Increase the unsupervised driving age to 18 (unless in an area with no robotic transport) and massively increase penalties for driving infractions. As in you lose your license on your second DUI or third at-fault collision, reckless-driving ticket or cell phone violation. (Maybe make a DUI count as two infractions for the second list.)
Sorry, but this is still too lenient.
People should immediately lose their driving licence with a substantial fine for being caught drink-driving—even if it's just the first time, and be permanently barred from ever getting one again. If their driving under influence causes the slightest injury to other people they should receive a substantial jail sentence, and should their driving cause death they ought to receive at least a first-degree manslaughter charge. I know this will sound appalling to Americans, but driving is a privilege, not a right.
If pilots have so much stricter rules about operating their machinery, so should road users.
They will lose their jobs, and then housing, etc. People need their cars to feed their kids, do all sorts of things. And of course, they will drive illegally if they have to - wouldn't you?
We pretend like driving is only a privilege, but it's more necessary than most rights that OSHA or other agencies have "discovered".
And if they’re not getting in accidents more frequently than population, that’s fine. I didn’t include this common citation for good reason.
> How else are getting to your job? Getting groceries?
Calling (or buying) a robotic car. We’re looking decades into the future when manually piloting a car is a privilege. (Or less than a decade in cities with public transit.)
If you’re driving drunk, hitting things, recklessly speeding or texting while driving, you shouldn’t be driving. We tolerate it, extraordinarily, because driving is almost a right in America. What’s changing is it’s going from a necessity everywhere but New York to a necessity where there isn’t Uber.
(In practice, at least from the few folks I know close to the incoming White House, it will happen through increasing liability for insurers. Nobody will be banned. It will just become expensive to human pilot. Or, if your FSD or equivalent isn’t engaged, hard to dispute fault.)
If it's cost effective, sure.
Until that's significantly cheaper, people need to drive.
> increasing liability for insurers. Nobody will be banned. It will just become expensive to human pilot.
Why would human driving insurance cost significantly more than it does today?
Not in cities, even today. That region is simply broadening.
Public car insurance for poor, risky drivers has zero popular appeal. This will happen gradually then quickly.
And it's only some cities where it's similarly or more affordable to not have a car. Not nearly as many as it should be.
The risk of hit-and-run accidents, uninsured drivers, and unlicensed drivers on the road are increasing.
While public transit could be a great solution, much of the poorest in the US cannot afford to live in places with good public transport because these areas have higher housing costs.
> We tolerate it, extraordinarily, because driving is almost a right in America.
Partially. But even the laws we do have are currently being ignored, because rates of compliance are so low that it isn't even practically feasible to enforce the law. In several US states, more than 20% of drivers are driving around without insurance. The underlying problem here is beyond what can be solved merely with enforcement.
I'm hopeful it eventually happens, but I think we're a very long way from a world where someone in small-town Mississippi can ride around in a robotic car on a McDonalds wage.
That problem isn't a hard concept. You have to work with the framework that currently exists.
I understand how bad the reality is in the US, but public transportation is a solved problem.