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Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

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Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#91

Post by sokoloff »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #75
Natsu wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study says this: > An estimated 15% of injury crashes and 24% of property damage-only crashes are never reported to police (M. Davis and Company, Inc., 2015), while9% of injury crashes and 24% of property damage-only crashes are reported but not logged (Blincoe et al., 2015). Even with robust data, establishing the statistical significance of automated vehicle safety can be expensive. Kalra and Paddock (2016)demo…

Why would injury crashes go unreported?

If I had a single-car crash with minor injuries, why would I report it? It seems like there’s limited upside to me as the (obviously at-fault) driver. Go get medical care and go get my car fixed. (I drive cars cheap enough to replace and so do not insure them against collisions that are my fault.)

Drivers driving without a valid license, without insurance, under the influence, wanted by the law, etc would have all kinds of reasons to not report a crash.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#92

Post by jiggawatts »

gameswithgo wrote: post #6

EDIT: After reading the full paper and not just the twitter graphs, some of what I said is wrong. That is, they also controlled for age, and when controlling for age and road type, autpilot was just worse. On the one hand I had the same suspicion about the unadjusted data, on the other hand the fact that autopilot isn't worse is pretty promising! However, average human rates include people driving drunk, tired, elder…

I’ve heard Tesla owners describing autopilot as feeling like being a passenger with a learner driver behind the wheel.

That was my first hand experience also, it feels like I’m the nervous dad gritting his teeth while the teenager does something technically legal and safe but nerve-racking.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#93

Post by omgwtfbyobbq »

Tesla should release demographic info if they have it. IIRC, luxury vehicles tend to have lower accident/fatality rates because their buyers tend to be more experienced, mature, and wealthier.

I'm also wondering about the assumptions the pre-print makes.

https://engrxiv.org/preprint/view/1973/3986

For example, it's assumed that Tesla's data has the same characteristics as the SHRP 2 NDS data, and that the demographic survey data from Hardman et al is accurate WRT the SHRP 2 NDS data.

> The analysis in this paper relies on the assumption that the freeway-to-non-freeway and age group crash ratios found in the SHRP 2 NDS are consistent with the manufacturer’s data, as there are no roadway specific nor age-related factors in the manufacturer safety report.

> Although the ages of drivers in Tesla’s crash rate data are unknown, their ages could be estimated from a 2018 demographic survey of 424 Tesla owners (Hardman et al., 2019).

But... It seems like Hardman et al are using California specific data.

https://escholarship.org/content/qt58t7674n/qt58t7674n_noSpl...

> In this study, we used a cohort survey of Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV) owners in California administered by the authors in November 2019. Respondents had been previously surveyed by the UC Davis Plug-in and Hybrid & Electric Vehicle (PH&EV) Research Center between 2015 and 2018 as part of four surveys in the eVMT project when they originally bought their PEV. Respondents for the four phases of the eVMT survey were sampled from the pool of PEV buyers who had applied for the state rebate from the California Vehicle Rebate Program (CVRP). More than 25,000 PEV owners were surveyed between 2015 and 2018. A total of 15,000 of these respondents gave consent to be re-contacted and were invited for the repeat survey in 2019. In all, 4,925 PEV owners responded to the repeat survey.

And... The newer data indicates that age could be positively with more Autopilot use and long-distance travel (also correlated with more Autopilot use), which seems like a confound WRT to the pre-print's conclusions and so on.

> Age is negatively correlated, indicating that the lower the driver’s age the higher the odds of reporting more long-distance travel. This suggests Autopilot induces travel among younger Tesla owners. As with the model with all Level 2 automation, users’ income is negatively correlated.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#94

Post by jjulius »

paxys wrote: post #22

I have felt since day 1 that "autopilot is better than the average driver!" is the most misleading fact/statistic in the industry. The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas aren't part of. To be worth it, the car…

I don't disagree with your broader statement about autopilot's safety relative to other drivers, but...

>The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas aren't part of.

... what? Tesla owners absolutely can be habitual speeders, people who drive without sleep, road ragers, and drunk drivers. Can you please explain your thought process behind this claim? I really don't understand why anyone would assume that Tesla owners are less likely to have those traits than non-Tesla owners.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#95

Post by [deleted] »

ajross wrote: post #47
paxys wrote: post #22

I have felt since day 1 that "autopilot is better than the average driver!" is the most misleading fact/statistic in the industry. The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas aren't part of. To be worth it, the car…

> several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas aren't part of. This is a fallacy. Ask any demographic you like if they're road ragers, drunk drivers, etc... and they'll deny it. Everyone is sure that rare and terrible outcomes will never happen to them because of their own behavior, including the people to whom it happens! It's probably true that middle aged premium car owners are safer on average, but y…

[deleted]

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#96

Post by jcranberry »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #76
mrtksn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, they also cover the easy part of the road and make the human take over at tricky situations. So at the end of the day, you have spotless records for the autopilot that was driving many many miles on the straight line and humans having accidents at short intersections or construction sites. This translates into very favorable numbers for autopilot when presented as accidents per miles driven.

If it were the case that autopilot was benefiting from dumping all of the difficult parts on the humans, you would expect to see much higher than average rates of accidents per mile on the human driven parts, because they're only getting the hard parts. This tends not to be true, so I'm doubting it's a real effect.

Could you provide a source? That sounds fairly interesting.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#97

Post by spywaregorilla »

mrtksn wrote: post #82
spywaregorilla wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were the case that autopilot was benefiting from dumping all of the difficult parts on the humans, you would expect to see much higher than average rates of accidents per mile on the human driven parts, because they're only getting the hard parts. This tends not to be true, so I'm doubting it's a real effect.

Humans don’t disengage and let the machines handle the situation but machines do it all the time. Do the machines disengage at tricky situations or straight lines?

The statistics are there to read however, and suggest your reasoning is not correct.

Case A: Non Tesla Human drives 999 easy miles and 1 hard mile

Case B: Autopilot drives 999 easy miles, and human drives 1 hard mile

If the effect size of the hard mile is so large that its skewing the statistics, you would expect the Telsa human driver to have a horrendous per mile accident rate relative to the non tesla human driver. What's most likely is that the accidents following a human handoff get correctly allocated to the Autopilot and the effect size being described is not actually that significant.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#98

Post by larksimian »

Xylakant wrote: post #31
paxys wrote: post #22

I have felt since day 1 that "autopilot is better than the average driver!" is the most misleading fact/statistic in the industry. The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas aren't part of. To be worth it, the car…

I think it's fair to compare to the average driver. You may be not average by virtue of not being a teenager and not driving drunk, but you're not magically immune to being run over or crashed into by one of those. So even if a hypothetical FSD capable car would not drive one yota better than you do, it cwould still make you safer by virtue of making the surrounding environment safer.

My problem is that the median driver is much much better than the mean driver and tesla os comparing against means.

The damage done in a car distribution is heavily skewed towards people that get in fatal crashes or total a car. I'd randomly guess like 20-30% of drivers are below mean. Most people won't total a car, vast majority will never kill anyone.

If you get median people into an autopilot car that's got a mean safety record we end up pulling the average down, the road becomes less safe. And luxury sedan buyers tend to be one of the safest demos on the road, which makes the problem even worse.

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#99

Post by [deleted] »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #62

How is this still front page? Somebody sleeping? In case you missed them, there have been 5 tesla stories nuked from the front page today: 'Self driving' Tesla fails miserably on the streets of South Boston 30 points 22 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30173566 Tesla Australia admits its sales figures were wrong 39 points 14 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30176635 Tesla drivers report a su…

[deleted]

Re: Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims

#100

Post by enlyth »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #49
sandworm101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because it's Tesla, not Honda. Every car company does marketing. Few make over-the-top safety claims about their products. This is the company that decided to have its cars not stop at stop signs. Normal rules don't apply to Tesla. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60230072 "In recall documents, the electric vehicle maker notes that if certain conditions are met, the "rolling stop" feature is designed to allow…

I mean... I am "Tesla Hater" in that I don't like the direction they're proceeding in; but every human being I ever met in real actual life does rolling stops under some conditions. Last time I can confidently state that "I never rolled through a stop at very slow speed" is when I was 17, and only NOW do I realize how much of an annoying bum I was :P. So if a car does a rolling stop through a stop sign when there are…

When I was a kid and we were living in Vancouver, my mum told me how she did a 'rolling stop' through a stop sign at 4am in the morning with empty streets, and a cop car noticed it and gave her a massive fine. She was in tears because my family wasn't earning much money at the time.

For some reason I still remember this story decades later and always come to a full stop at stop signs, that's how I was taught in driving school and that's how I will always do it. I'm a calm driver and I don't care if people are annoyed by me, I will drive the speed limit and I will not rush anywhere, it's not my problem that someone else needs to speed because they woke up late, safety should be the number one priority when you're operating a vehicle.

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