One wish.... That drunk driving offenses be treated with actual seriousness in America.
One wish.... That drunk driving offenses be treated with actual seriousness in America.
Drunk driving should result in a lifetime license revocation after the first offense. Same thing if a driver kills or seriously injures someone through recklessness, negligence, or incompetence. And in both cases, if you're caught driving without a license, the car gets confiscated and auctioned off.One wish.... That drunk driving offenses be treated with actual seriousness in America.
Let's see.... One fired off a .45 ACP bullet that weighs 230g. and travels at just under 900 Feet Per Second. The other one is "firing off" a 2-ton projectile traveling at 65 Miles Per Hour (and often even faster than that).
Whose the bigger threat? Seems rather blatantly obvious to me. For some insanely bizarre reason, many in America can't see it.
Washington State DUI Offense
1st Drunk Driving Conviction
- Jail – From 24 Hours to 1 Year, or Electronic Home Monitoring - 15 Days
- Jail – From 2 Days to 1 Year (Blood Alcohol Level .15 or Above) or, Electronic Home Monitoring - 30 Days
- Fine – From $865.50 Minimum to $5,000
- Fine – From $1,120.50 Minimum to $5,000 (Blood Alcohol Level .15 or Above)
- License Suspension – 90 Days
- License Suspension – 1 Year (Blood Alcohol Level .15 or Above)
- Ignition Interlock Device and License Required
- Ignition Interlock Device – Add 60 Days if Passenger under 16 in Vehicle
- Washington SR22 Insurance Required
- Alcohol / Drug Education – Possible
Drunk driving should result in a lifetime license revocation after the first offense. Same thing if a driver kills or seriously injures someone through recklessness, negligence, or incompetence. And in both cases, if you're caught driving without a license, the car gets confiscated and auctioned off.
The problem is we view driving here in the US as practically a birthright. We're loathe to revoke driving privileges even when the person repeatedly demonstrates disregard for human life.
I don't get that myself. Driving is a privilege which should be a lot harder to obtain in the first place, and a lot easier to lose if you screw up. Yes, the end result of not being allowed to drive is going to be inconvenient in many parts of the country, but I tend to think that might give people an incentive to not lose their license in the first place by taking the driving task a lot more seriously.
All that said, within probably 20 years at most self-driving cars will render all of this moot.
+1 vote for the autonomous car; it's closer than you think..
As someone who takes pride in my cycling abilities I can see where you're coming from here. You know you can drive competently and will rightfully resent that being taken away. I'm wondering now if there are any ways to balance your desires with the need (and yes, it is a need) to get the majority of people who couldn't drive if their life depended upon it into autonomous cars. Perhaps a much harder licensing procedure which the vast majority can't pass even with practice might be an answer here. Autonomous cars can certainly be programmed to deal with a very small percentage of human-controlled cars on the road. Heck, they need to be anyway because you're always going to have pedestrians and cyclists on streets. Both of those groups are far more unpredictable than a car driven by a competent driver. Anyway, this is something to think about. I wholeheartedly support the changeover to autonomous cars for a bunch of reasons but it might be nice if there was a safe way to balance the desires of the small minority who might wish to continue driving (that probably includes my brother as well) with the need to get most other people into autonomous cars.They can have the key to my sports sedan when they pry it from my cold, dead, fingers.
I would obviously prefer the self-driving car and I bet 99% of people would as well. I'll grant that some people find the task of driving enjoyable, but I'll bet good money nobody enjoys driving under typical commuting conditions with all the issues you mentioned. Still, Monocrom raised an interesting issue. There will be a minority who would oppose mandatory self-driving cars. I'm wondering if there's any safe, reasonable way to accommodate them, or if they'll just have to practice their driving skills on closed circuit courses rather than public roads.Now which morning commute would you prefer?
I would obviously prefer the self-driving car and I bet 99% of people would as well. I'll grant that some people find the task of driving enjoyable, but I'll bet good money nobody enjoys driving under typical commuting conditions with all the issues you mentioned. Still, Monocrom raised an interesting issue. There will be a minority who would oppose mandatory self-driving cars. I'm wondering if there's any safe, reasonable way to accommodate them, or if they'll just have to practice their driving skills on closed circuit courses rather than public roads.
The 99% number is the number I feel would prefer driverless cars over the alternative of driving themselves with typical rush hour traffic problems, not the number I feel can't safely drive. As far as the number of people who can't safely drive, it's not 99% but I'll bet it's more than 50%.I'm sorry, but that 99% number is way too high.
Piloting an automobile at relatively low speeds on an empty road under decent conditions isn't that hard. The problem is 99% of the driving task involves dealing with other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. It also sometimes involves driving in less than ideal conditions. Collisions occur precisely because of a combination of poor driving skills, poor attitude, or just plain lack of reflexes. I can draw a great analogy here with cycling. Moving around on a bike is really easy, so easy in fact we let young children do it. Becoming a competent cyclist who can ride safely all of the time isn't easy. It took me about a decade of riding on public streets before I reached the point where I could anticipate and avoid many of the common things which cause cyclists to crash. Over that first decade I went from crashing several times a year to once a year to hardly at all. I haven't fallen off the bike or crashed since 1996. Fortunately because a person on a bike typically only hurts themselves when they screw up I didn't cause injury or death to anyone else. That's the problem. Undoubtedly anyone who really wants to learn to become a better driver does in fact become a better driver with practice. In the course of becoming a better driver they may have a few mishaps which involve other people. The vast of majority of people nowadays sad to say have zero interest in becoming competent drivers. In fact, as evidenced by the propensity to drive while texting or talking, they apparently don't have much interest in the driving task at all. It's for this group which self-driving cars are tailor-made. It's also for the group who may have been competent once, but have had their reflexes dulled by age or illness.That right there covers half of the rules one needs to memorize. Driving safely is just not that hard. It really isn't.
And suppose we could find a way to allow those who can demonstrate their driving ability via a much harder driving test to continue to drive? Would you then object so vehemently to the driverless cars which I'm sure the masses would embrace? Sure, it's yet another exercise in extreme human laziness automating yet another task, but given that 35,000+ people die and several million are injured each year on the roads in the US alone, at least here there is a positive tradeoff. I can't say the same about many other tasks which have been automated.Other than for repeat drunk drivers who should be forced to ride around in driver-less cars, or face mandatory, serious, criminal charges; the concept of driver-less cars simply becomes an exercise in extreme human laziness. Once again, no need to punish safe drivers. They're not the problem.
Yes, cost of driverless cars will be an issue for a while but consider that they change the entire paradigm of car ownership. It will no longer make much sense for most people to own their own car when there are fleets of driverless cars on call. That could mean most people have much lower transportation expenses than now. And the fleets will certainly more than make their money back on driverless cars via fares. Assuming there's a way to continue to allow people like you to drive, manually-driven models will continue to be available. My guess is what might happen is insurance rates for manually-driven cars will go through the roof, and that will be the one thing which drives people towards self-driven cars. Anyway, it's really hard for either of us to predict exactly what will happen. I agree driverless cars will cost more, at least for a while, but the question is how much more, and will they save more in terms of reducing carnage than they cost?There's also a couple of hidden issues as well. If everyone is forced to get driver-less cars, even good drivers, who is going to pay for each one? The safe driver? Should he be forced to spend his hard-earned money to buy something that he honestly doesn't need or want?
That's a very valid point. I'm of two minds here. On the one hand, I feel driverless cars will drastically reduce the rates of car ownership, especially in a place like NYC where many people only use their cars on weekends. It will make more sense to just call a for-hire driverless car when you need it. That will radically reduce the need for parking. As far as people taking driverless for-hire cars instead of the bus, I tend to think the fares for driverless cars will be somewhat higher than bus fares, so most people will continue to take the bus. Nevertheless, it would be a concern if driverless cars resulted in many people who take the bus switching to cars. NYC just doesn't have the street space for that. We might then have to limit for hire driverless car services. I honestly feel driverless cars will be far more beneficial to suburban or rural areas than large cities. NYC can of course have driverless buses. That could be a great thing in that it'll stretch our transit dollars a lot further.Then there are congestion issues. Why would any big city go along with the concept of MORE cars clogging up the streets instead of putting a few more manned buses on the roads? All of a sudden, a certain percentage of the population that would normally take the bus, would now hop into their driver-less cars. The elderly, the disabled, young children driven automatically to school; alone.... Not only is traffic congestion going to go through the roof because that percentage of the population didn't "drive" cars, but the city is going to lose a ton of revenue because less folks are now taking the bus.
Remember that driverless cars will need to be programmed to deal with unpredictable road users like cyclists or pedestrians. If a driverless car malfunctions, the vehicles in close proximity to it should be able to avoid a collision. That's one reason why I feel one of the touted advantages of driverless cars-namely the ability to follow inches away, may never be realized in practice except maybe on expressways. You still need to maintain safe following distances in case of a malfunction of some sort.Safety considerations as well.... What do you do if your driver-less car malfunctions? If you're lucky, you just get stranded on the side of the road. That's if you're lucky.
One wish.... That drunk driving offenses be treated with actual seriousness in America.
I also would prefer to drive my own car. Living in the U.S.A is part of living the dream driving freely on the open roads doing what you want to do.