Driver Monitoring Raises Complexity, Adds Privacy Concerns
semiengineering.com
semiengineering.com
Passenger trains went plenty of places in the US and Australia. They were systematically demolished and sold for scrap at a loss.
It's simple in that it's easy to say. Stopping giving billions of dollars would also be easy to do. I have no idea how easy (re-)building a rail transit system would be, but I expect pretty hard.
But the problem is that the actual doing of the task, no matter how difficult it is, is the easiest part by far; the hard part is convincing people to do it. Even as a huge fan of rail, if I had the ability to make people drop convictions as firmly held as Americans' that cars are and must always be central, then I would use that power to change other convictions first.
It starts with not repeating concern troll thought terminating cliches every time the subject comes up.
We're not on opposite sides of this. I love trains, and take them wherever I can. But something like a poorly built out rail network doesn't get changed overnight, so just saying "sounds like a great use case for a train" when there isn't one isn't helpful either—a bit like telling a starving person this would be a great time for some food. It's the right answer long term, but not much help short term.
But if there's something specific I said that sounded like I was trying to disparage trains, then maybe you could tell me what it was so that I can say it better.
The amount of public resources going into roads between now and when driver monitoring makes a difference is staggering, and we could just spend that money on transit and solve numerous other problems at the same time.
Responding to a (admittedly snarky) suggestion that we steer towards an egalitarian future rather than a panopticon when both are equidistant with a tautilogical assertion that we're not in the good future now is the same tired line that comes out anytime anyone suggests improving things rather than expending greater resources making them worse.
I don't see why driver monitoring data needs to go to the cloud. If the car senses swerving and large fluctuation in acceleration then the driver should take a rest.
I personally think we should make different classes of drivers. Drivers licenses for people like you who can only operate vehicles under 3,000lbs with max driving assists and at most 200 horsepower. And another class of unrestricted responsible drivers for people who actually want to get where they are going in a safe, cost efficient, and time efficient manner. People who respect that they are operating a piece of heavy machinery at great speed in close proximity to other human beings with places they're trying to go, and who take that responsibility seriously.
Similarly, if a trace of my location is only known to my mobile network provider and government surveillance, then if I get swept up by some mistaken dragnet, I'd be disappeared. If it were published to all my friends, family, and neighbors, they'd at least be able to see when and where I was taken, and maybe be able to fight for my release. Ideally, the security camera video of my capture would have been live-streamed to the public as well. We can't rely on individuals to be present and taking out their cameras. The public needs its own surveillance to protect itself from the state.
How did you get from "...the PC should be a general purpose computing machine that executes arbitrary commands given to it by an operator" to "I really want a car that tells me when I need to count backwards from 10?" Like seriously, no wonder why traffic was so much better when you all WFH.
There are already cameras monitoring humans inside rental cars and nobody seems to mind. If privacy concerns really become paramount there's always lidar/radar that offers relatively high anonymity.
[0] https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-12/GRSP-70-30e.pd...
While i'm fully aware my rental can often have GPS tracking etc for the rental company, I have never, ever seen a rental with a camera filming the occupants, and I've rented a lot of cars around the world. I cant find any evidence of this online either.
The one example I can find where a lens was present in the cabin from Hertz appears to be part of a navigation system feature that was never used, and Hertz even then had to handle public backlash for the disabled camera. The public backlash/reputation damage of filming private occupants in the cabin solely for the security benefit of the rental agency would be pretty significant too, to the extent I can't imagine this happening in most Western nations.
Local buses were shut down for almost 2 years from Covid. Tons of businesses shut down for sole reason that people couldn’t get to work. Not having a car is insane.
Once upon a time we didn't have the interstate system, but FDR created the New Deal, and with that the federal government created the interstate highway system we have today. We can do the same for rail, but the automobile lobbyists won't allow it.
I'd argue that the interstate highway system is probably the USA's greatest accomplishment, and one of the greatest public works projects. FDR sold it by framing it as a national defense initiative.
Maybe we need to use some of that national defense budget for public transit? Sadly, I don't think we'll ever have a politician with the kind of gumption necessary to save ourselves from ourselves.
The interstate highway system was actually for defense. Moving things from coast to coast was far to difficult.
FDR saw the German Highway system during the war and was rightfully jealous.
Roads are quite expensive, and there are many internet resources with tons of evidence and arguments about this: strong towns, not just bikes, climate town, etc.
Point to point navigation has high utility and is difficult to acheive with rail.
Minimum viable roads are actually quite inexpensive: clear large vegetation from the path and there's a usable road. You can incrementally improve with path markers, grading, gravel, pavement, etc. Minimum viable rail is a much higher standard, which needs grading, railbed preparation, laying the rail, signalling and operations.
Cars are poison. They poison walk-ability, they poison commuting, they damage health from their exhaust, deprivation of walking, and crashes, they require attention to operate and thus literally steal your life hours. Cars require parking and parking spaces. Cars require wide roads which reduces density. Cars require surface level roads. Cars create traffic. Cars spit in the face of economies of scale.
When I lived in the center of a city, I could run my finger across my window seal and it would come up black from all the car exhaust that had settled on it. That is going into our lungs.
Structuring the operations of life around cars is insane.
Density is a policy choice.
People have had protests in the middle of a free way, so human action resulting in paralyzed transportation isn't novel. Storms, car crashes etc have "paralyzed" roads. Bridges have fallen into water ways paralyzing transit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-5_Skagit_River_bridge_collap...
> Or until government decides to shut it down Covid-style...
If you have widely used public transportation, then it can't be shut down. The public won't allow it. It goes from infrastructure to critical infrastructure. You would probably see enforced mask mandates.
If you have public transportation used by the middle or upper class, the tolerance for homeless and drugs will decrease.
> Last thing in the world...
And this is the fundamental selfishness. You want to rob cities of economies of scale so they can subsidize your posh suburban life style. Meanwhile, there's a whole bunch of people just like you, and the end result is hour long commutes for 20 minute's of distance or 10 lane freeways that somehow seem to be some of the most clogged in the nation. You have bad experiences with American "public transportation" but probably haven't experienced functional transportation. Your point to point trip in a city could be unencumbered by the spectre of traffic.
> I also don’t want to walk multiple blocks during heat waves, storms, or snow.
If you travel to Asia, you will find that functional transportation often comes with sprawling subterranean complexes or covered walkways. Even when it doesn't there are umbrellas for sale everywhere.
You still have to park and travel from your parking to your destination. I don't know about you, but that's frequently been blocks of walking for me in any city.
American public transportation is bad. It's not reasonable to point to our bad transportation and say public transportation as an idea is bad. It is a vastly more pleasant experience in other places.