191–200 of 443 posts
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You're attacking a strawman.
How is it a strawman? If motor traffic can only move at pedestrians’ leisure, what happens if they decline to let it through for hours at a time? The soccer players would be committing no crime - the streets are for them first, motor vehicles last.
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Maybe not mandatory but otherwise you’re liable so your insurance company requires it.
Insurance companies mandating pedestrians carry a beacon? That's even less likely.
"Install this app on your phone to make traffic lights recognize you when you approach them, for a timely shift to green light"
"Install this app to collect pedestrian-points, exchange points for prices and discounts!"
"Get a better insurance tier for installing this app which tracks your fitness. Do your daily 10.000 steps for a free !"
Once enough people jump on board, and it's generally accepted as being "normal because everybody uses it", then you can mandate it and the few people left who resist can easily be branded as "paranoid tinfoil-hat people" to marginalize their opposition.
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If automated vehicles become popular, I predict new crimes will be added in addition to jaywalking. Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers. If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways. I suspect calls for AI regulation by people like Elon Musk are really attempts at regulatory capture to make autom…
Absolutely. I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily. People are completely ignoring the existence of pedestrians and cyclists. It would not be surprising to see a new crime of "hindering an autonomous automobile" be lobbied for.
just because the lights for cars are gone doesn't necessitate that the pedestrian crosswalks and buttons be removed. they might even work more effectively, if they can communicate with all the vehicles in the vicinity.
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If automated vehicles become popular, I predict new crimes will be added in addition to jaywalking. Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers. If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways. I suspect calls for AI regulation by people like Elon Musk are really attempts at regulatory capture to make autom…
We could end up with roads dedicated to cars being separated from roads dedicated to pedestrians or cyclists. You could imagine if a city was designed from scratch the vehicles could move around almost in tunnel-like back-alleys, with periodic embarkation points into pedestrianized open plazas and boulevards. If Musk's reduction in cost of tunnelling is more than just a pipe-dream, then you might be able to retrofit…
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Well, we could be living in a situation where pedestrians take precedence and have right of way over cars in city streets, and the opposite in highways, which I think would be much more desirable, especially in crowded cities. Perhaps even ban cars except for abutters, commercial vehicles and emergency vehicles from the densest city center areas. God that would be a relief. edit: OK, yes, obviously you can and should…
It would be chaos. You’d have some jackass walking in the middle of the street as slow as possible, meanwhile people who actually have some place to go are all sitting around waiting on some fool who wants to play hacky-sack in the street.
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I the city cars are already not much faster than bikes. For distances below 10km or so there is hardly any difference. During rush hours bikes are much faster. I'd wager that you can reduce the top speed cars are allowed to travel significantly before the effective speed goes down by much, especially if you can improve traffic flow by e.g. vehicle-vehicle communication.
The difference is in the need for a shower and change of clothes afterwards.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If automated vehicles become popular, I predict new crimes will be added in addition to jaywalking. Cyclists may be restricted and anything else that confuses AI drivers. If certain intersections or sections of road consistently confuse AI drivers, automakers will lobby for ways to change these roadways. I suspect calls for AI regulation by people like Elon Musk are really attempts at regulatory capture to make autom…
We could end up with roads dedicated to cars being separated from roads dedicated to pedestrians or cyclists. You could imagine if a city was designed from scratch the vehicles could move around almost in tunnel-like back-alleys, with periodic embarkation points into pedestrianized open plazas and boulevards. If Musk's reduction in cost of tunnelling is more than just a pipe-dream, then you might be able to retrofit…
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It needs a catchy name though. Back-alley is too harsh. Something that represents our aspirations for the cities of the future. I'm thinking "Metro."
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There are no better alternatives. That's the point. The article makes it seem like the only reason the rules exist as they do now is because some industry players forced us into this situation. No. The rules exist now because the majority of people agreed that cars should be given the road and people should be given the sidewalks, and that people darting to and fro on the street would be very bad for everyone involve…
> There are no better alternatives. Sure there are, cities in the US are starting to build better alternatives already. > The article makes it seem like the only reason the rules exist as they do now is because some industry players forced us into this situation. True, the article does make it seem like that. Because that's what happened, it's a fact that US auto industry propaganda led to the establishment of jaywal…
Sometimes people dont follow accepted standards unless that standard is legislated. If the standard is important enough, it should be legislated. This standard will vary from person to person, but eventually we resolve the issue and either legislate or not.
I think enough people would have agreed that jaywalking should be legislated about to have it actually written into law with or without auto industry marketing.
Now is an opportunity, perhaps first in ~100 years, perhaps last, to recover the streets for unaugmented humans: slow down cars in urban areas, increase qualifications for humans to drive, eventually ban human drivers entirely, leaving only automated vehicles with enough sensors and going slowly enough to reduce auto-related deaths for pedestrians and passengers alike to zero.
I truly cringe at the thought of a ban on human drivers. There's a considerable amount of freedom in that ability to get in the car, and drive. Otherwise you're beholden to a machine, a corporation, and likely, a government. Trapped and unable to go anywhere unless they authorize it. Aside, you might find this short-fiction story from Vice interesting: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xygzvz/one-star
Your freedom comes at a high price, direct and indirect. Countries with functioning public transportation are providing a lot of this freedom, to a broader population and at a fraction of the cost compared to personal cars.
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I the city cars are already not much faster than bikes. For distances below 10km or so there is hardly any difference. During rush hours bikes are much faster. I'd wager that you can reduce the top speed cars are allowed to travel significantly before the effective speed goes down by much, especially if you can improve traffic flow by e.g. vehicle-vehicle communication.
Bikes aren’t faster than cars for the elderly, the vision impaired, handicapped people or small children. I’m all for more bikes and more bike routes, but cars offer more independence for a lot of movement restricted people.