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Comment by paddy_m | Hacker News Reader

Good thing APD is protecting the public by keeping Uber out. The driver was definitely at fault, but we need to seriously look at how we design cities and laws. If the only way to get around in a city is to drive, people are going to drive drunk. Make it easier for people to get around without driving, and there will be less drunk driving.

People will seek out jurisdictions where driving is less necessary because they are safer there.

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Oh for heaven's sake, there are other ways to get from A to B besides driving yourself or taking Uber. Blaming APD for this is a cheap shot, especially as the driver appears to have stolen the car from another town an hour's drive away and was thus not likely to be an Uber customer int he first place.

God, and the first answer to this is Uber? What about public transit and denser cities? Ugh.

If Uber runs into issues in a city I would imagine the ability of that city to manage urban planning and public transit to be poor.

It might not be an answer so much as a canary.

Austinite here.

This is a terribly sad, sad day out here. Your comment, while partially true, is not really appreciated.

That said, you can't really be "surprised" by the enormous amounts of DUIs around here (even by our elected officials). I don't mean to be insensitive, but this is not an isolated incident.

This is a city that practically endorses party behavior, and has absolutely miserable public transportation options and a sprawling suburb area. It's a lethal combination that is getting worse and worse.

Sadly, we deal with on a weekly basis -- driving around here at night is not safe -- and there's no true solution in near sight.

Not happy.

>> This is a city that practically endorses party behavior, and has absolutely miserable public transportation options and a sprawling suburb area

I used to live in Athens, GA, and we had the same problem: nightlife drove much of the local economy, but public transportation was nearly non-existent. The number of clearly intoxicated people getting into cars was astounding to me when I first moved, having previously lived in a city with good public transportation.

The correlation between drunk driving and the availability of public transportation seems pretty clear to me.

Unfortunately, one can't build a rail line overnight. Especially when Austinites themselves voted down the larger-scale project that was on the ballot in 2000. Shot ourselves in both feet.

With this city's growth, it will be very very bad for at least 20 years to come. The Mayor himself basically said so on an AMA yesterday.

You can buy and run subsidised night buses pretty quickly. The hard bit is the politics, not the logistics.

I am just going to venture a guess that the kind of person who steals a car and flees cops -- first in a car and then on foot -- is not in Uber's target demographic.

Uber getaway drivers is an amusing thought.

Unless you just robbed a union hall or a non-GMO organic food coop, then Uber has your back... ;)

> If the only way to get around in a city is to drive, people are going to drive drunk

How about not drink if they know they have to drive later. Drink only when you have alternative means of transport, or a DD.

You don't design city policy on the assumption everyone will behave responsibly. That assumption is false, and while education can amelliorate the issue, it's improtant to know some people will make bad decisions. Having good public transportation makes DUI a lot less appealing, and as such it's an important policy in a city where it's easy/normal to get drunk.

Uber would not have done anything to prevent this from happening. Let's put this in perspective: the problem wasn't simply that the guy was driving drunk, the problem is that he fled from the police after they attempted to pull him over for driving drunk.

Based on the judgment that drunkard exhibited (fleeing from the cops) [edit: and the fact that he apparently stole the car], it's pretty clear he wouldn't have taken Uber even if it had been widely available.

> Make it easier for people to get around without driving, and there will be less drunk driving.

So... add more car services? What!? Grade-separated rapid transit (ideally with platform screen doors), aggressive congestion charging, parking maximums, and general Copenhagenization - these are actual solutions, not more cars.

Platform screen doors are silly, faulty, expensive and pointless.

I mean, the rest of your comment stands - I don't know of anybody who got hurt on my street, but that's probably because my street is only open for cars between 8 and 11 (AM, for those of you stuck with 12h clock).

But platform screen doors, nope.

I think I've only ever seen platform screen doors once in my life, on the Paris metro, and I thought they were great. It ameliorated my own personal fears and general curiosity about the tracks. Why do you think they are so bad? What if they weren't faulty? On a cursory glance on Google, I don't see much except rare cases where people got stuck(?) in them?

I feel like they would be reduce incidents of people/things falling into the tracks as well as help with queues in front of the doors (i.e., people know where to queue, as opposed to just following the train until it stops).

Metro is a very specific case, and that line in specific - you have a limited variety of vehicles and fully enclosed platforms. Oh, and as far as I can remember, the specific metro line is fully automated.

In practice the incidents are rare (even in case of metros, it's something you read in news papers every time it happens), and the few attempts to implement them were generally underwhelming. And, if anything, the risk of a person getting between them and the vehicle means you're just swapping risks around.

So yeah, they're costly, of dubious use, they're yet another part that can break, and a general eyesore. And, if you want dense networks (and you do, trust me on that), then increasing the amount of space required for a stop is also a Bad Thing.

There are numerous options downtown in Austin for travel while drunk. The person at fault here is the guy behind the wheel that panicked.

From http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/2-dead-21-injured-in-...

The incident started after a police officer began checking for DWIs. The suspect, fearing arrest, weaved his silver Toyota sedan through a gas station and sped off, driving the wrong way down a one-way street. The officer turned on his lights and pursued the suspect. A second officer stationed at a nearby barricade was forced to move to avoid being struck by the suspect, who proceeded to further accelerate, drive through the barricade and strike multiple pedestrians.

The suspect continued driving "at a high rate of speed" for two blocks before hitting a taxi and striking a male and a female and killing them both. The suspect exited his car after running over the moped and proceeded to flee on foot, where he was apprehended and tased by an Austin police officer before being taken into custody.

"As a result of this person's reckless and willful disregard for the safety of the people, we have two individuals who are now dead," Acevedo said. The entire incident lasted under two minutes.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/2-dead-21-injured-in-... Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

> Good thing APD is protecting the public by keeping Uber out

Could have done without the sarcasm here, but you are correct. Improving public transit options and treating car-dependent culture is the ultimate solution here.

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