How Autonomous Vehicles Could Help People with Disabilities

Daryl76679@lemmy.ml to Technology@lemmy.world – 36 points –
How Autonomous Vehicles Could Help People with Disabilities
scientificamerican.com
18

Autonomous vehicles, like trains or subways are indeed very useful for people with disabilities.

Luckily the train pulls up right next to my disabled grandpa's house. And it drops him off right at the doctor's office. No walking required!

Oh wait.

Most proper public transit rollouts also include point-to-point vans specifically made to haul disabled people around. Even the USA has these in some places!

Anywhere there is public transit must also provide ADA access which brings people from their home to their destination.

They do indeed. My area has them. However, those buses require riders to book a ride a day in advance, which is far from ideal. But even if that wasn't the case, you'd have to wait for the bus to arrive, then you have an unknown transit time (depending on who else is being picked up and dropped off) to your destination.

There doesn't seem to be a good option for disabled people's mobility.

unknown transit time

So I guess it's better to be stuck in a traffic jam together because there's one car per person?

All we have to do is invest more to make it more convenient. Solutions like private autonomous cars are going to help people who are both wealthy and disabled. In the US that's a rarity.

You're getting downvoted but it's a completely valid point.

Many people's disabilities make public transport unusable.

Brain transplants into completely healthy bodies could help too, but since neither are available right now, I don’t get what the purpose of this article is.

More investment in public transit would do this cheaper, better, and quicker.

In the US we have ADA funding for para transit as well as county and municipal funding. All we have to do is increase it to make paratransit more convenient for the disabled.

We're still not in a position for vehicles to be entrusted to someone who couldn't physically intercede to take over control of the car in an emergency.