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

411–420 of 748 posts

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#411

Post by fnordpiglet »

uv-depression wrote: post #380
robner wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands were I live we use trains for this

Yeah, most places other than the US do. Good public transit is a far, far better solution than better cars. Elsewhere in the thread people are talking about ways of convincing drunk people to get their cars to drive them, and don't seem to realize the fact that people drive to go drink is terrifying! At this point it's deeply set in US "common sense" (to the point where in many places, bars have mandatory parking min…

When you say most places, I assume you leave out most of the world in this? The number of countries with broad complete train networks is small compared to the land mass of the earth inhabited by humans. Even considering urban areas, most people don’t live in London or New York or Tokyo. They live in a city like Jakarta, Dhaka, Mexico City or Lagos. Even Bangkok which has the MRT and Skytrain only services the relatively affluent areas with service, everyone else is car bound.

Most urban US cities have some attempt at an urban train network, and most significantly more useful than Seattle. The issue is typically more of funding and willpower - major infrastructure in an established city is expensive and disruptive to the point most don’t want to deal with it. Additionally the feeder transit infrastructure tends to be weak enough that the daily practicality is low because you have to live right on the line and your destination must also be. Otherwise you’re driving in. Finally the urban planning for surface roads has been well enough structured that the trade off for time saved in public transit doesn’t make sense. You spend time walking and doing transfers in excess of double a driving time.

Is that a flaw? If you electrify the cars to minimize pollution, automate their driving to reduce risk, ensure they collaborate to improve efficiency, I’m not sure I buy the argument any more.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#412

Post by infecto »

amelius wrote: post #200
ElijahLynn wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transit doesn't really go that far, when you talk about the last mile it's pretty limited. But I do like what you're going with that and maybe we could have public autonomous car infrastructure that we all share. And just one large global team working on awesome autonomous vehicles. That could be little pod type vehicles for one person and bigger ones as needed. Cuz the road system is pretty broad and amazing…

> when you talk about the last mile it's pretty limited. That's like a 15 minute walk. And with sufficient infrastructure investments this can be 5 minutes.

And when folks are given that option or driving they will always take driving.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#413

Post by khazhoux »

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…

> 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 because rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person... 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.

LOL, we have a machine that can now drive much more safely than average humans, and comparable to professional drivers. Yeah, this is not impressive at all. C'mon people, wake me up when we actually make some real technological progress, will ya?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#414

Post by intrasight »

structural wrote: post #227
intrasight wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because traffic volume. Autonomous cars won't panic and cause pileups.

The way to prevent pileups is not to assume that everything will work correctly, including every system on every car. It's to assume that every single thing that could break, will break, and design enough resiliency in that you have to stack up as many failures as possible before things truly go off the rails. So to do this without killing people, you add the new systems with the same safety thresholds , then gather…

I agree with all that. Robot cars will take time and we shouldn't skip steps. Tort lawyers will continue to keep companies inline.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#415

Post by mchusma »

It is correct to compare to average drivers because that is ultimately what they are going to replace. AVs are coming for the whole market, and if they are significantly safer than the average driver the average driver shouldn’t drive. I intend to stop driving when possible.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#416

Post by khazhoux »

32ahgf wrote: post #15

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

So your contention, then, is that Google>Waymo and the other companies should have invested billions not into AV, but instead into funding trains and paying for buses?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#417

Post by Tuna-Fish »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #364
david-gpu wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand. He has seen some cyclists blow a stop sign, so he is entitled to endanger the life of any cyclist he comes across.

He didn't say that, and you shouldn't put words in his mouth like that.

If nxm isn't saying that, I cannot imagine what the point of their comment was? Would you care to explain what you think it was?

Why would anyone ever type that comment as a response to the comment above?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#418

Post by [deleted] »

madamelic wrote: post #314
embedding-shape wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the last mile it's pretty limited. Where is that last mile exactly? In many metropolitan areas, you typically have available a broad selection of trains, subways, trams and/or buses of different sizes that takes you last mile. Some places even have special buses, like the "Neighbourhood Bus" we have here ( https://www.barcelona.cat/mobilitat/sites/default/files/bcn-... ) for narrow and steep neighborhoods up on mou…

Another consideration that needs to be made before tossing out private transit because "public transit is better" is not all people are able bodied, able, or willing to use public transit. If it is 2am and you need to get home as a woman, it would be a no brainer to get in an autonomous vehicle while going on public transit is a bad coin flip on being harassed at minimum. If you are wheelchair bound and the elevator…

[deleted]

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#420

Post by khazhoux »

BatchJob wrote: post #399

The lack of transparency and misinformation coming from the industry players and the NHTSA cast serious doubts on any "science" around autonomous car safety being possible. If it was really known the full extent of the cover up it would probably be termed a conspiracy between the autonomous car companies, the state DMVs and the federal authorities. It will take many years and many more unnecessary deaths before we kn…

Having worked in more than one of the big AV players, I can tell you that your fears of cover-ups or conspiracies with the government, is completely wrong. It'd be interesting if you have to first-hand experience otherwise, though...?
Post reply on HN