Why be so authoritarian? It's one thing to say "I think single occupancy vehicles are inefficient and bad, so I'm not going to use them", but it's another to say "I think single occupancy vehicles are inefficient and bad, so I'm going to take away everyone else's choice to use them".
It's not a matter of one side being authoritarian, there's conflicting interests.
Wait...these are rights now?
Who do I sue for not having any of these?
Cities can be changed: in Utrecht, Netherlands they removed an entire motorway to restore the old moat and a more pedestrian / bicycle friendly environment ( https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/motorway-remov... ). Many cities ban cars from the city center, restrict them to 30 km/h or one way streets, or make parking prohibitively expensive.
People come to cities because of all the other people there, not because there are so many parking lots.
If I'm going the speed limit, and a pedestrian on the sidewalk 6 inches away from me (because someone decided that narrow lanes are better) decides to step in front of me, not at a crosswalk, avoiding an accident would require me to have a negative reaction time. Are you saying I'd deserve to have my license seized in that case?
You're advocating for a guilty-until-proven-innocent system?
> You're advocating for a guilty-until-proven-innocent system?
Come on, stop putting words in my mouth. We're talking about city downtowns not the whole US. I'm for restricting car use there, which you claim is authoritarian. I proposed an alternative, one used in the Netherlands, to put the onus of harm on the less vulnerable party and balance unfair externalities. You complain that this is "guilty-until-proven-innocent". If you want to rules lawyer your way to a car hegemony be my guest, but I'll continue to advocate for decreasing the unbalanced harms to non-car drivers on American streets.
> Come on, stop putting words in my mouth.
Here's what you previously said:
> any accident with a cyclist or a pedestrian results in immediate license seizure
> and get it back after police/judge agrees that it isn't your fault
Are you saying you don't consider that to be a guilty-until-proven-innocent system?
That's because not being allowed to drive is a really harsh punishment. Harshly punishing innocent people is even worse, which is why I assumed you meant guilty-until-proven-innocent.
> it seems like the equivalent of a “but don’t leave town” warning
Not being allowed to drive doesn't keep you from leaving town, but it does severely reduce your ability to participate in society. Now you can't go to work, drop your kids off at day care, or bring home groceries.
> preventing you doing further irresponsible driving is justified prior to the conclusion of the investigation
That's exactly what guilty-until-proven-innocent is!
We can’t expect the status quo to change without some way to force it off the car dependent pedestal it’s perched on. Lawfare might be the best way. If it inconveniences people they might drive different or stop driving so much and then eventually we get urban change.
Which she presumably had to do to avoid the oncoming double stroller without diving into the pile of trash bags awaiting pickup.
I disagree with the GP, this isn't merely about penalties for drivers. We've allocated an inordinate portion of available space to large metal vehicles carrying just one or two humans each, and left the scraps to be shared between all pedestrians, skateboarders, outdoor restaurants, parking meters, trash bags, trees, and all manner of other things. Because of course, you can't put the trees in the middle of the street, what would all the cars do? And then the pedestrians also spend 20% of their time waiting at traffic lights that are only necessary because cars are death machines that can't stop quickly enough.
The fact that avoiding an accident "would require [you] to have a negative reaction time" is exactly why cars are inappropriate for busy city centers.