Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives • Hacker News Board

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#501

Post by derac » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:36 AM UTC

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…

The CDL comparison seems misleading. Those are very large and safe vehicles that are mostly on the highway. Being close to that number is impressive to me.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#502

Post by alexgoodhart » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:39 AM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #211

mostly_harmless wrote: post #106

Fatality data is extremely skewed. 44% of drivers aren't using a seatbelt, 29% are speeding related, I recall alcohol involvement being about 30%, though it's not listed in the link I checked. About 20% of automobile fatalities aren't in cars but are pedestrians or bicyclists struck by cars (add another 16% if you want to include motorcyclists, though only half of which involve another vehicle). I recall the percenta…

Does that skew really matter? Nearly all of those conditions are avoided by autonomous vehicles.

Using public safety as a cudgel to mandate adherence to any technology is a nonstarter.

The imposition is huge. We’re talking about privacy, movement and its relationships with housing/work/family management/safety.

At the very least, it needs to be plainly stated that this concept is not being studied out of curiosity. A few companies have a gigantic investment in seeing massive, government-facilitated adoption that creates guaranteed customers and gated entry.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#503

Post by dudiejdj484 » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:43 AM UTC

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…

Worse human driving improves the number of lives autonomous driving saves

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#504

Post by derac » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:43 AM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #109

mostly_harmless wrote: post #106

Fatality data is extremely skewed. 44% of drivers aren't using a seatbelt, 29% are speeding related, I recall alcohol involvement being about 30%, though it's not listed in the link I checked. About 20% of automobile fatalities aren't in cars but are pedestrians or bicyclists struck by cars (add another 16% if you want to include motorcyclists, though only half of which involve another vehicle). I recall the percenta…

> "The majority of drivers are good, but some drivers are really bad." I take issue with this. The majority of drivers are "mostly fine as long as circumstances are favorable", not "good". People for the most part do not even know about the concept of defensive driving let alone practice it. Even the best people are fundamentally complacent in basically everything they do. They zone out sometimes, they get too close,…

A huge percentage of the cars I see on the highway are tailgating. People are awful drivers.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#505

Post by dfabulich » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:44 AM UTC

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…

Small self-driving busses would do exactly what you want. The cost of increasing bus service is overwhelmingly the cost of bus drivers. If the busses could drive themselves, cities could afford to deploy a lot more busses, especially smaller busses, running much more often.

As for light rail, in the US, light rail projects can typically cost hundreds of millions of dollars per mile. The NYC 2nd Avenue subway expansion cost billions of dollars per mile.

And, if you want people to stop wasting city space on parking, self-driving taxis are exactly the right solution.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#506

Post by alexgoodhart » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #381

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.

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

The whole premise imagines that we have a fixed set of problems that have always been this way and are fully/honestly represented by this headline article by the chief NYT industry plug… and once corporations roll out the solutions, ta ta. We’ll be rolling fancy free. With 580,000 surplus Americans to boot!

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#507

Post by My_Name » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

rylando wrote: post #331

nxm wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don’t think they enjoy sharing the road with you any more than you do with them. Maybe we could encourage our elected representatives to install more bike friendly infrastructure like bike trails and bikeways

I live in a place that has what I consider to be the best cycle infrastructures possible. Every road has a cycle lane next to it, usually at least 20ft away from the road, in tree lined purpose built areas, large amounts of grass between the road and the cycle lanes, they form a grid that matches every road in the city. Where they cross the road, there are underpasses or bridges. At no point does a cyclist ever need to be on a road, often you can't even see the roads.

There are still some cyclists (specifically middle aged men in spandex, never women, never dressed normally) who insist on cycling on the road, giving the finger to every passing car, who will loudly tell you to fuck off if you point out that literally next to them, about 20ft off the road, there is a cycle lane. built just for them, so they can cycle safely.

Anyway, this comment is in support of the comment of johnfn. No amount of training or testing will stop the arseholes being arseholes. But it is also to point out that arseholes are not restricted to a particular form of transport.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#508

Post by My_Name » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:48 AM UTC

I have said for a while now that self driving cars do not need to be perfect. They will have accidents, of a different type than humans have, and sometimes they will be ones that most humans would avoid.

What they do need to be is better than humans overall, and then it would make sense for them to be allowed onto the road. When they get far safer than humans, phasing out of human driving will make sense.

They reached that point a while ago, now we just need legislation and public opinion to catch up.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#509

Post by lynx97 » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:49 AM UTC

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.

As a blind pedestrian, 95% of the pain I have to endure while out and about is due to lazily parked bikes. IOW, bikes can even hurt people if they are NOT moving and their owner isn't even around.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#510

Post by alexgoodhart » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:52 AM UTC

harha wrote: post #430

giantg2 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nah I think the brain shuts down once you’re not in the driver seat. Wouldn’t see someone care enough to throw something at others from a taxi or a bus either.

Nah they already have tho there’s been bottles thrown shots fired people thrown from waymos

Plus waymos become v spicy if someone attacks while ur in it