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Self-Driving Cars Not Ready For Prime Time

Self-driving cars are failing at detecting humans doing human things. So blame the humans.

THE SELF-DRIVING CAR THAT WILL NEVER ARRIVE

Casey Johnston Aug 20, 2018

“If that weren’t enough, self-driving car engineers themselves seem to finally be growing frustrated enough with the whole endeavor that they are engaging in some wild reality-distortion-field tactics. They have begun to blame the cars’ lack of success on non-negotiable aspects of reality. The problem is not that self-driving AI is bad at driving, their logic now goes; it’s that people are bad at walking. The Bloomberg report from Thursday detailing this tension included these devastating paragraphs:

With these timelines slipping, driverless proponents like Ng say there’s one surefire shortcut to getting self-driving cars on the streets sooner: persuade pedestrians to behave less erratically. If they use crosswalks, where there are contextual clues—pavement markings and stop lights—the software is more likely to identify them.”

Read more…

https://theoutline.com/post/5964/the-self-driving-car-that-will-never-arrive?zd=1&zi=uzjjbzsx

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Goodbye Cars…

The continued saga of the end of cars.

The Modern Automobile Must Die

If we want to solve climate change, there’s no other option.

By EMILY ATKIN 

“So far, Germany has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 27.7 percent—an astonishing achievement for a developed country with a highly developed manufacturing sector. But with a little over a year left to go, despite dedicating $580 billion toward a low-carbon energy system, the country “is likely to fall short of its goals for reducing harmful carbon-dioxide emissions,” Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. And the reason for that may come down not to any elaborate solar industry plans, but something much simpler: cars.”

Read more…

https://newrepublic.com/article/150689/modern-automobile-must-die

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How America Killed Transit. Service Drives Demand.

Transit in the US has continually cut service to improve the bottom line, effectively causing customers to prefer driving, further reducing revenue. Streets, roads, and highways are more and more clogged with vehicles, and the automotive industry has shown recent interest in alternative transportation. The government can make good on promises of investment in transit, and voters should demand it.

How America Killed Transit

Streetcar, bus, and metro systems have been ignoring one lesson for 100 years: Service drives demand.

JONATHAN ENGLISH 

“One hundred years ago, the United States had a public transportation system that was the envy of the world. Today, outside a few major urban centers, it is barely on life support. Even in New York City, subway ridership is well below its 1946 peak. Annual per capita transit trips in the U.S. plummeted from 115.8 in 1950 to 36.1 in 1970, where they have roughly remained since, even as population has grown.”

This has not happened in much of the rest of the world.

“What happened? Over the past hundred years the clearest cause is this: Transit providers in the U.S. have continually cut basic local service in a vain effort to improve their finances. But they only succeeded in driving riders and revenue away. When the transit service that cities provide is not attractive, the demand from passengers that might “justify” its improvement will never materialize.”

Read more…

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/08/how-america-killed-transit/568825/

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Driving Us To The Grave

These statistics should be a wake-up call for the US. While the automotive industry continues to promote driving as a lifestyle, and gas prices are low, the love affair continues while people die.

America’s Car Culture is Literally Shortening Your Life: Study

By Angie Schmitt 

The U.S. has been falling behind its peer nations on traffic safety and now life expectancy as well. There’s a connection. Graph: WHO

“Driving is driving us to the grave.

Life expectancy at birth declined steeply in the U.S. in 2015 and 2016, a new British Journal of Medicine study reports — a finding that was attributed partly to the opioid crisis, but also to America’s ongoing traffic violence problem.”

“So while the opioid addiction grabs headlines, cars have quietly remained a leading killer. In 2015, for example, the U.S. traffic fatality rate jumped 9 percent. And in 2016, it jumped again 5.6 percent, wiping out nearly a decade of improvements. It was the biggest two-year jump in 50 years.

Traffic fatalities have long been a leading cause of death of Americans, and in 2015, they were the 13th leading cause of death in the U.S. overall. But because cars kill a disproportionately high number of younger people, they rank seventh in total years of life lost.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/08/24/americas-car-culture-is-literally-shortening-your-life-study/

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What’s Up With NJ Transit?

NJ Transit Makes Deposit on Its Future While Digging Itself out of Hole

By Sandy Smith | August 16, 2018

New Jersey Transit Allocates Money for Future While Cleaning Up Present Mess

“But even as canceled trains have made commuting hell in North Jersey this summer, and as South Jersey prepares to go for months without regional rail service so personnel and equipment can be used elsewhere for other purposes, the agency has managed to set aside some seed money for future rail expansion.”

Read more…

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/nj-transit-makes-deposit-on-its-future-while-digging-itself-out-of-hole?utm_source=Next+City+Newsletter&utm_campaign=15c62fbdd5-Issue_286_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fcee5bf7a0-15c62fbdd5-44033881

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CBS This Morning: Distraction On The Dashboard!

It’s not just about texting while driving…and it’s getting worse all the time. Car manufacturers are touting the comforts and tech of a living room experience inside your new car. And yet there’s continued victim blaming of pedestrians texting while walking?

Are high-tech dashboards the new culprit in distracted driving?

A just-released study looks at how new in-car technology is taking our eyes off the road. Consumer Reports focuses on vehicle “infotainment systems,” including touch screens and controllers on the dashboard.

Read more…

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/distracted-driving-infotainment-systems-cars/

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The End Of Car Ownership

As it becomes less desirable and inconvenient to own a car in US cities, Asbury Park will be on the cutting edge.  Asbury Park will have electric car share, plus several other transportation options.

‘Peak Car’ and the End of an Industry

In Germany—the birthplace of the modern automobile—carmakers are anticipating the day when people stop owning cars.

By Stefan Nicola and Elisabeth Behrmann August 17, 2018

“If I’m truly honest with myself, then owning a car is too expensive with all these alternatives around…”
Read more…

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-08-17/-peak-car-and-the-end-of-an-industry?__twitter_impression=true

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Lowering Speed Limit Works

Encouraging study shows that lowering speed limit helps reduce speeding.  Asbury Park will be reducing speed the limit city-wide.

Study: Lowering the Speed Limit … Works To Reduce Speeding

By Angie Schmitt 

“Here’s some encouraging news for cities trying to reduce speeding: New research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows that lowering posted speed limits appears to be effective at reducing driver speeds.

The IIHS study compared speeds before and after Boston lowered its speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph in January, 2017 — and the results were clear: “Vehicles exceeding 25 mph, 30 mph, and 35 mph all declined at sites in Boston, with the largest reduction in proportions of vehicles exceeding 35 mph,” wrote the study authors Wen Hu and Jessica Cicchino.”

Read more…

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/08/29/study-lowering-the-speed-limit-works-to-reduce-speeding/

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Mid-block Crosswalk

*Editor’s note:  jaywalking is fake. In addition, in NJ it is not illegal to cross mid-block as long as the pedestrian is not obstructing oncoming traffic. So mid-block pedestrian crosswalks should be unnecessary, but drivers and pedestrians do not know the law.

South Street is getting ‘midblock’ crosswalks to make it safer for pedestrians
 However, there are no plans to install the traffic-calming measures elsewhere — yet.

Max Marin Aug 29, 2018 

“In a city where the mentality is often “cars over everything,” the freshly painted crosswalk stripes on South Street halfway between Ninth and 10th are an unusual but welcome sight.

The markings form a midblock crosswalk — a clunky phrase, but simple enough concept in urban design. They facilitate road-crossing in areas where corner crosswalks just don’t cut it. In this particular case, the thinking went, people have been jaywalking * across this stretch near Delhi Street to get to Whole Foods for the nearly two decades of the grocery store’s existence, so why not alert oncoming drivers and guarantee safer passage for pedestrians?”

Read more…

https://billypenn.com/2018/08/29/south-street-is-getting-midblock-crosswalks-to-make-it-safer-for-pedestrians/

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More Bikes=Safer City

Bike parking facilities are in demand in Utrecht-there are more bikes than people and more than a quarter of all trips are made by bicycle.  The key takeaway here is that the more bicyclists are the safer everyone will be. But it wasn’t always a bicycle culture in The Netherlands. There’s hope for the US.

By Christopher F. Schuetz Sept. 6, 2017

If You Build It, the Dutch Will Pedal

More important for the nation’s bottom line, the country’s preference for the bicycle could save its economy $23 billion each year, according to a recent study done at Utrecht University and published in the American Journal of Public Health. The study suggested that the Netherlands’ vigorous cycling habits prevented 6,500 premature deaths each year.”