I'm one of those weirdos who enjoys cycling, and the biggest threat to my life, by far, is humans driving cars. Drunk humans, tired humans, humans eating food, humans otherwise distracted, or humans just being human.
When I think about the people I know who died under age forty, I think it's majority car accidents. At least a plurality.
This holds roughly true in the statistics: car accidents have been at least in the running for leading cause of death for Americans under 30 for years. We need to address this issue, and self-driving cars are rapidly approaching viability as a solution.
Even if we don't eliminate human drivers, having viable alternatives means we can be strict about who drives. Right now, for so, so many people, driving is a necessity, and thus we're unwilling to limit access to people who are actually good and safe at driving. If you get in an accident, your insurance company will your rates, but you keep your license. If you get in another, we'll...they raise them some more more. It's really quite difficult to actually lose your license in the US. My friend had to get a breathalyzer after multiple DUIs, but he got to keep his license through all of it.
If driving were seen as an optional privilege, we could limit it to people who do it safely, and perhaps those people would only do it while sober and alert given the option to use self driving when they aren't.
When I think about the people I know who died under age forty, I think it's majority car accidents. At least a plurality.
This holds roughly true in the statistics: car accidents have been at least in the running for leading cause of death for Americans under 30 for years. We need to address this issue, and self-driving cars are rapidly approaching viability as a solution.
Even if we don't eliminate human drivers, having viable alternatives means we can be strict about who drives. Right now, for so, so many people, driving is a necessity, and thus we're unwilling to limit access to people who are actually good and safe at driving. If you get in an accident, your insurance company will your rates, but you keep your license. If you get in another, we'll...they raise them some more more. It's really quite difficult to actually lose your license in the US. My friend had to get a breathalyzer after multiple DUIs, but he got to keep his license through all of it.
If driving were seen as an optional privilege, we could limit it to people who do it safely, and perhaps those people would only do it while sober and alert given the option to use self driving when they aren't.