I've always thought a simple way to improve the process would be to require people to volunteer 200 hours in an Accident and Emergency ward at their local hospital.
force us to spend time with people who found out what thousands of pounds of metal does to the human body when it decelerates quickly.
I think there will be two nice outcomes:
1. Lots of people will chose not to get a license (and will probably avoid cars altogether).
2. The people that do get licenses will drive with a lot more care and respect.
I've worked in an Emergency Room. Literally every single person who worked there drove a car. Both trauma surgeons were motorcycle enthusiasts. I'm friends with pulmonologists who smoke, psychiatrists who drink, endocrinologists who are fat.
Having seen the possible consequences of a bad decision first-hand does not, in fact, stop people from making bad decisions.
I'm not talking in hypotheticals here. I'm saying that of the many, many people I know who do in fact work closely with the badly injured victims of traffic accidents every day, not a single one has been scared away from driving.
Alternatively, we could require them to ride along with accident investigators on the police force, because police officers are well known for their careful, respectful driving.
accident investigators != police officers behind the wheel. You probably know this, but still had to make an awesome comment about it?
It's funny how some people really think that self-driving cars are a bad thing, automation is a bad thing and people should be kept in labor. Yet, the same excact people, "optimize" their workflows by automating things, writing scripts, making the machines do as much as possible because there's no human-errors, it's cheap and it's very fast.
I really don't see (consumer)cars having no steering wheels, pedals or any other conrol equipment. What I see is cars gradually(within the next 5-10 years and onwards) get more and more of technologies to assist and aid with driving, ultimately resulting in a vehicle to which you can just say the address, and it will get you there. And yes, you'll still need a driving license for driving such a vehicle for decades, even if you don't expicitly take any control over the driving process.
For some it's an awesome future, for some it's a nightmare.
force us to spend time with people who found out what thousands of pounds of metal does to the human body when it decelerates quickly.
I think there will be two nice outcomes:
1. Lots of people will chose not to get a license (and will probably avoid cars altogether).
2. The people that do get licenses will drive with a lot more care and respect.