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Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#91

Post by tqi »

CM30 wrote: post #32
n0us wrote: post #7

Growing proof that PR for autonomous car companies has aligned on a strategy of painting you as a bad person if you want to drive your own car, and therefore you should pay them money to continue being a good person.

Yeah, and it should not be understated how bad only having autonomous cars would be for privacy and security conscious folk. A lot of the time you don't own them, so they're operating on the terms provided by the companies and government, even when it's directly against your own interests. The idea of a car that can't drive certain places, be used at a certain time or be used by certain people feels like a terrifying…

"If you drive your own vehicle, it goes where you want it to go"

I think privacy conscious folks like yourself consistently overrate how much purchase this argument has. I am perfectly happy to forgo this in exchange for a sufficient increase in convenience / safety (for myself and others). This is not because I have been brainwashed by autonomous vehicle company propaganda, it is because I have different values and concerns.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#92

Post by josefritzishere »

dang wrote: post #3
josefritzishere wrote: post #2

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#93

Post by intrasight »

lefra wrote: post #49
intrasight wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your first statement but certainly not with the second. Rates for human drivers should and will skyrocket. Individual states may try to push back with regulation but it won't succeed in the long-term

Rates for human drivers are currently at the correct level for insurance companies to pay for damage and make some profit. If autonomous cars result in less damage than humans, their insurance price will be cheaper than human drivers, but there's no reason to raise the human rate at the same time, their accident rate should stay the same.

I don't think you're seeing the future trajectory. Autonomous cars and trucks will be able to do their thing with a much smaller margin for error - because they don't make errors. So for example instead of two seconds distance to the car in front of you it will be 0.1 second. The vast majority of humans would have an accident as soon as they got on the road.

We need that increase volume and reduced accident count in order to grow without having to build more roads.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#94

Post by sp1nningaway »

n0us wrote: post #7

Growing proof that PR for autonomous car companies has aligned on a strategy of painting you as a bad person if you want to drive your own car, and therefore you should pay them money to continue being a good person.

I hadn't thought about it like this, but I think I want the grassroots version of the PR campaign. Society was finally able to rein in smoking when we collectively realized how dangerous secondhand smoke is. People who smoked indoors and exposed loved ones to an early death weren't bad people, but creating societal pressure to feel bad about doing that has saved a lot of lives.

You are more likely to kill someone driving your huge SUV than you are taking a Waymo. Driving your own car certainly doesn't make you a bad person, but I hope self-driving cars will be ubiquitous and safe in the future. When that happens, choosing to drive yourself will be a selfish act, just like exposing people to secondhand smoke is now.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#96

Post by FeloniousHam »

mossTechnician wrote: post #62
lefra wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rates for human drivers are currently at the correct level for insurance companies to pay for damage and make some profit. If autonomous cars result in less damage than humans, their insurance price will be cheaper than human drivers, but there's no reason to raise the human rate at the same time, their accident rate should stay the same.

They have a reason: profit.

This is testable. The profits of car insurance companies should rise (let’s say substantially) in real dollars as accident payouts decrease as a result of the inevitable dominance of autonomous vehicles.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#97

Post by throw1234567891 »

dylan604 wrote: post #83
MostlyStable wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with mostly-but-not-entirely autonomous is that humans will tend to treat it like entirely autonomous.

It doesn't help when manufacturers call their mostly-but-not-entirely autonomous systems Full Self Driving

A manufacturer.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#99

Post by thereisnospork »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #78
SR2Z wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you actually define what the kool-aid is here? Because AV companies are saying "look at this new product, it objectively drives better and safer than a human, you don't have to deal with a human driver, it works 24/7, and in our experience most people prefer it to driving." I have NEVER seen a single person accuse anyone of being a bad person for still preferring to drive a car manually. Not once, not even the us…

> "look at this new product, it objectively drives better and safer than a human, you don't have to deal with a human driver, it works 24/7, and in our experience most people prefer it to driving." A lot of these are true about other things like pedestrian-friendly streets, bike lanes, and mass rail transit. The kool-aid is that the robotaxi people act like they are the first one to solve this problem.

"everyone" still drives -- the problem has very much not yet been solved.

Could it be solved in other ways? Sure, but it hasn't. Why it hasn't is an interesting question but that's out of scope.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#100

Post by Apocryphon »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #89
jasode wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the obvious (and rather malicious, I would say) PR play that parent comment points out. The author Lawrence Ulrich references research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Why would it be "obvious" that they are paid PR shills for Tesla/Waymo? I'm jaded and cynical so I can accept that they may be secret PR mouthpieces but isn't it reasonable to expect a little evidence rather than just throwing out a ra…

IIHS works for the insurance industry who will happily throw you under the bus if it makes things more predictable on their side. Not better, not lower claims, more predictable. The alignment between what is good for you and good for the interests they answer two is not all that much. But of course, they work very hard to market themselves as peddlers purely of safety, after all only a barbarian would be against safe…

How do using autonomous vehicles benefit their claims-settling? Wouldn't it make it unpredictable- in an accident between two self-driving vehicles, who is liable? What if both vehicles are from the same company? Doesn't this lead to extreme variability?
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