seems to be pretty good at directing airplanes through airports. USAF has pilots operating drones on the other side of the world. It seems like all the tech is extant. It'd be hugely expensive like I said.... But that claim wasn't really the point I was trying to make. Pick some other more plausible (but still radical) safety measure we could take with cars. Way more stringent licensing, speed limiters, self-driving, or massive increases in public transport. > (b) most people would be vehemently against it. Why is that? 40,000 people die in the US every year. Why don't we allocate more resources to solving that? That's the question I think is interesting.
- bobthepanda 4y ago
  FAA still relies on humans, particularly for super manual areas like takeoff and landing. And ATC is notoriously stressful, overworked and understaffed. We’d need a lot more bodies to manage all road traffic. There is a world of difference between the reliability you need for a one off experiment, and the reliability you need for something expected to operate 24/7/365, in all weather from -40C to 40C, in a complex real world environment, and where legal liability gets involved in the case of an incident.

Spooky23 4y ago

It does, but as Strong Towns is wont to do, they do so in a way that aligns with their agenda in a borderline disingenuous way. Every traffic fatality is documented and investigated by a trained police officer. The techniques are trained, data collection is standardized, and transportation planners have access to the information and use it to guide engineering processes. Does the NTSB investigate car accidents? Mostly no, but they have the authority to investigate bus accidents and other livery vehicles like limousines. And the USDOT/FHA extensively regulates motor carriers with a scientific approach that removes bad operators. That’s because of the law and resource limits - but that doesn’t mean society closes its eyes and ignores everything. For all of the vague critique of transportation departments, they are evolving and improving safety on the roads imo. There’s no question that the roads I drive on today are safer by any measure than the roads I was driven on as a child in the 80s. Strong Towns is like the EFF. They have a compelling message, but slather enough bullshit to undermine it.

Sevii 4y ago

Centralized control of motor vehicles is tantamount to centralized control of all human movements throughout the country. Even if we could do it, I don't think we should. Right now driving is a situation where you take your life into your own hands and have to accept some risk. But in return you have the ability to go anywhere anytime. Centralized control inverts that. Now you need permission to go anywhere. Does the government approve people like you going to a particular neighborhood? It becomes trivial to enforce basically anything you want. Especially, since people will not have any other options. Digitization enables new levels of control that we haven't really explored ethically. In the 1980s building a central automobile control system was unthinkable because it was impossible. Today it could be accomplished in a couple decades. So now we have to answer the question of 'do you have a right to go wherever you want on the public roads without government oversight?'