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Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#381
post #281

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.

I imagine these same people are the type of people who would throw something out the window of an AV too.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#382
post #377
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands were I live we use trains for this

The US is ~263x larger than the Netherlands landmass wise. It would require a loooot more trains than we have or you have.

You put the trains where the people are, not in the middle of vast unpopulated stretches. Comparing land area is misleading and unhelpful.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#383
I feel like we never get real data on autonomous cars as we never do with data centers. It’s hard to tell if bad stories are anecdotal or rooted in truth. I hear the vast majority of accidents would be things that no human could avoid either - but then I’d also be anecdotal.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#384

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…

> 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) fault absolutely matters. and with two fatal accidents, it should be trivial to find out if waymo is at fault. it is bad faith, otherwise.

Fault matters in general, but it's not captured in the stats so you can't make an accurate comparison.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#385

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…

Aside from the fact that I don’t see how you can calculate a rate off two data points (without really wide error bars), I also don’t understand how fault doesn’t matter. If neither of these were Waymo’s fault, then Waymo has never caused a fatal accident, whereas we can assume that nearly all of the fatal accidents that make up the rate you’re comparing it with were caused by a human, right? Well, at least the ones t…

The form of the data pretty much forces this kind of analysis because fault is not reliably recorded (or even known, to be fair).

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Private houses aren't killing tens of thousands a year.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#387

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…

That observed fatality rate, 2, is too low to give a precise estimate of the mean. If we assume fatalities follow a Poisson process, then it's plausible (at 5% significance level) that the true expectation is only 0.36 deaths, not 2.

So it's more useful to look at serious injury statistics as a proxy. For those, Waymo says that there is a significant reduction.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#388
Honestly, mount a front and back dash camera, and allow people to submit tickets for speeding and tailgating themselves.

I’m not kidding excessive speed and not keeping a safe distance equates for some 50% of all deadly traffic incidents. It’s because a small and vocal minority drives like absolute fucking assholes and they will rally lawmakers not to introduce speed limits and to loosen grip on enforcement. The ADAC (German motor association) is a perfect example. When they announced after decades that they support a 130km max speed limit members jumped by the doves.

The only vastly meaningful improvement I can see in FSD is faster reaction times when it comes to assholes. Coincidentally those are the people who insist on driving petrol and will never upgrade to FSD because they like to drive like assholes.

IMHO it’s time for strict enforcement. Let’s ban them from the road finally. Set fines in percent from income. Allow self reporting via dash cams. Add stricter penalties for recurring offences, if you’re caught speeding 5 times in 2 days your licence is suspended.

That’ll have a much bigger impact than FSD. Maybe we can rally our representatives making them all giddy with all the extra cash they can earn from these offenders?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#389
IMO the benchmark to pass will be to show it has better safety than the average sober, non-speeding, non-phone-using, seatbelt-wearing driver.

IDK how that could even feasibly be shown but that's when people will actually start going all-in on it. Otherwise I will simply meet those criteria myself for free.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is she able to get insurance coverage?

Strangely enough... Most US states do not require insurance. Yes, really!

In almost every state, you may post a bond in lieu of insurance, for an amount as low as $35,000!

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