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Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

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Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#131
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport in the US is an absolute impossibility outside of dense urban environments. There is way too much sprawl to ever have a reliable public transport network in the US. Best we could hope for would be high speed rail to connect urban areas and replace short/medium distance air travel.

As far as I understand it, many such areas were developed as a consequence of car companies lobbying the government back in the day. The car companies are the culprit here; the sprawl is not accidental.

It doesn’t matter why. The sprawl exists and will continue to exist.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#132
post #53
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an unpopular opinion but speaking from experience, it’s absolutely true.

It is a product of deliberate policy, so of course it's true. The policy was to drive working people out of cities and into cars, and it worked. You are living their policy.

No, it's the omnibus grouping of transit focused cities combined with 'look the other way' drug and crime enforcement in those same zones. You literally cannot have both, yet one party has grouped them inseperably

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport in the US is an absolute impossibility outside of dense urban environments. There is way too much sprawl to ever have a reliable public transport network in the US. Best we could hope for would be high speed rail to connect urban areas and replace short/medium distance air travel.

We could do a hub and spoke model, probably. Basically, move the parking lots out of the businesses and into the exurbs. It's not perfect, but would mean a lot less miles driven for most people.

In this model people would still need cars. If people have a car they will prefer to use it. This hub and spoke would only work if you forced people to use it.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good is a yard if nothing grows there because it's surrounded by high-rises blocking sun? And not sharing walls is of little comfort when you are adjunct to a 20 unit apartment where 4 units have a party every night and on the weekends - all 20 do. It's not like we have made up zoning just to piss off hipsters. Zoning came up as a solution to the problem of your externalities not stopping on your property line.…

You buy adjacent property instead of insisting that everyone does the same thing with their property as the homeowner growing things? Invoking "externalities" as if everyone wants to do the same thing (growing things) on their property is exactly how you end up with America's suburban monoculture.

No, invoking externalities as they exist and affect people around you. If your neighbors don't grow things and don't mind your building a high-rise then they will let you rezone.

I am not sure if you had been outside or only get your information from HN's strongtowns and notjustbikes fans but IME there are apartment complexes and mixed use buildings (apartments and retail) everywhere in the US. Nobody forbids building those on principle.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NY troopers contradict NHSTA ( https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving ) by a lot. I wonder how do they gather their statistics? But your math does not make sense even with the data you have: you said if the drunks were killing in subway at the same rate as they do on the road then 47 people were killed in subway every day yet you took the 47 number from much larger pool of drivers. Should not it be a quart…

The biggest difference is, atleast for me personally, I know how to make sure I don't die on the highway... I don't drink, I don't drive recklessly, I keep my car maintained, and I pay attention to my surroundings. So I feel my odds of not being a statistic are pretty good. I have almost no real way not to end up a BART statistic.

When I lived in a worker's paradise with public transit for everyone, criminals camped outside subway stations as they provided a good and stable stream of prospective mugging victims. I wonder how many muggings happen to transit users compared to motorists in the US?

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got 47 deaths per day from the roughly 17,000 fatalities that are directly attributed to drunk driving each year[1]. Even if we arbitrarily halve that to account for at-fault deaths at drivers' own hands, that leaves ~23 people dying, each day, because of drunks on our roads. In contrast, around 300 people died in total on public transportation in 2020[2]. In 2019, 34 million people commuted daily by public transpo…

NY troopers contradict NHSTA ( https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving ) by a lot. I wonder how do they gather their statistics? But your math does not make sense even with the data you have: you said if the drunks were killing in subway at the same rate as they do on the road then 47 people were killed in subway every day yet you took the 47 number from much larger pool of drivers. Should not it be a quart…

I have no idea how they gather their statistics, that’s just the first source I found! Let’s use NHTSA instead and assume their numbers are better; even so, over an order of magnitude more people die from drunk drivers than do whatsoever on a daily basis on public transport, even after you adjust for ridership.

> Should not it be a quarter of that, 12 people?

I adjusted the 300 public transit deaths up by a factor of 4, which is the same as adjusting the 17,000 or 12,000 drunk driving deaths down by a factor of 4.

> Your 300 fatalities in public transit could be interpreted as the fatalities caused by the public transit, are you sure they count people stabbed and/or shot waiting for a bus?

Why should it? Drunk driving statistics don’t count the number of deaths that happen when people are arbitrarily murdered at gas stations or convenience stores, even when the perpetrator happens to be drunk. They also don’t include other forms of influenced driving, road rage, or anything else that would further bring the number up.

Unless you have a specific reason to believe that there’s a silent epidemic of bus station shootings, this reads as special pleading.

It’s surprisingly difficult to find breakdowns by cause for deaths on public transit. But here’s one: from 1990 to 2003, there were 668 deaths in the subway system. The majority were suicides, the largest minority were accidents, and 1.5% were homicides[1]. In other words, even during a 13 year period when NYC (a city that’s routinely characterized as dangerous) was much more dangerous than it is currently, less than one person was murdered per year in a transit system that carries millions of commuters daily.

[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23639439_Epidemiolo...

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#137
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a tedious strawman that somehow keeps getting rolled out every time transit and density come up here... no one is saying you "shouldn't be allowed to have a yard of my own," people are saying that you should have the right to build more densely on your property if you want to , which should have the side effect of creating more efficient land use and less expensive housing. It's about changing zoning requirement…

What good is a yard if nothing grows there because it's surrounded by high-rises blocking sun? And not sharing walls is of little comfort when you are adjunct to a 20 unit apartment where 4 units have a party every night and on the weekends - all 20 do. It's not like we have made up zoning just to piss off hipsters. Zoning came up as a solution to the problem of your externalities not stopping on your property line.…

Firstly, your comment completely ignores the negative externalities created by North American-style suburbs in the first place.

Secondly, this is still a strawman: I've yet to hear of any policy proposal that would abolish zoning completely and allow highrises to go up anywhere. What policies would do is things like let the market determine whether it's more efficient to build a McMansion for one family or a fourplex or lowrise apartment building with eight units, all with the same footprint.

But if you still hate this so much, you can live far enough from the city that it's not economical to build next door to you, or you can own enough land that it won't be an issue.

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest difference is, atleast for me personally, I know how to make sure I don't die on the highway... I don't drink, I don't drive recklessly, I keep my car maintained, and I pay attention to my surroundings. So I feel my odds of not being a statistic are pretty good. I have almost no real way not to end up a BART statistic.

When I lived in a worker's paradise with public transit for everyone, criminals camped outside subway stations as they provided a good and stable stream of prospective mugging victims. I wonder how many muggings happen to transit users compared to motorists in the US?

One in 20 violent crimes overall happen in either gas stations or convenience stores[1], so there would have to be a lot of public transport muggings to compensate for that!

[1]: https://cspdailynews.com/company-news/c-stores-are-4th-most-...

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#139
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transit in the US is drastically underfunded, in favor of massive subsidies for cars and arrangements requiring cars. Compare to much of Europe.

I totally agree, but the reality is that if you don't have a car then you won't be able to easily commute in most cities. I'd love for this to change, but a few individuals choosing to suffer by not having a car isn't going to help anything.

Maybe individualism is the root of the problem?

Re: Tesla on autopilot rear ends motorcycle on freeway, killing rider

#140

I just spent a few hours on my Honda riding back from LA. I made it to a mile away from my apartment without incident only to watch a Tesla turn the wrong way onto the one-way street I was on. The driver was either using malfunctioning FSD or made a mistake as they immediately pulled up to the passenger-side curb. I'll be steering well clear of these things in the future.

Have you never accidentally turned onto a one way street when driving somewhere unfamiliar? It has definitely happened to me a couple of times. Humans make mistakes.

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