Comment by mattlondon

Comment by mattlondon 3 days ago

7 replies

Does it actually work though?

Many roads in London have parked cars on either side so only one can get through - instead of people cooperating you have people fighting, speeding as fast as they can to get through before someone else appears, or race on-coming cars to a gap in the parked cars etc. So when they should be doing 30mph, they are more likely doing 40-45. Especially with EVs you have near-instant power to quickly accelerate to get to a gap first etc.

And putting obstacles in the road so you cant see if someone is there? That sounds really dangerous and exactly the sort of thing that caused the accident in the story here.

Madness.

lmm 2 days ago

> Does it actually work though?

Yes. They have made steady progress over the previous decades to the point where they can now have years with zero road fatalities.

> And putting obstacles in the road so you cant see if someone is there? That sounds really dangerous and exactly the sort of thing that caused the accident in the story here.

Counterintuitive perhaps, but it's what works. Humans adjust their behaviour to the level of perceived risk, the single most important thing is to make driving feel as dangerous as it is.

  • mattlondon 2 days ago

    I think the humans in London at least do not adjust their behaviour for the perceived risk!

    From experience they will adjust their behaviour to reduce their total travel time as much as possible (i.e. speed to "make up" for lost time waiting etc) and/or "win" against other drivers.

    I guess it is a cultural thing. But I cannot agree that making it harder to see people in the road is going to make anything safer. Even a robot fucking taxi with lidar and instant reaction times hit a kid because they were obscured by something.

    • jjav 2 days ago

      > I think the humans in London at least do not adjust their behaviour for the perceived risk!

      Sure they do, all humans do. Nobody wants to get hurt and nobody wants to hurt anyone else.

      (Yes there are few exceptions, people with mental disorders that I'm not qualified to diagnose; but vast majority of normal humans don't.)

      Humans are extremely good at moderating behavior to perceived risk, thank evolution for that.

      (This is what self-driving cars lack; machines have no fear of preservation)

      The key part is perceived though. This is why building the road to match the level of true risk works so well. No need for artificial speed limits or policing, if people perceive the risk is what it truly is, people adjust instictively.

      This is why it is terrible to build wide 4 lane avenues right next to schools for example.

    • stouset 2 days ago

      There are always going to be outlier events. If for every one person who still manages to get hit—at slow, easily-survivable speeds—you prevent five others from being killed, it’s a pretty obvious choice.

  • tgsovlerkhgsel 2 days ago

    I know the research and know that it's generally considered to be effective (at least in most European cities where it is done). I wonder whether there are any tipping points, e.g. drivers going into road rage due to excessive obstacles/trying to "make up for the lost time" etc., and whether it would work in the US (or whether drivers just would ignore the risk because they don't perceive pedestrians as existing).

Mawr 2 days ago

Does physics work? If it does, then these physical obstacles work too. Go ahead, try to drive faster than 10mph through a roadway narrowed so much it's barely wider than your car, with curbs. And yeah, I'm describing a place in London.