The technology to end traffic deaths exists. Why aren’t we using it? (www.fastcompany.com)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by destructdisc@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Just to be clear, I do think the obvious solution to terrible things like this is vastly expanded public transit so that people don't have to rely on cars to get everywhere, not overhyped technology and driving aids that are still only marginally better than a human driver. I just thought the article was interesting.

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[-] Arkhive@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

“Let’s invent metal boxes with wheels that follow lines on the ground automatically to get you places.”

“Oh, you mean like trains.”

“Ew, no. They’re nothing like trains, these are ‘self driving cars’. They’re fool proof!”

tesla hits someone in a dense fog because it doesn’t have lidar

Queue surprised pikachu.

[-] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Wait. Those things rely on visual sensors only?? That moronic! I mean, more so that I originally though. Please tell me that they have them, but this particular one was malfunctioning.

Edit: holy crap. How are these vehicles allowed to operate on public roads??

[-] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 8 points 2 months ago

Musk has sai d multiple times that humans can drive with vision alone, so cars shouldn't need LIDAR.

He ignores that humans also regularly experience optical illusions that contribute to poor driving and collisions, and that LIDAR is far less susceptible to such abberations.

[-] finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Very early on, Tesla used ~~lidar~~ radar in addition to optical sensors. However, they only use optical sensors today and have for a while. Like many of the poor decisions at that company, the change to optical-only was made at Musk's demand.

Edit: misremembered, it was radar not lidar as pointed out below

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[-] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Mark Rober of YouTube recently did a video demonstrating how bad tesla sensors are.

[-] dinckelman@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Doesn't even need to be dense fog. The other day I saw a video of a Tesla (on newest firmware, mind you) drove off the road into a tree, in broad daylight, with no visual impairments to the sensors. It's not ready for any kind of driving, let alone fully automated, not to mention that it's only really trained on American roads

[-] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

Trains are great for moving people but only from one designated area to another. With most commuters, they might be all headed to the same city but completely different parts of the city that aren't easy to access. Their homes might all be in the same city but a 45 minute bus ride to the 40 minute train ride to the 20 minute bus ride, which isn't helpful for what might have been a 45 minute commute by car to begin with.

[-] Arkhive@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 months ago

Imagine if all the space between the primary radial arms of trains was filled in with street cars and pedestrian/micromobility centric spaces. Like the problem you are saying cars solve just doesn’t exist in the first place and people can still get around very easily. Even more rural folks can simply drive to the edge of this style of urban design if they need access to something. The reason bus rides are 45 minutes is because of the number of cars they have to put up with. The density of people that can be moved with shockingly good area coverage if cars are not a factor is incredible.

[-] wewbull@feddit.uk 2 points 2 months ago

It's still bad.

My old commute was a 25-30 minute drive. For a while though, I had to do it by public transport.

I'd be walking for less than 10 minutes because both my house and my work were close to the train station. The rest of it was on 4 different trains, but all within one metropolitan area. The changes were no more than 5 minutes each, pretty good really. However, the number of stops and the number of changes killed any progress. The end result was that it took 1h45m to 2h.

Changing a 8hr + 2x30m day into an 8hr + 2x2h day is a significant change in lifestyle. Losing 3hr day means you don't enjoy your evenings, you don't socialise, and life is only work. It's miserable.

On a different job I worked at I could get there with just 1 train. That was about 35 minute drive or 55 minutes by train once you included the walk (again about 10-15 minutes total). Even with that you're asking yourself "Why am I not driving?".

[-] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago

I assume this is London.

And that's fine, the train commutes were not for your specific needs. Weird that you had to switch three times to get to your destination, including the walks.

But this is hardly the norm.

If you want to have counter-anecdotal evidence presented, my daily commute used to be 5 metro stops worth 9 minutes of ride and 5 minutes of walking (in total). By car it was about the same, except for the added inconvenience of finding and paying for parking. This was Budapest.

Then there was 15 minutes of train coupled with 25 minutes of walking, 20 to the train station at a brisk pace and then another 5 to the office through the underground maze. By car it'd have been 15 minutes, not counting traffic. Which there always was. Because this was Toronto, the home of "just one more lane, bro". So in total it was more like 40.

My current commute is 20-40 minutes by a single bus. Only ~2.5km. It'd be the same by car, because the route is entirely at the whims of the traffic.

However it doesn't matter, because I also bike, and it's my preferred mode of transportation. Biking in cities that do have minimal infra (such as well placed arteries) and culture for it, as in driving lessons focus on awareness and there is no us vs them mentality, is like IRL cheat code to commuting. You are faster than transit and traffic, you get some well needed exercise and de-stress time. And you get to exactly from where you leave from to where you want to go to, all while saving a dime.

Obviously biking is not for everyone. But if a fat dude with asthma in his late forties with two young children can do it, the barrier for entry doesn't seem that steep.

[-] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago

This sounds great but isn't really feasible in cities that are already built unfortunately.

[-] MichaelScotch@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Look at the history of transportation in whatever city you’re imagining. Cars took over, but I guarantee that city had the transportation infrastructure you think isn’t feasible. The automobile industry has you brainwashed into thinking cars are the only option, but one just has to look at the history of transportation in any given city to know that that isn’t true.

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[-] Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 months ago

One of the many things I like about Subaru is that they seem to move useful features from optional to standard, once they've had a chance to prove themselves. I bought an Outback in 2016 and paid extra for the EyeSight safety system. Two years later that car was destroyed in an accident (I was T-boned and rolled over twice, without anyone being hurt). I bought another Outback to replace it, but by that time the EyeSight was a standard feature. Subaru now includes EyeSight on all their cars because it saves lives.

They had done similar things with other safety features. Four-wheel disc brakes, anti-lock braking, and all-wheel drive became standard on Sabarus relatively early.

It is also worth noting that the more intrusive EyeSight features, like lane assist, are easy to turn off. There's a button on the steering wheel for that one. Even if you turn it off, the car will still warn you if you start to cross lanes without using your turn signals, but it will not adjust for you.

[-] Repelle@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

My cars are old and don’t have any of this, and my one experience in a rental car with lane keeping assist was that it pushed me towards a highway barrier in construction where the original lane lines weren’t in use. Terrifying.

[-] SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 2 months ago

I quickly disabled my van's lane assist feature, having something else giggle the wheel while I'm driving is unnerving.

[-] Cyv_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm all for better safety features but perhaps an easier, cheaper, and more likely to succeed option to use is city planning/enforcement and change of current regulations. For instance, closing the loophole that lets car manufacturers ignore safety and emissions rules for "light truck" classified cars, which at this point is most of the oversized SUVs and pickups.

Alternatively having safer options for pedestrians and cyclists would help too, like having separated bike roads, and pushing highways and stroads out of residential areas and reclaiming city space for pedestrians. Public transit investment also helps reduce the number of drivers, which helps traffic and safety too.

I don't hate the idea of these extra AI tools like emergency braking being required or at least encouraged with stuff like safety ratings, but I think it's going to be very hard to get that implemented anytime soon considering you'd be fighting consumer interest(higher cost cars) and companies who don't want to have to make or license AI tools.

Edit: also the current regime in the US is more interested in de-regulating things to the point where I can get a happy meal wrapped in asbestos with a nice lead toy. So uh... Good luck

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

While I agree in concept, redesigning and rebuilding society to be less car centric would NOT be fast or easy.

It’s better in so many ways and I wish more Americans could experience the freedom and convenience of walkable and transit oriented areas to understand how unpleasant their cars really are. But if even if we seriously pursued that, it would be many decades, probably more like a century. In the meantime electric vehicles are much better than what we use now

[-] shiroininja@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

The Problem is, the whole pedestrian and cyclist centric society only works of we also restructure the entire economic system to where workers have an extra hour and a half to two hours of free time outside of work. Because we already don’t have enough time for our families and children.

Like me for instance. I have like 3 waking hours to spend with my child (once you minus, cooking, cleaning, adulting) if I’m lucky each day. Driving to work is a highway exit away on the other side of town. With a car, that’s 6 minutes each way. On a bike? 40 minutes minimum. Public transit? With transfers, even longer.

And then you have to juggle picking up your child from childcare, etc with is ridiculous without a car. And living closer to your work is a funny idea unless you expect every neighborhood to have offices and warehouses representing every industry. I mean it sounds great for the upper middle class with shorter office jobs and the finances for that kind of lifestyle, but that’s just not feasible for real working class Americans in the economic system as it is currently

It’s for singles who can tralala themselves around on a bike or have a leisurely stroll to wherever they’re going and who don’t really cook or anything themselves.

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

but that’s just not feasible for real working class Americans in the economic system as it is currently

Nothing to do with economics, everything to do with city planning and resource allocation. Public transit and bikes are a bad option in the US because the transit is completely underfunded, "only poor people take the bus", and bike paths, even pedestrian paths (if they even exist) are sent on detours around car infrastructure instead of cutting through everything.

And then you have to juggle picking up your child from childcare, etc with is ridiculous without a car.

My mum did just fine first coming by with the bike, putting me on the back seat, then swinging by the supermarket, groceries in the front basket, later on coming by with the bike, me riding along on my own, still swinging by the supermarket. We were driving on calm backstreets and through a park which was actually the most direct route, much more direct than with a car as you'd have to get onto the collector, first. Got more than one kid to wrangle? Put them in a trailer, or get a suitable cargo bike. They can even have seatbelts.

No, you don't need a warehouse full of washing machines in every neighbourhood. People don't shop for washing machines daily. People don't need cars to shop for them, either, delivering bulky stuff makes a ton of sense. Groceries? Wherever you were that day, a supermarket should only be like a two or three minutes detour.

And it's not like European cities didn't go down the car-centric route, mind you. Difference being we realised it's a stupid idea.

[-] shiroininja@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

It seems really time consuming still for not much gain. I mean I value public transit because I’ve always wanted to live in a big city with a metro, but bikes seem impractical with the weather, terrain etc. and I hate going for groceries, etc so don’t it more often along the way is a nightmare.

I just don’t think people have that kind of free time, because how many people can work ten minutes via bike from where they live?

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

The question is rather "how many people have a metro station within walking/biking distance" and "how many long-haul trips do you need to make".

Over here we don't set aside half a day (or more) to to drive to walmart to buy groceries for a fortnight, we pick stuff up as we need it when we're out, anyway. Dropping into the supermarket to grab some things is like a five minute detour if you know what you need and where it is. You can spend the metro ride thinking about what to cook, buy what you need, then get going.

According to statistics commute times in Europe are actually slightly longer than in the US, but that doesn't take into account that combining trips is much easier over here and that riding public transport gives you time to, whatnot, knit, biking or walking counts as exercise, while driving a car counts as, at best, nothing, at worst, the road rage will ruin your day.

I'm not saying that you, personally, can flip a switch and make it work for you, on the contrary: The reason that you're not doing it organically is because the infrastructure where you live is right-out designed to not make it work for you. What I suggest is that instead of saying stuff like "It cannot be the case that Europeans are living better lives, they must be imagining things" you say, to your compatriots, "How are those bloody europoors better at this we are supposed to be the best let's figure out how to beat them". Or at least that's how I imagine motivating Americans looks like.

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[-] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

There is an obvious answer here that both the author and the people in this thread are ignoring.

Driving as a transportation method is a high risk/cost high flexibility/comfort solution.

Pretty much everyone who has accepted driving as their transportation method understands that it’s not the safest way, so a lot of drivers are always willing to take a little bit more risk to save money or something like that.

A better question is, why are we so okay with accepting such high risks for transportation. The human mind is terrible at risk assessment so I think it’s just a culture thing that car accidents are a part of life.

[-] atmorous@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

We need more people part of the FuckCars, Walk, Bike, & Public Transit online cultures

Need more outreach to get things happening even more. Also my comment on this post would solve a lot of things by not having to redo outreaching to people

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[-] billiam0202@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I don't know if you've noticed, but Americans are real good at ignoring issues that don't affect them personally.

Oh I won't wreck my car, I'm a "good driver"!

I can't catch Covid because it's not real!

School shootings are just false flags the government uses to pass gun control laws!

Donald Trump only wants to remove the dangerous immigrants, not the ones I hire for my business!

[-] who@feddit.org 1 points 2 months ago

The technologies mentioned in the article:

lane-keep assist, automatic emergency braking (AEB), and blind-spot detection

AI-powered traffic systems

On-demand breathalyzers, smartphone saliva tests, and eye-tracking sensors

[-] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Only one of my cars has just one of those things (2015 Toyota Highlander and it's the blind spot monitor). That aside, all of my vehicles - cars and motorcycles - are paid off. I'm not going into debt just to have nannies yelling at me.

My vehicles are a means to an end. I would absolutely love more public transit, but there is just a single train station about 12 miles from my house, while my work is only 6 miles in the same direction. "You could bike" you might say, which is a fantastic idea. However, 90% of my commute is on a 55mph rural highway with minimal shoulders and zero bike lanes. It's literally a perfect candidate for a bus route and bike lanes, yet there are neither, and I am not risking my life on a bicycle next to 55MPH traffic during commuting hours.

Now tell me how I'm the problem.

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[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Autonomous vehicles. They don't get high, they don't get distracted, and if they're made by literally anyone except for Tesla, they have superhuman vision and not only don't have blind spots, they can also see in the dark and see through steam and fog.

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this post was submitted on 24 May 2025

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