Save Lives With Smarter, Slower Streets–Not Self-Driving Cars

"If there is too much emphasis on autonomous vehicles solving the problem, when widespread deployability is decades in the future and not next year, I think it increases the temptation to hope that the technology is going to save us," says Liisa Ecola, a transportation planner and senior policy analyst with the Rand Corporation. "Traffic safety is a big problem now and to ignore the things we can do, I think, is a disservice to the tens of thousands of people who are killed every year in crashes."

So forget robots. Engineers and the public officials who dole out their paychecks can start redesigning streets to make them safer. They can zoom in on their problem areas–is there a section of road where people keep getting hurt?–and start fixing roads today.

Aarian Marshall

https://www.wired.com/story/pedestrian-deaths-street-design/