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Comment by swiftcoder | Hacker News Reader

> To drive a car requires being able to read

Emphatically, it does not. Passing your drivers test may require being able to read, but plenty of illiterate people around the world drive just fine.

There is a reason we made all the common road signs recognisable purely by shape/colour, after all.

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I don't think many drivers pay too much attention to signs apart from traffic lights.

Until they reverse on a highway and kill a family. Being able to drive isn't where parent poster put the bar

I don't see what reading has to do with knowing not to reverse on a highway. It's not like they put up big glowing signs that say "wrong way" like in a video game.

There literally are "no u turn" signage where you are supposed not to do that. They literally put up signs for it. It is not glowing in the sky, and it doesnt need to be, and doesnt help making a point strawmanning it.

And it's trivial to learn "no u turn" and a few other basic signs as a graphic, even when you can't read them (or can't read in general).

It's also trivial to do a u turn even when you can read, know what the sign says, and you feel like doing one because no car is coming anyway, and millions of people do that everyday too.

> There literally are "no u turn" signage where you are supposed not to do that

These signs, you mean? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitory_traffic_sign#No_U-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitory_traffic_sign#/medi... yeah?

In Australia, you will see signs on freeway offramps pointing to any cars attempting to drive on to the freeway 'WRONG WAY GO BACK' [0]

Though it is true you don't need to be able to read to operate a vehicle, you /do/ need to be able to read to operate a vehicle safely.

And for those who can read: could you teach someone how to drive using an LLM? Sure. Safely? Probably not.

[0] https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/operations/roads-and-waterw...

Most of the world follows the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, where all the important road signs are understandable without reading. This is how no entry signs look around the world [1]

Especially important in places like Europe, where it's common for the driver to be able to read, but unable to speak the language of the country they are currently driving through. I can't speak any Polish, but can travel on Polish roads just fine

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitory_traffic_sign#No_en...

This. It’s bizarre to claim that it’s impossible to drive safely in a country where you don’t speak the language. I’ve driven plenty in remote parts of the Middle East despite not reading Arabic, and never once went into oncoming traffic.

I've had some close calls with roundabouts with one-way on/off roads, especially figuring out the bike lanes. None of it required reading but would have been safer for sure.

Then there is Hanoi.

>Though it is true you don't need to be able to read to operate a vehicle, you /do/ need to be able to read to operate a vehicle safely.

Not really. You just need to be able to decipher the sign, which is trivial, even if you can't read it or spell it.

I agree that drivers should know not to reverse on a highway regardless of local signage.

But in situations that could be ambiguous, I think this is a regional difference - the US, Australia, part of the rest of the Americas use lots of text on road signs (including literal "wrong way" signs); Europe and much of the rest of the world use far less text (including purely pictographic "wrong way" signs). Especially important in Europe where drivers just can't learn 20+ languages.

Not reversing on a highway doesn't require reading, just driving sense.

And whole lot of people have done stupid shit like that while perfectly able to read, many even with masters and PhDs.

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