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Comment by browningstreet | Hacker News Reader

In the last few days I've taken a few Waymo's around SF and driven back and forth on I-80.

I-80 is definitely a hotbed of aggressively dangerous driving and the violent use of vehicles against others that aren't driving how you want them to (and I'm a fast driver).

Have those two experiences very much back to back, I joked about how once we get robo-taxis we'll never go back. Human drivers are dangerous enough of the time -- it's not like I've ever driven on I-80 and NOT seen crazy, pants- staining driving. It's every mile or two of the whole stretch.

(Waymo feels so much more mature and pleasant than the last FSD Beta I tested.. Elon should be embarassed.)

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I'd argue that the main issue on US highways is a lack of discipline.

US drivers get away with murder in terms of undertaking, tailgating, camping in fast lanes under the speed limit, not to mention driving vehicles that are in such states of disrepair that it's a miracle the drivers get anywhere.

I'm way more relaxed cruising at 160km/h in Europe than literally any stretch of the I-5.

> US drivers get away with murder in terms of undertaking, tailgating, camping in fast lanes under the speed limit, not to mention driving vehicles that are in such states of disrepair that it's a miracle the drivers get anywhere.

Great, so why aren't those things ever candidates for this kind of automated enforcement? Why is it always "speeding"? In addition to the ones you listed, there are so many distractions now, too. Take a ride down any US freeway as a passenger in some kind of elevated vehicle (like a double decker bus) such that you can see down into people's cars: Probably 1/2 or more are totally out of it, distracted zombies scrolling on their phones. Nobody is calling for this to be cracked down on either.

It's always just "speeding". Like if we solve that, we're done.

Speeding is a lot easier to solve than distracted driving. It is pretty trivial to measure it objectively from outside the offending vehicle. Speeding also makes everything else worse due to stopping times and kinetic energy. It is also a black and white thinking fallacy to argue that just because someone promotes one thing that they necessarily demote everything else.

Agree 100%.

> I'd argue that the main issue on US highways is a lack of discipline.

That is a fair point, but unfortunately there is no good solution to that... otherwise we wouldn't need laws and their enforcement in the first place.

It's all about risk... if people are speeding too often and too fast that it's becoming dangerous (which I 1000% agree with), then I think more strict enforcement is warranted.

Conversely, we don't outlaw going outside just because someone could run you over... the risk is not high enough. But I think the risk of injury or death from speeding is very high.

The risk of speeding vs. the risk of staring at your phone. Try doing them for equal times and see what results in a crash…

Apples and oranges my friend.

I am quite confident that most people do not think we should be comparing the risk of speeding to just veering into oncoming traffic, phone or not.

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