Self-driving
I just drove South Sarasota, FL to Miami, FL and in one 250 mile trip saw:
The Northbound direction blocked with a 3-4 mile backup behind it. In front, a lifeflight helicopter on the roadway (from Tampa), not yet taking off, and no victim immediately visible, so presumably the victim died before takeoff, or it was just an exceptionally slow operation (I have a pretty decent amount of experience with battlefield MEDEVAC helicopter operations, but almost none with civilian lifeflight except knowing they’re absurdly expensive.) (I lived with an Air Ambulance company in Iraq for a while, and went on missions: do NOT sit down in a military MEDEVAC helicopter without looking to make sure the seat is clean, FYI. Vehicle in the center of median was very much an ex-vehicle.
Slowdown from some other multi-vehicle accident (1-2 of them, they didn’t appear fatal so I didn’t take much note.) Did note fucking morons standing out by their cars instead of remaining in their substantially safer vehicles by the side of the road, though.
30-50% of a high-end red sportbike embedded into the back of a pickup truck or SUV, with no EMS immediately present, and some police on the express lanes about 100-500m down (hard to judge distance since I was moving). Couldn’t tell if this was the beginning of an accident response, or the end (where they’d taken away the casualties but were waiting for wreckers. Motorcycle rider (and hopefully no passenger) was pretty clearly ejected from the motorcycle at speed — maybe that’s why the cops were where they were.
This was all on a sunny, clear day with exceptionally good roads (I-75 and Florida DOT are among the best in the country); no extenuating circumstances besides stupid humans being stupid.
Just like the people blocking nuclear energy should literally hang (and it would be a net win for society; I’d absolutely jury-nullify extrajudicial actions in this regard), and the people at FDA/CDC/etc. are net-casualty-producers, the people keeping stupid unreliable humans as the only drivers on the road, rather than even *today* superior machines at high speeds on interstate highways, are net casualty producers, and a purely utilitarian argument would lead to hemp futures skyrocketing in price, and/or some increase in very messy woodchipper maintenance calls. (I don’t have much faith in legislative solutions here, but possibly judicial will win out before extrajudicial.)
The alternative to today’s self-driving vehicles is not a perfect driver; it’s an idiot distracted tired human with no real skill or training since passing an exam decades ago. Drunk or distracted/texting driving beyond that, but I’d wager 80% of drivers on the road today are worse at their best in clear-highway interstate driving conditions than even a mediocre self driving vehicle today (partially because they don’t take stupid risks, but mostly because they’re constantly attentive). We don’t need to have self-driving in every possible corner case, we just need self-driving in the highest-risk-of-death, easiest-to-drive situation of high speed Interstate/divided highways. There are a few corner cases (like the famous semi-truck blocking the road horizontally situation which killed a Tesla driver a few years ago), but those are much less common than the daily deaths today.