14 MPH and a Red Flag

The evolution of cars and driving is nothing short of amazing. Somehow, we have come to accept automobile fatalities as inevitable and really not that big of a deal. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration there was an estiamated 39,345 traffic fatalities in 2024. We have made a trade-off with convenince and personalized transport with an enormous number of deaths. 

With features, like seatbelts and much more, we have made driving safer. So why is there such a high number of fatalities? My guess is that distracted drivers have a lot of human errors that could easily be avoided. Maybe a machine that wouldn’t get distracted, maybe something like Waymo, self-driving Uber/Lyft type cars, could be part of the solution. 

While I would be very willing to ride in a Waymo I am uncertain about its widespread adoption. I think that as humans we are less likely to trust a machine over a person. Even if a driverless car cut fatalities in half, by two-thirds, three-quarters, or whatever, I just think it is going to be a tough sell. Which brings me to a strange fact I came across: Great Britain raised the speed limit to 14mph miles per hour.

Not the strange fact; here it is: in order to drive a car on a public street the law required a man to walk ahead of it and wave a red flag. We have come a long way and maybe the self-driving car is just another iteration of how automobiles have evolved.