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Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#111

Post by throwaway198846 »

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…

Whould they? If things are too predictable they would be out of job.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#112

Post by ceejayoz »

alexpotato wrote: post #105

The most likely scenario at this point it: - autonomous cars cause fewer accidents - so either insurance will be cheaper for them - AND/OR human driving car insurance goes up - even if only one happens, the relative cost of insurance will change in favor of autonomous - driving your own car becomes a kind of "prestige" thing where only really wealthy people do it (similar to owning your own plane etc)

> so either insurance will be cheaper for them

lol

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#113

Post by Retric »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #109
mostly_harmless wrote: post #106

Fatality data is extremely skewed. 44% of drivers aren't using a seatbelt, 29% are speeding related, I recall alcohol involvement being about 30%, though it's not listed in the link I checked. About 20% of automobile fatalities aren't in cars but are pedestrians or bicyclists struck by cars (add another 16% if you want to include motorcyclists, though only half of which involve another vehicle). I recall the percenta…

> "The majority of drivers are good, but some drivers are really bad." I take issue with this. The majority of drivers are "mostly fine as long as circumstances are favorable", not "good". People for the most part do not even know about the concept of defensive driving let alone practice it. Even the best people are fundamentally complacent in basically everything they do. They zone out sometimes, they get too close,…

Good here is in reference to the average crash statistics.

Most drivers are safer than the average, because you can’t go below 0 and some people are really bad.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#114

Post by Robotbeat »

binary0010 wrote: post #110
mostly_harmless wrote: post #106

Fatality data is extremely skewed. 44% of drivers aren't using a seatbelt, 29% are speeding related, I recall alcohol involvement being about 30%, though it's not listed in the link I checked. About 20% of automobile fatalities aren't in cars but are pedestrians or bicyclists struck by cars (add another 16% if you want to include motorcyclists, though only half of which involve another vehicle). I recall the percenta…

Yeah, there's a woman who is quite old and has a severe disability who drives regularly through our neighborhood who's car every few weeks has a new giant dent, missing fender, broken windshield, etc. It's sad we don't have a better way for people in these situations to do what they need without driving. It will be incredible to have autonomous driving just for older and or disabled drivers like this.

I believe Tesla’s FSD is already better than such unassisted drivers. Particularly with the current FSD limitations which require monitoring driver attentiveness. If every drunk who attempted to drive was using FSD, deaths due to drunk driving would be virtually eliminated. Heck, even advanced lane keeping and smart cruise control from other manufacturers, while much more crude, would still help tremendously.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#116

Post by SR2Z »

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.

No, dammit.

Pedestrian friendly streets are great! You can't walk that far, and I love walking places when I have time and energy.

Bike lanes are great! I bike to work. If I'm not careful I'll arrive sweaty, and that inherently limits when and where I bike.

Mass rail transit is great! It cannot get directly to every door or frequently even to within walking distance of every door (I take a train to the office when I don't wanna bike).

I really do understand that it's trendy to hate on cars. There are a lot of bad things that come with car dependence.

All of that is true AND YET cars make us more productive and allow us to do things that would be impossible otherwise.

Robotaxi companies are not trying to replace any of those things. That makes no sense because they don't need to do that to succeed.

So I will ask again: what is the kool-aid that I'm supposedly drinking?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#117

Post by ryandrake »

Retric wrote: post #113
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The majority of drivers are good, but some drivers are really bad." I take issue with this. The majority of drivers are "mostly fine as long as circumstances are favorable", not "good". People for the most part do not even know about the concept of defensive driving let alone practice it. Even the best people are fundamentally complacent in basically everything they do. They zone out sometimes, they get too close,…

Good here is in reference to the average crash statistics. Most drivers are safer than the average, because you can’t go below 0 and some people are really bad.

I know someone who's been at fault in at least 12+ car accidents, and she keeps driving (as someone else put it you almost have to drive in the USA). There are colossally bad drivers out there and we don't yet have a viable system for keeping them off the road.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#118

Post by SR2Z »

BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #71
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…

> I have NEVER seen a single person accuse anyone of being a bad person for still preferring to drive a car manually Just read further in this thread, will you?

Yeah I have. I still don't see it, I do see a lot of unwarranted cynicism and extremely sloppy arguments against these cars.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#120

Post by Robotbeat »

32ahgf wrote: post #15

So can 100% public transport, non-autonomous. But there is less lobbying money for award winning journalists.

That’s a really difficult problem to solve with the built environment being the way it is. Buses get the closest, but to make it usable at times other than rush hour, they have to run empty or nearly empty, which drives the cost very high (although this is often hidden by subsidies). The way to deal with low density transit is automation.
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