Comment by alkonaut
17 hours ago
"It depends". If 50 people die and 50 people go to jail, vs. 40 people die and their families are left wondering if someone will take responsibility? Then that's not immediately standing out as an improvement just because fewer died. We can do better I think. The problem is simply one of responsibility.
If the current situation was every day 40 people die but blame is rarely assigned, would you recommend a change where an additional 10 people are going to die but someone will be held responsible for those deaths?
Yes
People don't usually go to jail. Unless the driver is drunk or there's some other level of provable criminal negligence (or someone actively trying to kill people by e.g. driving into a crowd of protesters they disagree with), it's just chalked up as an accident.
Apart from a minority of car related deaths resulting in jail time, what kind of person wants many more people to die just so they can point at someone to blame for it? At what point are such people the ones to blame for so many deaths themselves?
In such situations it’s useful to put yourself in a hypothetical situation. Rules: you can’t pick who you will be: one of the dead or alive. It will be assigned randomly.
So would you pick situation 1 or 2?
I would personally pick 1.
Do they go to jail?
That is not my experience here in the Bay Area. In fact here is a pretty typical recent example https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/community-members-mour...
The driver cuts in front of one person on an e-bike so fast they can’t react and hit them. Then after being hit they step on the accelerator and go over the sidewalk on the other side of the road killing a 4 year old. No charges filed.
This driver will be back on the street right away.
Ugh. That is so despicable both of the driver and as a society that we accept this. Ubiquitous Waymo can't come soon enough.