General Road and Highway Discussion

[Viewfromthe42]

I would counter-pose the question: why do people automatically assume automation is less safe, when quite the opposite is true? I suppose you've never riden in an elevator or airport peoplemover?

When you design automation systems for a living, you know just how hard it is to make them foolproof. And then when you think you have, a bigger fool comes along.

The biggest automation we have currently for transportation is in rail (only one path to follow, speed and brakes are your variables, closed system), ships, and planes. All three have far more time to react to issues due to boats floating safely so long as they can use radar to avoid horrendous weather or shallow seas, planes that are undamaged and avoiding horrendous weather having high altitude to buffer issues, etc. But at 100kph (and it would be faster on highways, the extra speed would be the point), you don't have the luxury of telling the inebriated driver to take control, or to spin their chair around from a four-man face-to-face to avoid a collision. A big reason why we have traffic issues is because of how cautious we still are in driving, which leads to slowdowns when issues appear ready to occur.