Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 727 posts

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#341

Post by koyote »

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.

So at 2am you would have thousands of cars driving around empty?

Or would you still need a giant spot of land to park these things outside of peak hour?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#342

Post by fHr »

bretthoerner wrote: post #303
lelanthran wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 If they were going to do that, they would have done it by now for those drivers opting into the insurance monitor device: they can literally tell that you're a driver that never took a risk, never got into a situation to brake hard, neve…

It's a pool. If all the drunks switch to autonomous vehicles then we all win. If all the school teachers switch to autonomous vehicles then the drunks lose. In my own life I see the most reasonable/thoughtful drivers raving about autonomous driving and the most reckless ones ranting against it. YMMV.

exactly this

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#343

Post by fn-mote »

kay_o wrote: post #265
giantg2 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be a surveillance state for enforcement. Just preventing repeat offenders would practically remove that lowest denominator. For example, I knew a guy in high school who totaled 4 cars and had other minor accidents in 2 years. There's no reason for that person to be allowed to operate a vehicle. On the prevention side, we could require more training. If you tried to enforce self driving cars, you'd…

> There's no reason for that person to be allowed to operate a vehicle Doesn't much of america outside of cities also have the secondary problem of you physically cannot feed yourself, get to appointments, or do anything without operating a vehicle?

At some point the cost has to be high enough to get the attention of the offender.

I hope you wouldn’t be saying this if they had killed someone in one of their crashes. How about injured? They must have. Get some standards instead of saying everything is ok.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#344

Post by jeffbee »

Denatonium wrote: post #287
jeffbee wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the perfect expression of chronic windshield brain. If you are driving anywhere near the limits of dynamic stability on a public road, then you are already driving dangerously. Also, computerized stability control works better than 99.99% of human drivers.

The limits of dynamic stability go down drastically when the brakes are locked up. You can be _far_ from the limits of dynamic stability when going around a bend in the road, but if your car locks up the brakes mid-bend, you can unexpectedly go from nowhere close to those limits to exceeding them in the blink of an eye. A human driver would wait until they've straightened out to brake hard, but the computer in a car…

Confirmed: you don't understand this subject. Any readers who find themselves needing to stop a modern car in an emergency are advised to stand on the brake pedal with maximum force while the computer sorts the situation out.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#345

Post by ziofill »

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.

Come on now, I don’t think it was meant as a justification of that inexcusable driver’s behaviour.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#346

Post by throw0101a »

Gigachad wrote: post #198
seizethecheese wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagreed with you and went looking in the article for evidence (yeah bad, epistemologically). I actually found evidence for your point. The largest cause of fatal crashes is Generally distracted or "lost in thought" (daydreaming) at 64%. That happens to most people,.

The human brain was not designed for a task which requires hours of siting down doing mostly nothing while being hyperfocused the entire time ready to take over in an instant on the rare occasion something happens. While running or cycling your brain is actively engaged keeping yourself upright and avoiding obstacles which keeps you alert.

> The human brain was not designed for a task which requires hours of siting down doing mostly nothing while […]

The average one-way commute time in the US is less than half an hour:

* https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/guidance/...

If you can't pay attention for less than 30 minutes should you really be operating a multi-ton death machine?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#347

Post by fn-mote »

phoghed wrote: post #276
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?

Keep in mind the lesson of seat belts. Which is that the highest-risk drivers are also the least likely to wear a seatbelt.

Selective recruitment is a danger in this armchair analysis, too. I don’t think 18 year olds aren’t giving up the thrill of tearing down side streets at 60mph to use a self-driving car - they probably can’t even afford one. To be honest, I am just guessing at the profile of the biggest offenders but insurance rates seem to back me up.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#348

Post by socalgal2 »

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…

In my circle, everyone who's tried Waymo never wants to use Uber/Lyft with a human driver again. And, many of them wish they could own one or at least use one for much longer drives (100s of miles).

I would visit my mom (2hrs by car) more often if that 2hrs (each way) wasn't so stressful and exhausting and I could just be chauffeured by a self driving car while I browse the net, play a game, watch a movie, or talk to friends.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#349

Post by bsder »

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…

> I'd much rather all of the resources that are going into autonomous cars was instead going into proper public transit infrastructure.

Solving the last mile problem also helps solve the public transit problem.

The issue in the US is that the current population configuration does not have single population points connecting to single employment points like back in the days of the mills or the factories. As such, public transit becomes difficult.

For example, the train in Southern California is hampered by the fact that you need huge parking lots and cars at the transit stops. If you can take an autonomous vehicle at either end, that evaporates and a LOT more people can now make use of the train effectively.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#350

Post by redox99 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #339
redox99 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport is not the same as cars. It's silly when people pretend like they are interchangeable and it's just a matter of having "better infrastructure".

The point is that good public transport makes cars unnecessary for the vast majority of everyday life in an urban setting. And, in particular, it means that taking away someone's license, even for a long period of time, doesn't have to be as crippling as it is in cities that don't have good infrastructure - hopefully leading to society being way more willing to apply drastic driving penalties to repeat offenders.

Unnecessary is a very strong word. It's also unnecessary to have your own private house, sharing it with other people would be more efficient.
Post reply on HN