Quote:
Originally Posted by STK
Btw-several US cities have already banned cars from the city center, only allowing buses. The US is a country that passed a law preventing suits against gun manufacturers and barring the health authorities from investigating the public health effects of gun violence. The regulatory authorities do what they're told.
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Okay so the "cites" that have banned cars are really small designated pedestrian areas to serve other purposes such as nature walks, shopping zones, small islands, etc. No major city has yet to ban the automobile as a form of personal transportation, so what you state is a misrepresentation. You believe the transition to autonomous transportation will require the complete banning of non-autonomous vehicles as a driving force to force Americans to give up their personal automobile (i.e. personal property). I stated forcing Americans to give up the freedom of personal transportation will have huge legal and political consequences that will have to be adjudicated via legal battles and at the voting booth. There are over 250 million vehicles in the United States and (I'm just guessing) somewhere near 200 million owners. That is one hell of a political constituency with a serious personal investment in personal property to just overcome by political fiat that will just dictate the banning of automobiles.
Regulatory authorities do what they are told. Voters are who tell regulatory authorities what to do; that's how it works in Representative Democracy such as the USA.
The leading advocates and developers of autonomous vehicles state that one of the biggest challenges to converting to autonomous driving
in the near future is the interaction of autonomous vehicles with non-autonomous vehicles, which matches your contention that the transition to autonomous vehicles will require banning human-driven vehicles. It is clear that the engineering solution to safe autonomous vehicle operation is to prevent the interaction of computer software operated vehicles with human operated vehicles. Humans have yet to produce error-free computer code and never will because humans are error-prone. Crashes will still happen even if every vehicle is computer controlled and the estimates of reducing the vehicle-related death toll from 30,000 down to a extremely lower number are just that, estimates.
I work in the automated transportation industry (air traffic), and dealing with the DOT for the decade-plus I have been, I can assure you the US DOT is not going to let the commercial automotive industry (i.e. the current-day manufacturers) develop and self-regulate the autonomous ground-vehicle transportation industry. The last thing the Federal government does and is not capable of doing is moving fast.
And if you somehow think that US law which prevents US gun manufacturers from being sued is equal to future law that allows autonomous vehicle manufacturers and autonomous transportation service providers off the hook for vehicle deaths, then that is a misunderstanding of gun laws.
Until Government and Industry publish a real viable transition plan to autonomous driving, the future you believe that is close at hand is just fantasy at this point.
My 2 cents.