4 ms·

Is it wrong to not be bothered by this? I'll be disappointed if fully autonomous vehicles haven't started to hit the market by 2015. Stricter enforcement of man

by Cushman 14y ago

Is it wrong to not be bothered by this? I'll be disappointed if fully autonomous vehicles haven't started to hit the market by 2015. Stricter enforcement of manual driving rules should probably be a part of that. I'm not saying I'm down with the idea of a government robot following me everywhere to see if I'm breaking the law, but I'm not very sympathetic to the idea that we have some sort of right to violate traffic regulations without consequence.

TruthElixirX 14y ago
It will not be used for road safety, it will be used to target dissent or people they don't like since there are so many traffic laws you are probably always breaking one.
- sixcorners 14y ago
  They always get you using those obscure laws like yielding to oncoming traffic or using turn signals. Can't the law be used to target dissent now? If the law were enforced more strictly, like Cushman wants, wouldn't that have the opposite effect?
David_Sauter 14y ago
A drone costs more than a helicopter. The FAA has ensured that the price isn't going to fall too far since their avionics has to be DO-178B class A rated. I.E. the same rating that passenger aircraft need to get. That's _expensive_
- asynchronous13 14y ago
  Your comment is very interesting to me since the FAA has not yet publicly announced the rules for integrating UAS into the national airspace. Whats your source that DO-178B compliance is required?
chernevik 14y ago
Safe driving is hardly a matter of speed compliance. It is noticing potentially tricky conditions 150 yards ahead and slowing down, or that you are blocking someone's merge and speeding up. It is slowing down in slick conditions, or in rain and congestion. And I often find myself on empty highways in the early morning. With good tires and brakes, and a rested driver, why _shouldn't_ I go 100 miles an hour? Especially since I am off the gas well before anything that looks slightly sketchy. Cruise control has made most drivers far stupider, as they surrender speed to the car and stop making the subtle adjustments to maintain or create buffers needed to be safe. Worse, they camp out in the left hand lane simply to avoid the necessity of those adjustments to accomodate merging traffic. In theory, "autonomous" vehicles could drive faster and maintain those same buffers better than any set of human drivers. In practice, I expect those autonomies to be programmed to fit the preferences of a bunch of safety nannies and police departments determined to maintain ticketing revenues.
- majormajor 14y ago
  How are we supposed to separate the responsible, safe 100mph drivers from the irresponsible and unsafe ones? In most part of the US, practically everyone has a car and has to drive on the highway, so the cheapest, simplest solution is to set a limit that applies to everyone. I'm not convinced it's a particularly burdensome requirement, either. The faster you're going, the more the dangers increase, and I know too many people who, unlike you, are not safe drivers at high speed to be in favor of making it more accepted for them to drive 100mph in most places (though I have no problem with the 80mph, or potentially higher in the future, speed limits in certain parts of middle-of-nowhere Texas).
  - chernevik 14y ago
    The rules can be quite burdensome. New York to Montreal is about 7 hours at regulated speed, over a well-maintained, straight highway through thinly populated territory, with very little traffic for those leaving at 5am. A good driver, in a proper car, with good weather, can easily and safely make the trip in less than 4 hours. That same driver will be well below the speed limit in bad conditions. I recently saw a half-dozen police cars on that trip, all in a 200 mile stretch, on a fine early Saturday morning. They weren't out to ensure the safety of the traffic. The essence of safety is situational judgment. And traffic law is already a matter of discretionary enforcement, on US highways police routinely ignore speeds up to 10mph over the limit. That discretion should be further deployed to spot and cite unsafe drivers: weavers, passing-lane congesters, bad-weather speeders, right-lane passers. But there is more work and less revenue in that, isn't there?
andreyf 14y ago
As fully autonomous vehicles hit the market, I imagine there will be a good case to re-examine driving rules. Perhaps there will be autonomous-only lanes with different speed limits.
ck2 14y ago
You assume of course they are going to be ticketing for 10mph over. What if because of extra accurate military gps precision and laser "radar" they can ticket you for going 5mph over? How many times a day do you do that? Will you accept a $100 ticket for that? Your insurance rates going up every time you go 5mph over? What if they aren't generating enough tickets so they decide to vary the speed limit up and down the same stretch of road or highway? Perfectly legal. Then you develop two classes of citizens, those who don't care about $100 tickets so they speed all they want, and those who reach a point where they cannot afford to drive.
- majormajor 14y ago
  If 5mph (or 1mph over) over becomes the new 10mph over, I assume that everyone would adjust. I go 10mph over all the time, I go 15mph over less frequently, and 20mph over less frequently still. (And, of course, the real thrust of the post you're responding to was a desire for autonomous vehicles.) That said, I think most current speed limits are too low, so I wouldn't like having to drive 5mph over instead of 10mph over, but I'm not terribly worried about it: I doubt that technological changes will be perfectly handled by legislation initially, but I expect things to work out to a serviceable state eventually.
- Cushman 14y ago
  No, I assume (or rather hope) that traffic regulations will be enforced strictly, and that drivers will respond appropriately to the incentive and obey the law. I assume local regulatory boards will respond to any economic impact caused by the law by setting regulations that they intend to be followed consistently. I expect a period of confusion and litigation to give way to a much safer, saner roadway. The current system of semi-arbitrary rules with extraordinarily selective enforcement is utterly inane, and has nothing to recommend it except that it may be somewhat safer than having no rules at all. But, again, I cannot comprehend where people get the idea that they have a right to ignore the rules when it suits them.
  - capsule_toy 14y ago
    Red light cameras can actually increase accidents at intersections. Lengthening the time of a yellow light can decrease accidents. One of the main reasons cities use red light cameras is to increase revenue. They aren't doing it to make the road safer.

by Cushman 14y ago

TruthElixirX 14y ago

It will not be used for road safety, it will be used to target dissent or people they don't like since there are so many traffic laws you are probably always breaking one.

sixcorners 14y ago
They always get you using those obscure laws like yielding to oncoming traffic or using turn signals. Can't the law be used to target dissent now? If the law were enforced more strictly, like Cushman wants, wouldn't that have the opposite effect?

David_Sauter 14y ago

A drone costs more than a helicopter. The FAA has ensured that the price isn't going to fall too far since their avionics has to be DO-178B class A rated. I.E. the same rating that passenger aircraft need to get. That's _expensive_

asynchronous13 14y ago
Your comment is very interesting to me since the FAA has not yet publicly announced the rules for integrating UAS into the national airspace. Whats your source that DO-178B compliance is required?

chernevik 14y ago

Safe driving is hardly a matter of speed compliance. It is noticing potentially tricky conditions 150 yards ahead and slowing down, or that you are blocking someone's merge and speeding up. It is slowing down in slick conditions, or in rain and congestion. And I often find myself on empty highways in the early morning. With good tires and brakes, and a rested driver, why _shouldn't_ I go 100 miles an hour? Especially since I am off the gas well before anything that looks slightly sketchy. Cruise control has made most drivers far stupider, as they surrender speed to the car and stop making the subtle adjustments to maintain or create buffers needed to be safe. Worse, they camp out in the left hand lane simply to avoid the necessity of those adjustments to accomodate merging traffic. In theory, "autonomous" vehicles could drive faster and maintain those same buffers better than any set of human drivers. In practice, I expect those autonomies to be programmed to fit the preferences of a bunch of safety nannies and police departments determined to maintain ticketing revenues.

majormajor 14y ago
How are we supposed to separate the responsible, safe 100mph drivers from the irresponsible and unsafe ones? In most part of the US, practically everyone has a car and has to drive on the highway, so the cheapest, simplest solution is to set a limit that applies to everyone. I'm not convinced it's a particularly burdensome requirement, either. The faster you're going, the more the dangers increase, and I know too many people who, unlike you, are not safe drivers at high speed to be in favor of making it more accepted for them to drive 100mph in most places (though I have no problem with the 80mph, or potentially higher in the future, speed limits in certain parts of middle-of-nowhere Texas).
- chernevik 14y ago
  The rules can be quite burdensome. New York to Montreal is about 7 hours at regulated speed, over a well-maintained, straight highway through thinly populated territory, with very little traffic for those leaving at 5am. A good driver, in a proper car, with good weather, can easily and safely make the trip in less than 4 hours. That same driver will be well below the speed limit in bad conditions. I recently saw a half-dozen police cars on that trip, all in a 200 mile stretch, on a fine early Saturday morning. They weren't out to ensure the safety of the traffic. The essence of safety is situational judgment. And traffic law is already a matter of discretionary enforcement, on US highways police routinely ignore speeds up to 10mph over the limit. That discretion should be further deployed to spot and cite unsafe drivers: weavers, passing-lane congesters, bad-weather speeders, right-lane passers. But there is more work and less revenue in that, isn't there?

andreyf 14y ago

As fully autonomous vehicles hit the market, I imagine there will be a good case to re-examine driving rules. Perhaps there will be autonomous-only lanes with different speed limits.

ck2 14y ago

You assume of course they are going to be ticketing for 10mph over. What if because of extra accurate military gps precision and laser "radar" they can ticket you for going 5mph over? How many times a day do you do that? Will you accept a $100 ticket for that? Your insurance rates going up every time you go 5mph over? What if they aren't generating enough tickets so they decide to vary the speed limit up and down the same stretch of road or highway? Perfectly legal. Then you develop two classes of citizens, those who don't care about $100 tickets so they speed all they want, and those who reach a point where they cannot afford to drive.

majormajor 14y ago
If 5mph (or 1mph over) over becomes the new 10mph over, I assume that everyone would adjust. I go 10mph over all the time, I go 15mph over less frequently, and 20mph over less frequently still. (And, of course, the real thrust of the post you're responding to was a desire for autonomous vehicles.) That said, I think most current speed limits are too low, so I wouldn't like having to drive 5mph over instead of 10mph over, but I'm not terribly worried about it: I doubt that technological changes will be perfectly handled by legislation initially, but I expect things to work out to a serviceable state eventually.
Cushman 14y ago
No, I assume (or rather hope) that traffic regulations will be enforced strictly, and that drivers will respond appropriately to the incentive and obey the law. I assume local regulatory boards will respond to any economic impact caused by the law by setting regulations that they intend to be followed consistently. I expect a period of confusion and litigation to give way to a much safer, saner roadway. The current system of semi-arbitrary rules with extraordinarily selective enforcement is utterly inane, and has nothing to recommend it except that it may be somewhat safer than having no rules at all. But, again, I cannot comprehend where people get the idea that they have a right to ignore the rules when it suits them.
- capsule_toy 14y ago
  Red light cameras can actually increase accidents at intersections. Lengthening the time of a yellow light can decrease accidents. One of the main reasons cities use red light cameras is to increase revenue. They aren't doing it to make the road safer.