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Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#271

Post by notahacker »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #131
bad_haircut72 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people OP is talking about, the 0.05% absolute worst drovers, are not merely complacent, they're doing things like getting hammered and going street racing (shamefully I can say, I was 19 once...) or speeding away from crimes etc edit: someone else replied with data contrary to this, maybe they are right but Im leaving this here to represent the counterargument

It's a category error to say that everyone else are good just because they're not the worst you can imagine. It doesn't matter what your worst 0.05% do. It doesn't make most people actually good drivers.

It's more of a category error to imply that robotaxis are 92% safer than human-driven taxis if it turns out that the raw accident rate they're baselining against is disproportionately caused by people who not only aren't full time professional drivers but shouldn't be allowed near a car [in their current state]...

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#272

Post by PorciiVorbesc »

toasty228 wrote: post #183
EA-3167 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess… you live somewhere warm and mostly dry? Probably on the younger side and don’t have any kids.

I'm in a 200 inhabitants village in eastern Europe, we have 3 bus stops in the village (so at most you're 10min away from a stop), the bus goes to the closest city every hour from 4:30 to 22:30 except on Sunday (every two hours from 6 to 21), from there you can take a train to every major city in the country, my neighbor is a 76 year old widow who goes to the city by bus regularly and who bikes around a lot. Half of…

>I think you're coping, like most car owners, we bought the propaganda of freedom &Co

When the bus (in your example) runs on a hourly schedule, while your car is always there when you spontaneously need it, then that freedom is real and not just propaganda.

I did this type of commute before where I had to catch the bus to work, which was also once every hour, and the anxiety during my early morning routine to not miss the bus was crazy since missing it meant one more hour of wait, compared to the freedom of jumping in my car without a fixed schedule while also saving 1h/day of time compared to the public transit, the difference was night and day, not propaganda.

Now if I had a train/subway to work, where I could sit down, and it ran every 15 minutes or less, then yeah, fuck driving and public transport all the way, but nobody sits in traffic for fun, but because of all options for their commute, driving is the better option.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#273

Post by Svoka »

MelonArmiger wrote: post #258

It doesn't really matter whether autonomous cars crash less than human drivers. A computer can never be punished, so a computer must never be allowed to kill any humans.

* 12 deaths per 100,000 per year, but 4 people go to jail for it

* 2 deaths per 100,000 per year, but no one goes to jail

Because apparently going to jail is important for some reason?

Honestly, choosing jail is somewhat dystopian IMO

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#274

Post by namesbc »

giantg2 wrote: post #234

Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace. The numbers wouldn't look as impressive beca…

Good point. Waymo is not comparing apples to apples here

"At-fault" Waymo crashes on 35mph city roads driven only in good weather vs. all crashes regardless of fault for on all roads including highways driven in all weather conditions

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#275

Post by JumpCrisscross »

giantg2 wrote: post #234

Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace. The numbers wouldn't look as impressive beca…

> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data

You can't subsidise "better driver education" (to a meaningful sense, to my knowledge) or "banning alcohol." You literally can't do the latter. We tried, and I'll torch a supporter's house for fun with some high-proof something or other for fun if someone tries it again in 2026.

You can use direct poicy action to save lives through AVs.

So at the end of the day, we're deflecting from harm reduction to preserve a parochial mode of transport or not.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#276

Post by phoghed »

giantg2 wrote: post #234

Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace. The numbers wouldn't look as impressive beca…

> It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in.

You already have it, people want this.

> Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either). Looks like the average is about 1.3 fatalities per 100 million miles, and about 1 per 100 million miles for CDLs. This doesn't seem that impressive.

And what do those numbers look up as the saturation of self driving cars increases?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#277

Post by notahacker »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #176
notahacker wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why a semi autonomous system of equivalent driving capability would be more dangerous than strictly autonomous vehicles because of "over-trust" unless one assumes that the driver that overtrust the autonomous vehicles and looks away is also inclined to try to override the semiautonomous system whilst doing so. Humans overtrusting a system capable of imperfect Level 5 driving will certainly not be alert t…

Overtrust looks like people sleeping or not even bothering to stay in the front seats of the car. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-highway-patr...

Sure, but I'm failing to see how an autonomous driving system without a steering wheel or brake fitted is safer than one with a steering wheel and brake fitted but the human driver ignoring it and sitting in the back seat.

The actual potential for increased/decreased risk comes when the human driver rightly or wrongly actually intervenes.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#278

Post by jeffbee »

Gigachad wrote: post #204
jeffbee wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AVs and public transportation are not comparable. The cumulative lifetime investment in Waymo would not fund even half a year of capital expenses for the New York MTA, for example.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. The most expensive part of self driving cars is building the roads and highways. Would make more sense to compare Waymo to the operating expenses of PT, hiring the drivers and maintaining the trains.

You are suggesting that we should attribute a fraction of the costs of our road building and/or maintenance under autonomous vehicle development? If so, what fraction are you proposing?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#280

Post by redox99 »

andai wrote: post #263
giantg2 wrote: post #234

Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace. The numbers wouldn't look as impressive beca…

Does n=2 give any statistical significance? Or does that come from the miles?

With the miles you can establish a confidence interval of the true fatality rate.
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