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There’s nothing more Reddit-like than taking the time to complain about the website without adding anything to the discussion
As a bicyclist, I'm constantly told how dangerous bicycles are. Usually, I get a blank look when I explain, bicycles are very safe, it is the cars that are the dangerous part of the equation. Now I'll have to add fast billing ambulances to the list of dangers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> yet I can see a future where humans are barred from driving Increase the unsupervised driving age to 18 (unless in an area with no robotic transport) and massively increase penalties for driving infractions. As in you lose your license on your second DUI or third at-fault collision, reckless-driving ticket or cell phone violation. (Maybe make a DUI count as two infractions for the second list.)
People drive with a suspended license all the time. How else are getting to your job? Getting groceries? We pretend like driving is only a privilege, but it's more necessary than most rights that OSHA or other agencies have "discovered".
And if they’re not getting in accidents more frequently than population, that’s fine. I didn’t include this common citation for good reason.
> How else are getting to your job? Getting groceries?
Calling (or buying) a robotic car. We’re looking decades into the future when manually piloting a car is a privilege. (Or less than a decade in cities with public transit.)
If you’re driving drunk, hitting things, recklessly speeding or texting while driving, you shouldn’t be driving. We tolerate it, extraordinarily, because driving is almost a right in America. What’s changing is it’s going from a necessity everywhere but New York to a necessity where there isn’t Uber.
(In practice, at least from the few folks I know close to the incoming White House, it will happen through increasing liability for insurers. Nobody will be banned. It will just become expensive to human pilot. Or, if your FSD or equivalent isn’t engaged, hard to dispute fault.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think I've ever met a cyclist who's opposed to separated infrastructure for bikes and cars. Every local government project I've ever seen to build this kind of infrastructure runs into issues with drivers who don't think it's necessary or would somehow ruin their lives.
Every suggestion I've seen was to make car infrastructure significantly worse in order to add a bike lane to an existing road, while also making that road significantly slower and worse for cars. I don't think I've ever seen real suggestions to make a seperated infrastructure grid for pedestrians and bicycles that isn't just a sidewalk or bike lane on an existing road.
That said, can you give specific examples of what you mean by "make car infrastructure worse"? Usually segregation is just a matter of putting a barrier on an existing bike lane and painting lines, which doesn't actually change anything for drivers who stay in the lines. In some cases, a lane may be converted, but this rarely impacts travel times much for the same reasons adding additional lanes doesn't improve travel times. Vancouver did lots of traffic studies on this criticism in particular that you can read if you're interested.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Self driving cars are amazing in SF. I cycle there I feel much safer when there’s a self driving car behind me. Waymos, zooxes and cruises never accelerate hard to suddenly cut a turn in front of me rather than waiting behind me to turn across the cycle lane. They never get angry when there is no cycle lane and I’m forced to take up a full lane for a stretch. They have cold machine patience and attitude and to get aw…
A waymo hit a cyclist in San Francisco a few months ago, by failing to anticipate that there may be traffic behind a turning truck and accelerating into it. https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-...
Self driving cars do not eliminate risk to pedestrians or cyclists but they reduce it by multiple orders of magnitude, and they are trending in the right direction, whereas human drivers seem to be trending in the wrong one.
As a bicyclist, I'm constantly told how dangerous bicycles are. Usually, I get a blank look when I explain, bicycles are very safe, it is the cars that are the dangerous part of the equation. Now I'll have to add fast billing ambulances to the list of dangers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just noting that the bicyclist is fully at fault for trying to jump the queue at a 4 way stop, and it sounds like they were going in a different direction than the turning truck as well. Hard to pin that one on Waymo, though I do feel like Waymo cars tend to drive a bit "city aggressive" at times, like asserting their right of way, sticking close to the car in front, etc.
I don't know what happened in this case, but it's possible that the bicycle stopped at the stop sign before the Waymo did, and then proceeded (behind the truck), entering the intersection before the Waymo. If so, there's nothing wrong with the cyclist's actions. What I mean is: if the bicycle got to the intersection before the Waymo, then it would have had right of way. Of course, it's also possible that the cyclist…
Somebody make this video game.
Sounds like a fun, if not depressing, concept.
As a bicyclist, I'm constantly told how dangerous bicycles are. Usually, I get a blank look when I explain, bicycles are very safe, it is the cars that are the dangerous part of the equation. Now I'll have to add fast billing ambulances to the list of dangers.