Bikes aren’t faster than cars for the elderly, the vision impaired, handicapped people or small children. I’m all for more bikes and more bike routes, but cars offer more independence for a lot of movement restricted people.
The vision impaired and small children should not be driving anyway. And depending on the "handicap" and the age-related abilities they may also be detrimental to safe piloting of a vehicle. The solution is public transport. (Or tandem bicycles).
Except that one of the big upsides of autocars is this demographic of people. And many (most) places in the US are not conveniently served by public transit. Heck, I live in one of the better places (Portland Oregon) and even in the core of the city it's going to be easily 2x as long to take PT anywhere vs a private car. IMO the big promise of autocars is the potential for eliminating mass transit along with all it's annoyances.
They can ride as passengers. You're arguing that tandem bicycles is a serious solution for the elderly or handicapped people? Is there a community where this is common?
I hope the vision impaired and small children aren't driving cars. And all of these groups would be helped much much more by not designing cities around cars, in the 95% of hours in the day where they are not in cars and need to navigate every day life.
A $60k retrofitted transporter van isn't exactly the definition of "independence".
Actually, there are many visually impaired people who can, and do, drive. As an example, I know a woman in her sixties who is classed as visually impaired. She can see well enough to get herself about but she can't make out peoples faces until she is fairly close and has to have a magnifying glass to read even fairly large text. She has been assessed as safe to drive, but is excluded from driving at night.
Well, there is a lot of rational thought (and frankly human lives) sacrificed at the altar of the personal automobile. Limousines with 200 hp, huge trucks with bull bars but can't see the pedestrian to the right, sound systems, entertainment systems, licenses that expire never, are checked never, 20% percent of space in SF for storing huge heaps of metal for >90% of the day but "there is no space" and people can't make rent, ..
