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Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#321

Post by dzhiurgis »

Robotbeat wrote: post #114
binary0010 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder how much of drunk driving crashes are because driver turns into speeding asshole vs dozing off. You wouldn't be able to force them to use FSD, especially in a fun car like Tesla. Maybe if it derated itself if it detects erratic driving. They already released a feature where it avoids crashes even when FSD is disabled (but does require subscription).

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#322

Post by madamelic »

Gigachad wrote: post #206
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)

Haven't wealthy people spent most of history paying someone else to drive for them? Driving yourself will become like horse riding, something you do on private property for sport rather than transport.

> Haven't wealthy people spent most of history paying someone else to drive for them?

My understanding is that it is a legal and safety liability for them to drive. The driver is employed by and the car is owned by a company that the wealthy person founded and pays so if the driver hits & kills someone, the company gets sued for a bunch of money then the liability can be discharged in bankruptcy / isolated to the company's coffers rather than the wealthy person's.

It's the same gambit as their security. I am sure more than just Gates and Musk do it but I know that both of them own personal security companies who only provide security to themselves. It's all just shells of liability shielding.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#323

Post by stephenhuey »

nxm wrote: post #286
johnfn wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a biker, I've had human drivers intentionally try to drive me off the road or hit me. Neither driver education nor higher test standards will solve that problem.

[flagged]

Far out, dude! Have I got a story for you! This one time, I saw tons of high-speed metal on wheels recklessly do that, too!

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#324

Post by Veserv »

davidgay wrote: post #254
Veserv wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fatality rate is 1.19 per 100 million vehicle miles [1], ~83 million miles per fatality. The mean driver averages ~15,000 miles per year. So, the mean driver encounters a fatal crash after ~5,500 years of driving. If you started driving when the Great Pyramid was built, you would still have another 1,000 years before you would expect to die in a fatal crash. The mean driver in the context of the USA driving envir…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... has the US at 7th highest out of 22 countries (for which this data is available) for the most accidents per km driven. So it's clearly not that hard to be safer than the mean human driver in the USA. 3 of the 22 countries manage to have less than half the US rate.

Sir this is a Wendy's, I mean a discussion about autonomous vehicles. The benchmark for the autonomous vehicles in the USA is in comparison to humans in the USA. That means autonomous vehicles need to go ~5,500 person-years worth of driving between crashes to equal the mean driver. The mean US driver is a very high bar to reach for technology, that is why Waymo has just maybe barely reached that bar after nearly two decades and billions of dollars.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#325

Post by EA-3167 »

Fricken wrote: post #312
EA-3167 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The famously small conurbations and the reality that Finns and Norwegians only are able to bike part of the year . They have cars and public transit for the rest. I'd add that these discussions tend to handwave the reality of safety when you're on an open platform movie at high speeds, the reality that not all people are physically able, and a lot of others issues that the vocal "cars are the devil" folks don't engag…

Scandanavians have been getting around without cars for millenia. Nobody had even heard of a car until just over a century ago. Car dependent infrastructure is definitely not helpful for the physically disabled, as well as those too young, too old, and too poor to drive a car. This and a lot of other issues that the vocal and active "cars aren't the devil" crowd don't engage seriously with. It's getting really old, a…

"People have been giving birth since the first humans existed, why go to a hospital?"

"People have been living with viruses for all of history and beyond, why use vaccines?"

"People have been walking for millions of years, why use a bike or a scooter?"

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#326

Post by jryle70 »

namesbc wrote: post #274
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

Do human drivers in the same "good weather" cities have fewer accidents than human in other places?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#328

Post by dzhiurgis »

WD-42 wrote: post #240
cbondurant wrote: post #125

I'd much rather all of the resources that are going into autonomous cars was instead going into proper public transit infrastructure. Cars are so hopelessly space and energy inefficient, and I hate driving them. If I could get around by bus, light rail, bike, and all of the wasted city space devoted to parking could be turned into more housing and amenities, that would be great. I think it would be meaningful to also…

Autonomous cars are pretty space and energy efficient if they act as public transportation. Cars spend something like 95% of their life parked. If AVs replace personal ownership, that's a HUGE reduction in the number of cars in existence. The future looks like a lot less parking lots and 8 lane suburban stroads.

Roads designed for buses (and trucks) also cost many orders of magnitude more than ones build for cars only.

If you account for that, cost per passenger mile on fully loaded electric bus is more than uber chauffeur.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#329

Post by rylando »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #293
nxm wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ah, in that case, you would certainly be excused for trying to kill one or two of them.

Just don’t forget to get your wax touched up afterwards, spandex scuffs your hood a surprising amount!

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#330

Post by amazingamazing »

johnfn wrote: post #281
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…

As a biker, I've had human drivers intentionally try to drive me off the road or hit me. Neither driver education nor higher test standards will solve that problem.

Why do you say that?
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