
The Fight for the Right to Drive - somebehemoth
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-fight-for-the-right-to-drive
======
resoluteteeth
It is way too early to worry about manually driving a car becoming illegal.
For that to even be a possibility, self-driving cars will have to be perfected
and then become completely ubiquitous. If that happens, I think it should be
up to the society that exists at that point to decide whether manual driving
should be banned (for example if self-driving cars are much safer by then).

Requiring cars to have wheels is also premature, because there are currently
no cars that are safe to operate purely in self-driving mode with no backup
driver, but once (if) there are fully self driving cars, people who can't
manually drive will probably want to buy them. At this point, it initially may
be necessary to at least disable the manually driving functionality in this
case, if not outright remove the steering wheel, for safety (e.g when the car
is being operated by children, people without licenses, seniors, etc.) and
once this is possible it would be somewhat absurd for manual car aficionados
to argue that simply making cars available in these configurations is somehow
restricting people's freedoms.

Honestly, I suspect that 99% of drivers don't actually enjoy driving and will
adopt self-driving cars as soon as they are inexpensively available, and in
the long term removing the manual controls will probably provide more room for
making self-driving cars more comfortable (making the seats recline like beds
with a suitable safety harness, etc.).

~~~
hitpointdrew
>Honestly, I suspect that 99% of drivers don't actually enjoy driving and will
adopt self-driving cars as soon as they are inexpensively available

I guess I am the 1%, then. Driving is one of the few activities where I can
really clear my head. I support the goals of the Human Driving Association. I
also disagree that it is too early, as many people already see it as
inevitable that self-driving will be illegal.

~~~
reidjs
Then go to a regulated track and drive to your heart's content? I don't like
the idea of people just 'clearing their heads' while driving a 2 ton box at 65
miles per hour.

~~~
hitpointdrew
>go to a regulated track and drive

Ugh, what a stupid comment. Yeah sure, let me not only have 1 car, but now 2
cars, a trailer to legally transport the manual car. Then go on a boring as
hell, flat, circle. This is not at all the same as say driving around a
mountainous region, or along the coast. You can go fuck yourself with your
regulated "track".

~~~
hannasanarion
> Ugh, what a stupid comment. Yeah sure, let me not only have 1 carriage, but
> now a motorcar and a trailer to legally transport the horses and carriage.
> Then go on a boring as hell, flat, circle. This is not at all the same as
> say galloping around a mountainous region, or along the coast. You can go
> fuck yourself with your regulated "track".

~~~
CompanionCuuube
Yeah, the ownership and riding of a horse is now restricted to the privileged.
Not exactly a shining example to use.

~~~
hannasanarion
Yeah, the expensive hobby isn't mandatory for everybody anymore, in fact it is
banned on public roads, and the better alternative is readily available for
people who don't want to shell out the cash for the quaint older method. What
is the problem here?

------
lasagnaphil
I was planning to write a cyberpunk dystopian short story which the nation
banned all non-autonomous vehicles (basically, mega-corporations like Waymo
and Uber have lobbied the government and spun the media with keywords such as
'safety' and 'efficiency'). But then there is a rag-tag group of people (car
enthusiasts and motorcyclers) who demand the right to driving: to feel the
winds and speed flowing over their shoulders as they indulge in the absolute
freedom of movement. So they occasionally drive secretly and illegally, out of
the eyes of the cameras of Waymo. The story starts with a chase scene with the
Google police cars, which are also 100% autonomous. The rebels have managed to
fake them by camouflaging their vehicles, but the police are now using special
sonar technology which augments their camera vision. (And then one of the
rebels know how to hack inside the autonomous-driving deep learning system,
and then yadda yadda...)

But now this fucking "right to drive" thing is actually becoming a fucking
reality. The future is, simply cyberpunk. Help me, I'm getting headaches.

~~~
300bps
_But now this fucking "right to drive" thing is actually becoming a fucking
reality._

1.25 million people die per year from auto accidents in the world with as many
as 20-50 million additional people injured or disabled.

Source: [https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-
facts/](https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/)

The average car utilization is less than 4.5%. For over 95% of the time, most
cars are just sitting there doing nothing.

Source: [https://www.reinventingparking.org/2013/02/cars-are-
parked-9...](https://www.reinventingparking.org/2013/02/cars-are-parked-95-of-
time-lets-check.html)

Cars are the second largest expense for most people with the cost of the car,
cost of maintenance, registration, insurance, parking, etc. coming only behind
their residence in terms of cost.

Manually driven cars are a wasteful luxury that kill over a million people per
year. I can't wait until they go away.

~~~
btrettel
> The average car utilization is less than 4.5%. For over 95% of the time,
> most cars are just sitting there doing nothing.

This is roughly true of bikes as well, but I've never seen it used as an
argument against cycling.

There is one important difference: Bikes are much smaller than cars so they
take up less space when parked. But I haven't seen that mentioned in this
context.

I am a cyclist for what it's worth.

~~~
dheera
I'm a bike commuter too, but I stay on dedicated bike paths whenever possible,
which is about 90% of my commute. I don't have a way of measuring it, but my
intuition says that my chance of death while cycling on a dedicated bike path
is much less than if I were driving a car on the road.

I do realize I'm pretty lucky to be in that situation, but for safety reasons
I'm a big fan of generally having more dedicated bike paths or at least
barrier-separated bike lanes around town. In a lot of Asian and European
cities it is pretty standard and it massively improves safety.

------
Spartan-S63
I don't think we need to make human driving illegal. Rather, I think we should
create a financial incentive _not_ to drive. Those who want to continue to
drive cars can, but at a cost. Such a cost could be assuming all liability in
the event of an accident with an autonomous vehicle. Under such a model, the
human driver would always be at fault.

~~~
herogreen
But if you are not careful this will increase inequality between rich and
poors.

~~~
hannasanarion
What inequality? Poor people can be safe in autocars, and rich idiots can pay
the fee as well as the full liability when they get in a wreck.

------
nimbius
Speaking as an engine mechanic by trade and a python programmer for hobby, im
not sure how i feel about more electronics in cars just yet. However, some of
them are just objectively meaningless.

-Soundaktor. this is a tiny plastic speaker mounted in the footwell of most Volkswagen cars thats designed to make fake engine noises. The idea being, if the car sounds aggressive, people will enjoy it. Ford uses these as well, and if they die they will trigger an ODB code and a trip to the dealership to fix/replace.

\- engine auto-off/on. This is a feature that originally showed up on Mercedes
trucks to prevent drivers from idling in docks or streets. They extended it to
their luxury cars, and now most high end cars to this. The idea being that if
you stop at a red light, the engine shuts off to "save gas." The only thing
this feature does is halve the life of your starter motor and battery.

~~~
fh973
Isn't auto one-off to save a few grams of average CO2 emissions on paper to
save the customer some tax money in countries where CO2 emissions are the base
for taxation?

------
jhbadger
I doubt that human driving will ever be outlawed. Riding horses isn't outlawed
after all. What is likely is that automated driving will be required for major
highways, just like how horses are banned from them now.

~~~
hitpointdrew
> Riding horses isn't outlawed after all.

It is on major roads, which makes it impossible/impractical to use horse a
legit mode of transportation.

~~~
jhbadger
The Amish near where I live seem to get by with their horses and carts, but
they aren't taking the Interstate.

~~~
HighPlainsDrftr
I've long thought that all highways/interstates should have paved bike path
and a dirt trail away from the road itself. This would give people the option
of riding horses or bikes in a much safer manner.

~~~
resoluteteeth
I think the biggest problem with this would be that you wouldn't want highway
traffic crossing the bike/horse paths at grade, so I'm not sure that building
bike/horse paths along (even if a bit away from) the highways would actually
be efficient.

It might be better to simply require that equivalent paths be built somehow.

~~~
jsymolon
> want highway traffic crossing the bike/horse paths at grade

For the same sort of big vehicle vs small problems, look at all the problems
with trains and car/truck crossings at grade. Spoiler, the train usually wins.

------
yial
So reading through their website... I’m not convinced that this is a real
movement. Due to the layout, the prominence of the store part, etc, it really
feels more like it’s a web store that has struck upon trendy marketing in the
guise of fighting for the right to drive.

------
drivingmenuts
If you take away the steering and brakes, there is no way to clear a dead car
out of traffic so everyone else can get on with their lives. Take those away
and your car is suddenly blocking me because the power system shit the bed,
I’m gonna be considering violence very shortly.

