There would be a strong argument to simply banning the worst 1% of drivers from driving, and maybe even compensating them with lifetime free taxi rides, on the taxpayers dime.
Expect to pay for the privilege of driving yourself and putting others at risk. If you really want to drive yourself, you'll just have to skill up to get a license and proper training, get extra insurance for the increased liability, etc. And then if you prove to be unworthy of having a license after all, it will be taken away. Because it's a privilege and not a right to have one and others on the road will insist that you are competent to drive. And with all the autonomous and camera equipped cars, incompetent drivers will be really easy to spot and police.
It will take a while before we get there; this won't happen overnight. But that's where it's going. Most people will choose not to drive most of the time for financial reasons. Driving manually then becomes a luxury. Getting a license becomes optional, not a rite of passage that every teenager takes. Eventually, owning cars that enable manual driving will become more expensive or may not even be road legal in certain areas. Etc.
I 1000% agree with you, but unfortunately in some countries like the US that kind of argument leads to nowhere, because people think driving is a human right and also the entire country is built around having a car so you are actually truly screwed if you don't have one.
>> Autonomous driving removes the economic necessity of having one. Just get a proper car that can drive you to work.
Sure, except it doesn't exist and I honestly doubt it ever(in the next 50-100 years) will. If you need autonomous driving that takes you to your destination that already exists though - it's called a taxi.
Generally you have to do a lot to get banned for life - remember Germany is run by car lobbies, they are not interested in banning people from driving,
> you have to supply hair samples
That seems like an idea that could be useful, over here, but we have a pretty strong sin lobby, so it's unlikely to happen.
Sin is ok here, that's why our policitians have little or no hair ;)
In the UK you get a minimum 12 month ban, an unlimited fine (which are based on income and have been quite big in the past (Dec of Ant and Dec got an £86000 fine). I don't think this approach is uncommon in Europe.
With a valid employment reason (such as snow plow operator) you can get an employment only permit. Your insurance will easily be $1000 a month just for basic liability. I’ve known a few guys in this situation.
The bigger problem is people who are judgment proof and don’t mind spending some time in jail. They just drive drunk over and over and don’t care if their car (which is often a relative’s) gets impounded. They have no valid licence and no insurance. Short of permanent incarceration, there isn’t much they can be done about such people.
Yep, when you get down to this root fact, it's nearly impossibly to _actually_ stop someone from driving a car. If you make insurance mandatory, they will still not buy insurance. If you revoke their license, they will keep driving without it. If you fine them, they just won't pay. If they go to jail for it, they'll resume driving when they get out.
For comparison, to get a similar penalty by speeding you would have to exceed the speed limit by 51 km/h (32 mph).
There are many additional related offences you could commit, with different consequences. Repeat offences to the above, for example, are punished more severely: you get 3 months instead of 1 and the fine is doubled and tripled for the second and third offence, respectively. Already with a blood alcohol level of 0.03% you risk legal consequences, e.g. if you make an error while driving. If you endanger someone else (or property) with that level you are committing a crime, will lose your license, and can go to prison. If you are in your probationary period (two years after acquiring your license), any nonzero level is an offence.
Losing your license is generally temporary. You are blocked from re-acquiring it for some time, depending on the offence (at least 6 months, but can be multiple years). You have to complete an MPU, which certifies your ability to safely drive. For alcohol based offences, this would include demonstrating that you have reduced your consumption significantly. This can be quite harsh; you may, for example, be required to show complete abstinence for a period of one year. Of course, you are also looking at costs close to $1000 for the MPU alone. It is possible to get permanently blocked from driving, but it's quite difficult, I believe.
...Once autonomous cars can go everywhere human-driven cars can, in all the conditions humans can drive in.
Remember that Waymo is still very restrictive in where they choose to operate.
Driving should not be a privilege exclusively for rich people. Poor people cannot afford to pay an Uber to drive them around and can’t afford to buy some Tesla with FSD either. Waymo would be grossly unaffordable for a 120 mile daily round trip commute.
In Australia I met people with even longer commutes - going 150km to get to a job, mostly due to how unaffordable housing has become.
If you want to take away people’s cars, you need to make sure they can access employment and have affordable, safe housing. Remember that half the population makes less than the median income.
Someone's individual economic circumstances are irrelevant. You can either drive safely or you can't.
I don’t agree with making driving something only the wealthy do, though.
The moment someone suggests enforcement of a law someone comes running in yelling about how it's regressive and will disproportionately affect the poor, and by extension "only the wealthy" will be able to do whatever.
Everything disproportionately affects the poor because it's very hard to be poor.
And the moment you say we shouldn't enforce laws because it will make poor peoples' lives harder you are saying that something is no longer a privilege. That poor people should be able to break the law with lesser or no consequence because they are poor.
1. People who normally take the bus are not incentivise to get their driving license /make a big accident
2. People already driving are still blt rewarded ,just not blocked
3. One may argue that if some of the borderline "not that dangerous but still..." driver do it on purpose to cross the line it still may benefits soxiety economically wise
I'd immediately donate money to and vote for any politician stupid enough to say we should revoke licenses from the worst 1% of drivers.
Revoke their licenses, let them figure it out. Get a ride from friends. Take the bus. Move closer to work. You're a danger.
If they break the law and drive anyway, put them in jail.
They are going to drive anyway, because in most of the USA, you need a car to get basically anywhere, including to work. So now instead of just being a bad driver, they're also unemployed and sitting in jail, which taxpayers are paying for. There are people with dozens of DUIs, totally uninsurable, their licenses pretty much permanently revoked, and they still drive every day.
Honestly, arrest them. Someone willing to operate a motor vehicle without a license is one step away from manslaughter.
I suspect there are plenty of undocumented immigrants in states that don't have the equivalent of AB 60 licenses who are perfectly safe drivers. Perhaps even safer than licensed drivers, since they have more to lose from moving violations.
A private chef sounds good to me; having to go and collect specially marked "safe" meals at the supermarket with a card that's only given to adults the state deems incapable of looking after themselves, not so much.
So they price themselves out.
Of course, they may then decide not to have insurance at all. In most countries that is illegal and doing that in a premeditated way is criminality and something else entirely.
Not sure if insurance is mandatory in the US or not - I assume instead you just get into a gunfight with the other party instead?/s
But for whatever reason, it seems such people end up with far lower (yet still expensive) insurance quotes at more like $4k/year.
With numbers like that you're fundamentally running against the people's willingness to comply (which includes the cop's willingness to enforce).
"oh you hit a mailbox during an ice storm that we paid out $50 for after your deductible, that'll be a $400/6mo increase in premiums for the next five years"
Government generally budgets deaths at $3M-$30M per person killed. Yet a car accident that kills someone usually doesn't result in any payout at all.
That in turn means insurance companies are offering risky people lower rates than economists would suggest for the societal cost/risk.
I bet the actual payouts to families are similar for normal deaths that don't result in a media spectacle and the court of public opinion being involved.
Good luck if such a person hits you; they’ll simply drive off. Recently a friend of mine had a fender bender with someone else, most likely his fault. That person didn’t have a valid registration or insurance and wasn’t at fault but begged to just go without calling the police. My friend handed them the cash out of his pocket since he felt bad for damaging their car, but they did NOT want to see the police.
The only way to enforce not having expired tags/no licence/no insurance is strict police enforcement. A lot of Americans don’t like that and so police agencies end up being lenient, preferring to focus on more violent crimes instead of just trying to pull every car with expired tags over.
It's mandatory and requiring proof when you register your car. Your insurer also has a line to the DMV (car registration government) to say, "FYI this guy is not insured" and the DMV gets mad.
It's a known problem, particularly with undocumented peoples, that they are often uninsured. California studied the issue: https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/105-type/95-guides...
In the report California states up to 13% of the US residents of some areas do not happen to possess documentation documenting their legality of being in the US. Often they came from countries with no insurance requirement, so they are unaware of American culture and policies in this regard. The report also states 10% of drivers are uninsured. I'm not sure why the DMV isn't getting mad in this case, being informed the car is not insured. So it's "mandatory" but 10% of drivers are not insured. Similar to how in California retail theft is technically "illegal" but a lot of people will do that without consequences. Honestly if you ask me we need to be waiving the insurance requirement for cultural reasons and take a verbal Spanish-first policy to help accommodate people who have undocumented English skills or are without documentation of being literate.