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Originally Posted by JamesNoBrakes
That doesn't quite make sense. Congress would tell the DOT to prepare and make rules, they'd call in their experts and engineers, get advisory boards with other experts, and draft rules. Congress usually doesn't make these kind of rules or draft plans except in rare cases and usually when they do, they have to "fix" them for the exact reason you explain, because they aren't experts. They only set the more general policy/rules. The "how to do it" falls on the agencies.
Secondly, you are the only one saying it's going to solve congestion. Obviously it's not, you need more capacity or to have more passengers if you are going to solve congestion. That's a different issue. Safety is the autonomous driving issue. Again, most lawmakers and and agencies are concerned with deaths and injuries. Concerns about congestion usually far pretty far below this. How does congestion lead to phone use? If you are taking stop-and-go traffic, well that probably limits deaths/injuries just by the nature of slow speeds, but that's a heck of a stretch. Does congestion lead to eating food in the car too? Dealing with kids? Talking on the phone? The idea that you aren't going to have any congestion, no stop-n-go, no stop-signs or lights seems pretty far fetched given city density and lack of public transportation. Is that really where the most bang for the buck is? You can only make highways so wide and there will still be choke points and merges that you can't make better. Just look at some of the mega-on-ramp-overpass complexes in Texas. My god, it's just getting out of control in some of those places, almost better to start from scratch.
I disagree that the only way to save lives or have less injuries is to slow speeds. Keeping cars from careening off the road is another way. Keeping cars from hitting other cars, like on-coming traffic, is yet another, keeping them from slamming into a stationary car at 70mph is yet another, and so on. These rely on the autonomous technology. Lowering deaths by lowering speeds to have less injuries and damage in crashes is not the entire principle of this, as you claim. Autonomous cars can be zipping along at 70mph and still be safer, because they won't drift off, hit an on-coming car, run over a motorcycle, etc.
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I frankly don't see how AV will become fully implemented as long as government allows the ownership of non AV type vehicles, and pedestrians to use crosswalks etc. I will not buy an AV or and EV for that matter, I enjoy driving and will not give up my cars willingly. Also, automakers are still selling hundreds of thousands of non AV vehicles every year and I don't see that changing anytime soon, so that will definitely slow the transition, even if the government and manufacturers came out with an affordable level 5 AV this year how will they deal with cars that have been sold or manufactured and are sitting in inventory to be sold given some folks will hold onto those cars for 10 years or more.