Sometimes I watch those compilation videos of road rage, brake checks, etc.. To me those are one of the best arguments for more automation. Maybe people will stop getting so ridiculously pissed off about perceived slights when they think it could just be a software glitch.
My computer not doing what I want or expect it to causes me to rage harder than literally anything else in my life. I don't think you understand what rage is when you sum it up as "...people will stop getting so ridiculously pissed off about perceived slights..." Rage isn't a logical reaction, and it isn't something that you consciously control.
I don’t plan on paying attention st all to the road as soon as technology allows, nor caring all that much if my trip isn’t super duper fast, so I’ll at least avoid most of those problems. I imagine I’m not alone in that
As soon as the novelty wears off everyone will just look at their cell phones or chosen rectangle and be occasionally startled by the "you have arrived" notification.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
As soon as the novelty wears off everyone will just look at their cell phones or chosen rectangle and be occasionally startled by the "you have arrived" notification.
I am all for the future where I can nap on trips like I can on the bus.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
+3
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a cease and desist letter to the company selling a product called the Autopilot Buddy. Marketed as a ‘Tesla autopilot nag reduction device,’ its primary function is to disable a safety feature in Tesla vehicles that monitors the driver’s hands on the steering wheel and warns the driver when hands are not detected. Aftermarket devices, such as Autopilot Buddy, are motor vehicle equipment regulated by NHTSA.
"That which is created by humans can be defeated by humans..." Until a regulatory body steps in and (rightly) reminds you, that hey, that's a shitty thing to do, don't do that, mmmkay?! K-thx-bai!
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
Because 'Driver Training' is not the miserly 20-30 hours you spent practicing before the driving test. It's the tens of thousands of hours you spend driving during a lifetime. You can't train someone to be good at it, they simply become as good at it as they will ever be over time. And since people are the same everywhere in their driving abilities, the only things affecting it are non-skill factors.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
Because 'Driver Training' is not the miserly 20-30 hours you spent practicing before the driving test. It's the tens of thousands of hours you spend driving during a lifetime. You can't train someone to be good at it, they simply become as good at it as they will ever be over time. And since people are the same everywhere in their driving abilities, the only things affecting it are non-skill factors.
That's a whole lot of not answering the question. It's just bullshit conjecture. There is zero reason for these assumptions.
I remember reading an article a while ago about a bunch of people who were still driving, even though they had no business doing so. (One in particular was an elderly man who couldn't turn his head anymore, so he was unable to check his blind spots.) The reason they were still driving? Participation in society requires it. They were able to recognize that driving wasn't safe for them, but they didn't see any other option, so I think most of them, if provided with a decent mass transit system, would use it.
If a decent mass-transit system gets the worst (eg) 1% of drivers off the road, it can noticeably impact the accident rate without meaningfully impacting car ownership.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
Because 'Driver Training' is not the miserly 20-30 hours you spent practicing before the driving test. It's the tens of thousands of hours you spend driving during a lifetime. You can't train someone to be good at it, they simply become as good at it as they will ever be over time. And since people are the same everywhere in their driving abilities, the only things affecting it are non-skill factors.
That's a whole lot of not answering the question. It's just bullshit conjecture. There is zero reason for these assumptions.
I'm presenting the null hypothesis
1) people are the same everywhere
2) there is no special training
What special training techniques are you aware of which have a long term effect on driver safety?
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
Because 'Driver Training' is not the miserly 20-30 hours you spent practicing before the driving test. It's the tens of thousands of hours you spend driving during a lifetime. You can't train someone to be good at it, they simply become as good at it as they will ever be over time. And since people are the same everywhere in their driving abilities, the only things affecting it are non-skill factors.
That's a whole lot of not answering the question. It's just bullshit conjecture. There is zero reason for these assumptions.
I'm presenting the null hypothesis
1) people are the same everywhere
2) there is no special training
What special training techniques are you aware of which have a long term effect on driver safety?
Except that is not a null hypothesis at all since neither point can be assumed.
And we what seems to be data demonstrating clear differences that have nothing to do with miles driven or number of vehicles or any of that.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
is that why I always hear about terrible road behavior that I very rarely see here? people get their vehicles inspected and they suddenly start driving better?
couldn't possibly be that the education is flawed. even though that is an accepted argument for literally every other problem in the US.
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
Because 'Driver Training' is not the miserly 20-30 hours you spent practicing before the driving test. It's the tens of thousands of hours you spend driving during a lifetime. You can't train someone to be good at it, they simply become as good at it as they will ever be over time. And since people are the same everywhere in their driving abilities, the only things affecting it are non-skill factors.
That's a whole lot of not answering the question. It's just bullshit conjecture. There is zero reason for these assumptions.
I'm presenting the null hypothesis
1) people are the same everywhere
2) there is no special training
What special training techniques are you aware of which have a long term effect on driver safety?
1) only at genetic level, environmental and cultural factors cause variations on human behaviour.
2) not sure what you mean by special training, but i very much doubt that training required for drivers license is the same everywhere.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
Counterpoint: Finland exists and its driver training is a meaningful part of its road safety, as well as its many professional racers.
Countercounterpoint: neighbouring Norway and Sweden produce much better drivers based on fatality rates, Finns aren't that great drivers
Going simply by road fatality rates, Finns are great drivers, Swedes and Norwegians just are better.
But fatality rates are hardly a good barometer in a vacuum, what road conditions are people driving in, who was at fault (we loose a few people each year to moose), what was beig driven, etc...
+3
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
I think you're engaged in some wilful ignorance here. Just earlier in this thread, Quid posted about his personal experience driving, and that he apparently drifted out of his lane fairly regularly and the automated system pointed this out to him. That's a plain and simple example of driving training/feedback that could be provided to drivers to improve them: testing them in the actual vehicles they'll be driving - rather than their driving instructor's compact - and providing feedback to help them improve.
For that matter, I know of drivers who refuse to make left turns, because they're scared to, and of drivers who refuse to drive on freeways. I regularly see drivers who stop waaay too far back from the car in front of them, thinking that makes them "safe" when it just invites rear-ending, drivers who drive waaaay too slow, etc.. There are a lot of drivers out there who need feedback to make them better drivers... and for some of them, that feedback oughta come with a smack of the newspaper to the nose too. (That is to say, I wouldn't mind more enforcement of driving quality on the roads too. People drive tired because they get away with driving tired, up until they get into a major accident. We could catch them driving tired before that accident and deter them from doing so, but we don't, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I don't think anybody's suggesting that we need more of the same ineffectual driving training/enforcement regime and I don't know why you're stuck on that, that if we do something ineffectively now, that means we can't possibly do it more effectively in some future.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
I think you're engaged in some wilful ignorance here. Just earlier in this thread, Quid posted about his personal experience driving, and that he apparently drifted out of his lane fairly regularly and the automated system pointed this out to him. That's a plain and simple example of driving training/feedback that could be provided to drivers to improve them: testing them in the actual vehicles they'll be driving - rather than their driving instructor's compact - and providing feedback to help them improve.
For that matter, I know of drivers who refuse to make left turns, because they're scared to, and of drivers who refuse to drive on freeways. I regularly see drivers who stop waaay too far back from the car in front of them, thinking that makes them "safe" when it just invites rear-ending, drivers who drive waaaay too slow, etc.. There are a lot of drivers out there who need feedback to make them better drivers... and for some of them, that feedback oughta come with a smack of the newspaper to the nose too. (That is to say, I wouldn't mind more enforcement of driving quality on the roads too. People drive tired because they get away with driving tired, up until they get into a major accident. We could catch them driving tired before that accident and deter them from doing so, but we don't, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I don't think anybody's suggesting that we need more of the same ineffectual driving training/enforcement regime and I don't know why you're stuck on that, that if we do something ineffectively now, that means we can't possibly do it more effectively in some future.
I don't understand how the logistics of your proposition is supposed to work.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
0
Options
JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
advanced driver training is generally of the variety "learn how to handle an emergency at high speeds" or shit like that. that doesn't work because the issue is not lack of skill but lack of knowledge.
like, I'm not saying that driving tests in other countries are the best. hell, some issues in education are universal afaik. but given that we know different forms of driving promote safety (e.g. defensive driving), surely it is not unreasonable to suggest education about driving can benefit from change?
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
I think you're engaged in some wilful ignorance here. Just earlier in this thread, Quid posted about his personal experience driving, and that he apparently drifted out of his lane fairly regularly and the automated system pointed this out to him. That's a plain and simple example of driving training/feedback that could be provided to drivers to improve them: testing them in the actual vehicles they'll be driving - rather than their driving instructor's compact - and providing feedback to help them improve.
For that matter, I know of drivers who refuse to make left turns, because they're scared to, and of drivers who refuse to drive on freeways. I regularly see drivers who stop waaay too far back from the car in front of them, thinking that makes them "safe" when it just invites rear-ending, drivers who drive waaaay too slow, etc.. There are a lot of drivers out there who need feedback to make them better drivers... and for some of them, that feedback oughta come with a smack of the newspaper to the nose too. (That is to say, I wouldn't mind more enforcement of driving quality on the roads too. People drive tired because they get away with driving tired, up until they get into a major accident. We could catch them driving tired before that accident and deter them from doing so, but we don't, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I don't think anybody's suggesting that we need more of the same ineffectual driving training/enforcement regime and I don't know why you're stuck on that, that if we do something ineffectively now, that means we can't possibly do it more effectively in some future.
I don't understand how the logistics of your proposition is supposed to work.
I mean, sure, I agree with him. If all cars were installed with lane departure assistance and blind spot monitoring, then that would make the people driving them safer while they used it. But that sounds like an advanced vehicle feature to me, not driver training.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
advanced driver training is generally of the variety "learn how to handle an emergency at high speeds" or shit like that. that doesn't work because the issue is not lack of skill but lack of knowledge.
like, I'm not saying that driving tests in other countries are the best. hell, some issues in education are universal afaik. but given that we know different forms of driving promote safety (e.g. defensive driving), surely it is not unreasonable to suggest education about driving can benefit from change?
I'm pretty sure I was taught defensive driving when I took drivers ed so... like, can you identify actual deficiencies in the driver ed course material used in the US? Or is it just stricter testing that you think we need?
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
advanced driver training is generally of the variety "learn how to handle an emergency at high speeds" or shit like that. that doesn't work because the issue is not lack of skill but lack of knowledge.
like, I'm not saying that driving tests in other countries are the best. hell, some issues in education are universal afaik. but given that we know different forms of driving promote safety (e.g. defensive driving), surely it is not unreasonable to suggest education about driving can benefit from change?
I'm pretty sure I was taught defensive driving when I took drivers ed so... like, can you identify actual deficiencies in the driver ed course material used in the US? Or is it just stricter testing that you think we need?
I'm just pointing out that there are actual advances in driver education. It is certainly possible that the axioms of defensive driving are always true, and that the current way it is is taught is the most optimal.
but it is also possible that we haven't figured it out entirely and there are things to be gained. I'm just not a fan of futuristic fatalism, where the only improvement possible is coming from radical new technologies.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
I think you're engaged in some wilful ignorance here. Just earlier in this thread, Quid posted about his personal experience driving, and that he apparently drifted out of his lane fairly regularly and the automated system pointed this out to him. That's a plain and simple example of driving training/feedback that could be provided to drivers to improve them: testing them in the actual vehicles they'll be driving - rather than their driving instructor's compact - and providing feedback to help them improve.
For that matter, I know of drivers who refuse to make left turns, because they're scared to, and of drivers who refuse to drive on freeways. I regularly see drivers who stop waaay too far back from the car in front of them, thinking that makes them "safe" when it just invites rear-ending, drivers who drive waaaay too slow, etc.. There are a lot of drivers out there who need feedback to make them better drivers... and for some of them, that feedback oughta come with a smack of the newspaper to the nose too. (That is to say, I wouldn't mind more enforcement of driving quality on the roads too. People drive tired because they get away with driving tired, up until they get into a major accident. We could catch them driving tired before that accident and deter them from doing so, but we don't, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I don't think anybody's suggesting that we need more of the same ineffectual driving training/enforcement regime and I don't know why you're stuck on that, that if we do something ineffectively now, that means we can't possibly do it more effectively in some future.
I don't understand how the logistics of your proposition is supposed to work.
Let's say, hypothetically as a start, mandatory driver retesting every 5-10 years, in your actual registered vehicle. With the radio going. And the instructor talking to you during the test. To, you know, simulate your actual real driving conditions.
Plus let's put more cops (or some auxiliary traffic officers) on the roads in unmarked vehicles to catch bad driving habits and ticket them. And let's stop running speed traps in isolated, out-of-the-way roads and instead put those officers at major intersections to ticket people whose dangerous driving habits are actually putting other drivers and pedestrians at risk.
Might cost more money, but nothing about this is logistically impossible. Politically maybe, but there might even be an argument that this could save money in healthcare and auto insurance expenditures just by reducing bad driving.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
Trying to get by without a car almost anywhere in the US is an enormous challenge, certainly. And changing that would be another insurmountable cost, since readjusting for mass transit would mean basically tearing down most of the cities in the US and rebuilding them in reasonable places for rail lines. The US is irreversibly linked to the road system, as trailer trucks move things most places nowadays. Frequently, all taking away somebody's license does is result in an unlicensed driver who still drives around, because they probably can't afford to not drive either due to time or income.
So the US can't have rigorous testing and training because of cost and the sheer necessity of a license, and it can't reconfigure for mass transit because it isn't like the UK (in that it isn't a small island, relative to the landmass of the US). It also stopped being a country restricted by rails at least a century ago while still having a massive population increase, so it isn't like continental Europe in having centuries of stable population centers to link by rail.
There are certainly things the US could do better, but there's also a lot of things that countries X, Y, and Z can get away with that the US simply cannot implement.
So far there’s been way more progress in making cars better than making drivers better.
in the US.
edit: like, I get the general argument for the superiority of computers in doing driving, but there seems to be this assumption here that the massive problems in drivers ed and road safety are somehow the fault of the people themselves. people can't drive well so it is clearly our flawed capabilities instead of shit education.
(i understand that utopian self driving cars in the future seems more realistic than true institutional change in the US, but it really isn't.)
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
I think you're engaged in some wilful ignorance here. Just earlier in this thread, Quid posted about his personal experience driving, and that he apparently drifted out of his lane fairly regularly and the automated system pointed this out to him. That's a plain and simple example of driving training/feedback that could be provided to drivers to improve them: testing them in the actual vehicles they'll be driving - rather than their driving instructor's compact - and providing feedback to help them improve.
For that matter, I know of drivers who refuse to make left turns, because they're scared to, and of drivers who refuse to drive on freeways. I regularly see drivers who stop waaay too far back from the car in front of them, thinking that makes them "safe" when it just invites rear-ending, drivers who drive waaaay too slow, etc.. There are a lot of drivers out there who need feedback to make them better drivers... and for some of them, that feedback oughta come with a smack of the newspaper to the nose too. (That is to say, I wouldn't mind more enforcement of driving quality on the roads too. People drive tired because they get away with driving tired, up until they get into a major accident. We could catch them driving tired before that accident and deter them from doing so, but we don't, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I don't think anybody's suggesting that we need more of the same ineffectual driving training/enforcement regime and I don't know why you're stuck on that, that if we do something ineffectively now, that means we can't possibly do it more effectively in some future.
I don't understand how the logistics of your proposition is supposed to work.
Let's say, hypothetically as a start, mandatory driver retesting every 5-10 years, in your actual registered vehicle. With the radio going. And the instructor talking to you during the test. To, you know, simulate your actual real driving conditions.
Plus let's put more cops (or some auxiliary traffic officers) on the roads in unmarked vehicles to catch bad driving habits and ticket them. And let's stop running speed traps in isolated, out-of-the-way roads and instead put those officers at major intersections to ticket people whose dangerous driving habits are actually putting other drivers and pedestrians at risk.
Might cost more money, but nothing about this is logistically impossible. Politically maybe, but there might even be an argument that this could save money in healthcare and auto insurance expenditures just by reducing bad driving.
Accidents on roadways do not happen because people are incapable of passing a once every 10 years driving test. Even if that test was detailed and included driving theory. You'd probably manage to strip the license from some poor people and new parents who couldn't get a good nights rest and relax before the test. Even a terrible driver will be a perfectly safe driver 95 hours out of 100. People have accidents when they are driving their 1000th consecutive commute down the same road and going round a curve where 'noone ever is'. Or when they are drunk. Or when they are driving home after a 13 hour shift. Or when they are driving their sick uncle to the hospital because they can't afford an ambulance. Or when their kids kept them up for 6 hours and they still need to get to work
You might see some slight returns on safety if you made people do a yearly cautious driving course where you just forced them to stare at a sign which said "DRIVE SLOWER YOU NUTTERS" for 10 hours, interspersed with scenes of people being horribly injured in car accidents, but a test that you can prepare for is meaningless. Bad drivers aren't bad drivers when they are concentrating and paying attention.
I'd rather see all the money you are proposing spending spent on...
1) Free ambulance services so that people don't try to drive when they are sick
2) More free shuttles for the elderly so that more old people can give up their licenses. Maybe even have a system which pays them like $100 a month to not drive
3) Extending school hours and aftercare so that parents are less likely to be speeding on their way home from work
I can agree that we should move police resources away from speed traps and unto major intersections/unmarked vehicles etc. But to achieve that will require major reform of how fine income is handled in US local government. You'd need to change the law such that fine income goes to the federal government to be re-invested into programs to limit the crime for which the fine is issued.
To do anything about driving tired in the US you need to change the entirety of US corporate culture, school hours, and commute distances. People certainly shouldn't do it. But noone WANTS to do it. It's not an enjoyable reward. It's a horrible byproduct of schools that start at the wrong time, and working two jobs, or at a company where they like to see you doing lots of unpaid overtime.
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
Isn't this (partially) a chicken and egg problem, though?
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
But we aren't ignoring that. The stats I linked above show differences between lots of countries and the US. Like, say, Canada. A country with an extremely similar profile to the US in terms of it's "built for the car" nature.
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
But we aren't ignoring that. The stats I linked above show differences between lots of countries and the US. Like, say, Canada. A country with an extremely similar profile to the US in terms of it's "built for the car" nature.
What's the average speed limit in Canada?
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
But we aren't ignoring that. The stats I linked above show differences between lots of countries and the US. Like, say, Canada. A country with an extremely similar profile to the US in terms of it's "built for the car" nature.
US drivers ed is inherently hampered by the fact that driving is a total necessity for much of the US and high-level training and testing would simply not be a possibility for the sheer cost alone.
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
But we aren't ignoring that. The stats I linked above show differences between lots of countries and the US. Like, say, Canada. A country with an extremely similar profile to the US in terms of it's "built for the car" nature.
Depending on what it means by expressway versus a rural highway, plenty of roads that are 65-70 in the US could be 55 in Canada. Even ignoring that, Canada basically caps out at 68ish while like half the states have 75 as a max. From I recall of the relevant science, even a 5 mph difference can make a significant difference in crash fatalities.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/11/30/13784520/roads-deaths-increase-safety-traffic-us
The graph is a bit misleading, as it doesn't correct by population, but it has multiple countries and time on the same graph; if you correct for population, deaths have gone down everywhere, it's just been slower in the US. Eyeballing it, we started out about the same as other developed countries in the 70s, and have halved the per-capita death rate since then, it's just that other countries have had a *massive* decrease in deaths.
I did find a chart of deaths broken up by transportation method: https://www.bts.gov/content/transportation-fatalities-mode
(2016) total deaths 37,461. Cars: 13,412 (35%). Motorcycles: 5,286 (14%). Light Trucks: 10,302 (27%). Pedestrians: 5,987 (16%). Bicycles: 840 (2%).
From this, you might think that the article's argument that things like separated bike lanes are important is bogus. Only 18% of deaths are from pedestrians and bikes; while reducing that would be good, it won't let us get the same level of safety as other countries even if they were eliminated completely. However, by making bicycles and walking safer, more people would use those for transportation. (Personally, the thought of biking to work scares me; I've seen how people drive around here. If, however, I didn't have to share the road with those fools, I would be much more receptive to the idea.)
But to others the very fact that Ng is suggesting such a thing is a sign that today’s technology simply can’t deliver self-driving cars as originally envisioned. “The AI we would really need hasn't yet arrived,” says Gary Marcus, a New York University professor of psychology who researches both human and artificial intelligence. He says Ng is “just redefining the goalposts to make the job easier,” and that if the only way we can achieve safe self-driving cars is to completely segregate them from human drivers and pedestrians, we already had such technology: trains.
I would like Silicon Valley to stop inventing things we invented 100 years ago and calling it disruption.
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I don’t plan on paying attention st all to the road as soon as technology allows, nor caring all that much if my trip isn’t super duper fast, so I’ll at least avoid most of those problems. I imagine I’m not alone in that
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Just a quick google search turned up this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
Which shows that there is a rather large difference in road fatalities even controlling for things like "is a western 1st world country" and number of cars owned and number of miles driven and all that.
There seems to very clearly be room for improvement.
I am all for the future where I can nap on trips like I can on the bus.
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In road design and speed limits sure.
What are you basing the idea that it's only those things on?
"That which is created by humans can be defeated by humans..." Until a regulatory body steps in and (rightly) reminds you, that hey, that's a shitty thing to do, don't do that, mmmkay?! K-thx-bai!
Because 'Driver Training' is not the miserly 20-30 hours you spent practicing before the driving test. It's the tens of thousands of hours you spend driving during a lifetime. You can't train someone to be good at it, they simply become as good at it as they will ever be over time. And since people are the same everywhere in their driving abilities, the only things affecting it are non-skill factors.
That's a whole lot of not answering the question. It's just bullshit conjecture. There is zero reason for these assumptions.
If a decent mass-transit system gets the worst (eg) 1% of drivers off the road, it can noticeably impact the accident rate without meaningfully impacting car ownership.
I'm presenting the null hypothesis
1) people are the same everywhere
2) there is no special training
What special training techniques are you aware of which have a long term effect on driver safety?
Counterpoint: Finland exists and its driver training is a meaningful part of its road safety, as well as its many professional racers.
Except that is not a null hypothesis at all since neither point can be assumed.
And we what seems to be data demonstrating clear differences that have nothing to do with miles driven or number of vehicles or any of that.
I don’t doubt that it’s theoretically possible to better train Americans. They absolutely could and ought to be.
I don’t agree that it’s more likely to happen than autonomous cars becoming the norm. American culture and the requirements of living here simply won’t allow for it.
1) only at genetic level, environmental and cultural factors cause variations on human behaviour.
2) not sure what you mean by special training, but i very much doubt that training required for drivers license is the same everywhere.
The assumptions you make are unsupported.
Countercounterpoint: neighbouring Norway and Sweden produce much better drivers based on fatality rates, Finns aren't that great drivers
But fatality rates are hardly a good barometer in a vacuum, what road conditions are people driving in, who was at fault (we loose a few people each year to moose), what was beig driven, etc...
I agree that cultural norms work against changing things, but they do so for autonomous cars too. The amount of large scale investment needed is way higher though.
Better education would require stricter federal regulations and investments on a not unprecedented level. And at least there are few technological issues to be solved.
What is 'better education'. This is the point that no one seems to want to address. Advanced dr8ver training programs don't work, so what is better education?
Do you mean like, a huge campaign against tired driving? Or say, a campaign to raise the driving age to 18? Those things could both work, but doing a bigger driving test just won't. I've taken the driving test in three countries. The us was indeed the easiest, but neither the UK nor France taught things which anyone actually did in those countries or really enhanced safety. Just some additional manoeuvres and hand signals. And no one is dying because of not knowing the 321 parallel parking method or how to reverse around a corner.
Having driven in the UK and the US I can tell you hundreds of things the UK does to effectively make its cars and roads safer, but nothing it does to make its drivers more capable of safe driving.
I think you're engaged in some wilful ignorance here. Just earlier in this thread, Quid posted about his personal experience driving, and that he apparently drifted out of his lane fairly regularly and the automated system pointed this out to him. That's a plain and simple example of driving training/feedback that could be provided to drivers to improve them: testing them in the actual vehicles they'll be driving - rather than their driving instructor's compact - and providing feedback to help them improve.
For that matter, I know of drivers who refuse to make left turns, because they're scared to, and of drivers who refuse to drive on freeways. I regularly see drivers who stop waaay too far back from the car in front of them, thinking that makes them "safe" when it just invites rear-ending, drivers who drive waaaay too slow, etc.. There are a lot of drivers out there who need feedback to make them better drivers... and for some of them, that feedback oughta come with a smack of the newspaper to the nose too. (That is to say, I wouldn't mind more enforcement of driving quality on the roads too. People drive tired because they get away with driving tired, up until they get into a major accident. We could catch them driving tired before that accident and deter them from doing so, but we don't, because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
I don't think anybody's suggesting that we need more of the same ineffectual driving training/enforcement regime and I don't know why you're stuck on that, that if we do something ineffectively now, that means we can't possibly do it more effectively in some future.
I don't understand how the logistics of your proposition is supposed to work.
advanced driver training is generally of the variety "learn how to handle an emergency at high speeds" or shit like that. that doesn't work because the issue is not lack of skill but lack of knowledge.
like, I'm not saying that driving tests in other countries are the best. hell, some issues in education are universal afaik. but given that we know different forms of driving promote safety (e.g. defensive driving), surely it is not unreasonable to suggest education about driving can benefit from change?
I mean, sure, I agree with him. If all cars were installed with lane departure assistance and blind spot monitoring, then that would make the people driving them safer while they used it. But that sounds like an advanced vehicle feature to me, not driver training.
I'm pretty sure I was taught defensive driving when I took drivers ed so... like, can you identify actual deficiencies in the driver ed course material used in the US? Or is it just stricter testing that you think we need?
I took drivers ed when I was 15 and the amount of preparation it provided was... laughable. And I didn't even have to do a driving test to get a license; because I took driver's ed and had an active permit, I took a written test when I turned 16 and got a license.
For three of my siblings, who learned in a different state than I did, they had to have 40 hours logged driving with a licensed driver who had been driving for X years. A much better idea, except the log was literally a sheet of paper that you initialed and turned in; there was absolutely no verification other than them taking the driver's test. You could simply hand in a falsified sheet and, as long as they passed the tests, nobody would be the wiser.
That's only two out of fifty states, but I've never heard of driver's ed or license testing being notable rigorous or effective in the US. There is a minimum skill requirement, but it's pretty dang low and there are loads of terrible, terrible drivers.
I'm just pointing out that there are actual advances in driver education. It is certainly possible that the axioms of defensive driving are always true, and that the current way it is is taught is the most optimal.
but it is also possible that we haven't figured it out entirely and there are things to be gained. I'm just not a fan of futuristic fatalism, where the only improvement possible is coming from radical new technologies.
Let's say, hypothetically as a start, mandatory driver retesting every 5-10 years, in your actual registered vehicle. With the radio going. And the instructor talking to you during the test. To, you know, simulate your actual real driving conditions.
Plus let's put more cops (or some auxiliary traffic officers) on the roads in unmarked vehicles to catch bad driving habits and ticket them. And let's stop running speed traps in isolated, out-of-the-way roads and instead put those officers at major intersections to ticket people whose dangerous driving habits are actually putting other drivers and pedestrians at risk.
Might cost more money, but nothing about this is logistically impossible. Politically maybe, but there might even be an argument that this could save money in healthcare and auto insurance expenditures just by reducing bad driving.
Yeah I think this is missed by anyone saying that education is the key... other countries where education has benefitted are also countries where you can completely eschew driving and still be able to go to work every day. Meaning that the people who choose to drive anyway have enough motivation that the additional cost/time for proper driving instruction are not prohibitive.
In the United States, saying, "well we'll just take away people's licenses if they don't comply", just means that you'll have a lot of unlicensed drivers out there. Cars are required for living here, and unless you change that requirement then no amount of threatening people's licenses will really have the desired effect.
Trying to get by without a car almost anywhere in the US is an enormous challenge, certainly. And changing that would be another insurmountable cost, since readjusting for mass transit would mean basically tearing down most of the cities in the US and rebuilding them in reasonable places for rail lines. The US is irreversibly linked to the road system, as trailer trucks move things most places nowadays. Frequently, all taking away somebody's license does is result in an unlicensed driver who still drives around, because they probably can't afford to not drive either due to time or income.
So the US can't have rigorous testing and training because of cost and the sheer necessity of a license, and it can't reconfigure for mass transit because it isn't like the UK (in that it isn't a small island, relative to the landmass of the US). It also stopped being a country restricted by rails at least a century ago while still having a massive population increase, so it isn't like continental Europe in having centuries of stable population centers to link by rail.
There are certainly things the US could do better, but there's also a lot of things that countries X, Y, and Z can get away with that the US simply cannot implement.
Accidents on roadways do not happen because people are incapable of passing a once every 10 years driving test. Even if that test was detailed and included driving theory. You'd probably manage to strip the license from some poor people and new parents who couldn't get a good nights rest and relax before the test. Even a terrible driver will be a perfectly safe driver 95 hours out of 100. People have accidents when they are driving their 1000th consecutive commute down the same road and going round a curve where 'noone ever is'. Or when they are drunk. Or when they are driving home after a 13 hour shift. Or when they are driving their sick uncle to the hospital because they can't afford an ambulance. Or when their kids kept them up for 6 hours and they still need to get to work
You might see some slight returns on safety if you made people do a yearly cautious driving course where you just forced them to stare at a sign which said "DRIVE SLOWER YOU NUTTERS" for 10 hours, interspersed with scenes of people being horribly injured in car accidents, but a test that you can prepare for is meaningless. Bad drivers aren't bad drivers when they are concentrating and paying attention.
I'd rather see all the money you are proposing spending spent on...
1) Free ambulance services so that people don't try to drive when they are sick
2) More free shuttles for the elderly so that more old people can give up their licenses. Maybe even have a system which pays them like $100 a month to not drive
3) Extending school hours and aftercare so that parents are less likely to be speeding on their way home from work
I can agree that we should move police resources away from speed traps and unto major intersections/unmarked vehicles etc. But to achieve that will require major reform of how fine income is handled in US local government. You'd need to change the law such that fine income goes to the federal government to be re-invested into programs to limit the crime for which the fine is issued.
To do anything about driving tired in the US you need to change the entirety of US corporate culture, school hours, and commute distances. People certainly shouldn't do it. But noone WANTS to do it. It's not an enjoyable reward. It's a horrible byproduct of schools that start at the wrong time, and working two jobs, or at a company where they like to see you doing lots of unpaid overtime.
Isn't this (partially) a chicken and egg problem, though?
But we aren't ignoring that. The stats I linked above show differences between lots of countries and the US. Like, say, Canada. A country with an extremely similar profile to the US in terms of it's "built for the car" nature.
What's the average speed limit in Canada?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_Canada
Looks about the same.
Depending on what it means by expressway versus a rural highway, plenty of roads that are 65-70 in the US could be 55 in Canada. Even ignoring that, Canada basically caps out at 68ish while like half the states have 75 as a max. From I recall of the relevant science, even a 5 mph difference can make a significant difference in crash fatalities.
The graph is a bit misleading, as it doesn't correct by population, but it has multiple countries and time on the same graph; if you correct for population, deaths have gone down everywhere, it's just been slower in the US. Eyeballing it, we started out about the same as other developed countries in the 70s, and have halved the per-capita death rate since then, it's just that other countries have had a *massive* decrease in deaths.
I did find a chart of deaths broken up by transportation method:
https://www.bts.gov/content/transportation-fatalities-mode
(2016) total deaths 37,461. Cars: 13,412 (35%). Motorcycles: 5,286 (14%). Light Trucks: 10,302 (27%). Pedestrians: 5,987 (16%). Bicycles: 840 (2%).
From this, you might think that the article's argument that things like separated bike lanes are important is bogus. Only 18% of deaths are from pedestrians and bikes; while reducing that would be good, it won't let us get the same level of safety as other countries even if they were eliminated completely. However, by making bicycles and walking safer, more people would use those for transportation. (Personally, the thought of biking to work scares me; I've seen how people drive around here. If, however, I didn't have to share the road with those fools, I would be much more receptive to the idea.)
I would like Silicon Valley to stop inventing things we invented 100 years ago and calling it disruption.
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The only way to make self driving cars work is to grade separate them.