US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday said human drivers must pay attention at all times after videos emerged of people wearing what appeared to be Apple’s recently released Vision Pro headset while driving Teslas.
Buttigieg responded on Twitter/X to a video that had more than 24m views of a Tesla driver who appeared to be gesturing with his hands to manipulate a virtual reality field.
Despite their names, Tesla’s assisted driving features – Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving – do not mean the vehicles are fully autonomous, Buttigieg said Monday on social media.
“Reminder – ALL advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human driver to be in control and fully engaged in the driving task at all times,” Buttigieg said.
That’s great if there’s a train that goes where you need to go. For most people in the US that happens approximately never.
If only something could be done about it but it seems for some reason the laws of physics don’t allow trains in north America
That’s actually true in a way. Shit here is really far apart.
That’s why the first intercontinental travel was trains. Over distance trains a substantially more efficient than car because of rolling resistance and differentials.
That’s why I say the laws of physics don’t apply because we do the objectively worse thing because the government hates building infrastructure.
The US for instance is about the same size as China yet China has lots of rail because the government will focus on infrastructure.
Yes, trains are great for long distances. Where they suck is trying to get people from point to point in a sprawling city designed around the assumption that everyone has a car. Cities are so spread out that getting within walking distance of most destinations by train would require an unreasonably large rail system.
Let’s be honest, cars suck at that too and that’s why we’re perpetually dealing with traffic and widening roads.
But let’s take Phoenix AZ, the premium suburb sprawl. The light rail is pretty damn good and with a bike it’s pretty painless evern if you need to get a mile or two from the light rail.
The main issue with using bikes like this is all the big ass cars and drivers who will not share the road. If we had dedicated bike infrastructure leading to rail it would work just fine even with suburban sprawl.
I know this because I did this on the light rail in Phoenix.
For what it’s worth, I always vote for more public transit. I’m just never that impressed with the results.
You don’t have to love it or anything and I’m not saying public transportation is mandatory. But right now, cars are mandatory in a lot of ways and I think that’s a shame.