5 ms·

It makes sense because, for most of America, we have designed our environment to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up for us. It is not the s

It makes sense because, for most of America, we have designed our environment to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up for us. It is not the same with air or train travel. Those are useful, but not necessary for almost all people.

bostonpete 4y ago
Makes sense, but that still doesn't explain why we ignore tens of thousands of auto deaths per year but talk about one Uber ATG death for 5 years...
- cupofpython 4y ago
  probably because self-driving has fuzzy accountability and is the same driver in all vehicles. if a taxi driver crashes, youve got a bad taxi driver somewhere you will probably never interact with. If a self-driving car crashes, you've got possibly hundred of thousands of potential accidents waiting to happen from the same "bad driver" the regular car accident conversations have all been had. what else is there to say?
- googlryas 4y ago
  My guess is just because self driving cars are new and rare. Once there are millions on the road, we will stop getting reports about each individual accident involving them.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  It's because self-driving cars have alternatives, like automated trains or streetcars, that are safer and less resource intensive. Self-driving cars aren't just competing against human-driven cars. Unless you think cars are the only form of allowed infrastructure.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    If a train or streetcar isn’t an effective alternative to a human-driven car (as is the case in the overwhelming majority of car trips in the US), how are they an effective alternative to a self-driving car?
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  If a careless driver crashes into me, I've been wronged by an individual who made some bad decisions. If a self-driving car hits me, I've been wronged by a corporation that probably cut corners and sold a shitty product for profit. I have some sliver of sympathy for the culprit in the first case, but zero sympathy in the second.
  - robswc 4y ago
    How do you figure the self-driving car was built by cutting corners? Just to be devil's advocate... usually its a small team of people that genuinely care about making self driving better. What prevents it from simply being an accident?
  - bostonpete 4y ago
    10-15% of car accidents are cause by mechanical failure. Some of those could certainly be blamed on large corporations cutting corners, so my question still stands.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > Some of those could certainly be blamed on large corporations cutting corners I think most of them are probably caused by deferred maintenance, which may either be the result of the owner making poor decisions, or a circumstance forced on them by poverty. In cases where the car is defective as manufactured, I have no sympathy for the company that made it. If that happens, I want the car company to pay for it. Which I believe generally happens. Car airbags blow up in your face because of a detective design? The car company has to pay to fix that. So your question has a false premise; we don't ignore deaths caused by faulty manufacturing. Usually anyway, some car companies seem to get away with more than others..
bcrosby95 4y ago
It doesn't though. We accept unsafe intersection in America that could be made a lot safer. I've also lived in 6 different car dependent places in my life, and all of them are amenable to biking, its just a scary proposition with the current infrastructure. I think a lot of the deaths are put in the realm of "personal responsibility" - we don't pursue safer options, even for cars, because it's always someone's fault something bad happened, rather than intrinsic to the design of the road. We create roads where people would feel safe going 65mph down them, then slap a 35-45mph speed limit on it, and call it a day.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > We accept unsafe intersection in America that could be made a lot safer. Related, Americans encountering a traffic circle, presumably for the first time and with their brains turned off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDaQZUzJCNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDaQZUzJCNM
kjksf 4y ago
Tilting at windmills here but: US is not some unique country designed for cars and other countries are not some car-free utopias. Per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... US is 7th country on cars / people metric, below New Zealand and just above Poland. Yet this is upteenth time I read that US is "designed" around cars as if dependance on cars was some unique property of US.
- Findeton 4y ago
  Because you can walk in all cities and towns in Poland.
- googlryas 4y ago
  Saying the US was designed around cars doesn't mean it is unique in that it is designed around cars. And the relevant metrics would probably be something like miles driven and average speed, not the number of cars per capita. Jay Leno or Jerry Seinfeld may have 1,000 cars each but they can only die in a car accident once. Every in San Marino owning a car doesn't mean anything if they only drive it 15 mph through their city streets which were mostly all designed before the advent of cars.
- WesternWind 4y ago
  You have to look at kilometers driven per person, not just ownership. Americans drive far far more than most other industrialized nations. https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/fact-file-americans-drive-most https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/fact-file-americans-...
  - windows2020 4y ago
    America is huge and lots of it isn't densely populated.
    - nostrebored 4y ago
      Hence the claim it’s designed for cars
Akronymus 4y ago
> It makes sense because, for most of America, we have designed our environment to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up for us. I disagree on "possibilities cars open up". If it is optional to use a car basically everywhere, then sure, those are freedom. In the majority of the US you are locked to HAVING to have a car.
- googlryas 4y ago
  I think we might agree - don't miss the earlier part of that quote - "to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up" They are both a blessing and a curse. Cars let us commute 25 miles to work in any random direction easily, but a lot of times, that also means we are required to commute 25 miles to work in a random direction.

bostonpete 4y ago

Makes sense, but that still doesn't explain why we ignore tens of thousands of auto deaths per year but talk about one Uber ATG death for 5 years...

cupofpython 4y ago
probably because self-driving has fuzzy accountability and is the same driver in all vehicles. if a taxi driver crashes, youve got a bad taxi driver somewhere you will probably never interact with. If a self-driving car crashes, you've got possibly hundred of thousands of potential accidents waiting to happen from the same "bad driver" the regular car accident conversations have all been had. what else is there to say?
googlryas 4y ago
My guess is just because self driving cars are new and rare. Once there are millions on the road, we will stop getting reports about each individual accident involving them.
Karrot_Kream 4y ago
It's because self-driving cars have alternatives, like automated trains or streetcars, that are safer and less resource intensive. Self-driving cars aren't just competing against human-driven cars. Unless you think cars are the only form of allowed infrastructure.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  If a train or streetcar isn’t an effective alternative to a human-driven car (as is the case in the overwhelming majority of car trips in the US), how are they an effective alternative to a self-driving car?
MichaelCollins 4y ago
If a careless driver crashes into me, I've been wronged by an individual who made some bad decisions. If a self-driving car hits me, I've been wronged by a corporation that probably cut corners and sold a shitty product for profit. I have some sliver of sympathy for the culprit in the first case, but zero sympathy in the second.
- robswc 4y ago
  How do you figure the self-driving car was built by cutting corners? Just to be devil's advocate... usually its a small team of people that genuinely care about making self driving better. What prevents it from simply being an accident?
- bostonpete 4y ago
  10-15% of car accidents are cause by mechanical failure. Some of those could certainly be blamed on large corporations cutting corners, so my question still stands.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > Some of those could certainly be blamed on large corporations cutting corners I think most of them are probably caused by deferred maintenance, which may either be the result of the owner making poor decisions, or a circumstance forced on them by poverty. In cases where the car is defective as manufactured, I have no sympathy for the company that made it. If that happens, I want the car company to pay for it. Which I believe generally happens. Car airbags blow up in your face because of a detective design? The car company has to pay to fix that. So your question has a false premise; we don't ignore deaths caused by faulty manufacturing. Usually anyway, some car companies seem to get away with more than others..

bcrosby95 4y ago

It doesn't though. We accept unsafe intersection in America that could be made a lot safer. I've also lived in 6 different car dependent places in my life, and all of them are amenable to biking, its just a scary proposition with the current infrastructure. I think a lot of the deaths are put in the realm of "personal responsibility" - we don't pursue safer options, even for cars, because it's always someone's fault something bad happened, rather than intrinsic to the design of the road. We create roads where people would feel safe going 65mph down them, then slap a 35-45mph speed limit on it, and call it a day.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> We accept unsafe intersection in America that could be made a lot safer. Related, Americans encountering a traffic circle, presumably for the first time and with their brains turned off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDaQZUzJCNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDaQZUzJCNM

kjksf 4y ago

Tilting at windmills here but: US is not some unique country designed for cars and other countries are not some car-free utopias. Per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_... US is 7th country on cars / people metric, below New Zealand and just above Poland. Yet this is upteenth time I read that US is "designed" around cars as if dependance on cars was some unique property of US.

Findeton 4y ago
Because you can walk in all cities and towns in Poland.
googlryas 4y ago
Saying the US was designed around cars doesn't mean it is unique in that it is designed around cars. And the relevant metrics would probably be something like miles driven and average speed, not the number of cars per capita. Jay Leno or Jerry Seinfeld may have 1,000 cars each but they can only die in a car accident once. Every in San Marino owning a car doesn't mean anything if they only drive it 15 mph through their city streets which were mostly all designed before the advent of cars.
WesternWind 4y ago
You have to look at kilometers driven per person, not just ownership. Americans drive far far more than most other industrialized nations. https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/fact-file-americans-drive-most https://frontiergroup.org/blogs/blog/fg/fact-file-americans-...
- windows2020 4y ago
  America is huge and lots of it isn't densely populated.
  - nostrebored 4y ago
    Hence the claim it’s designed for cars

Akronymus 4y ago

> It makes sense because, for most of America, we have designed our environment to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up for us. I disagree on "possibilities cars open up". If it is optional to use a car basically everywhere, then sure, those are freedom. In the majority of the US you are locked to HAVING to have a car.

googlryas 4y ago
I think we might agree - don't miss the earlier part of that quote - "to be heavily dependent on the possibilities cars open up" They are both a blessing and a curse. Cars let us commute 25 miles to work in any random direction easily, but a lot of times, that also means we are required to commute 25 miles to work in a random direction.