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.

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lmm 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> 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.

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mattlondon 5 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	lmm 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> I think the humans in London at least do not adjust their behaviour for the perceived risk! The evidence is that they do though. E.g. the Exhibition Road remodelling (removing curbs/signs/etc.) has been a great success and effectively reduced vehicle speeds, e.g. https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/documents/...
	▲	stouset 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		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.