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

561–570 of 781 posts

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#561

Post by win311fwg »

uv-depression wrote: post #382
SEJeff wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trouble is, when you need to get to the middle of nowhere is when you need transportation. If you stay within the densely populated areas where the people live you can walk. That's why people stopped living in rural areas after all; so that one didn't have to rely on transportation. Don't forget that rural areas had trains back before the urbanization movement! Passenger rail in the US died out because people moved closer together so that they didn't need mechanized travel.

The Netherlands, while technically highly urbanized, has remained more like a bunch of small towns instead of a few highly populated cities like as is seen in the US, so it is much closer to the rural days of yore when the US was able to support a comprehensive, nation-wide passenger rail system.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#562

Post by TulliusCicero »

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…

> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol.

The biggest thing would be safer road/street design, but Americans are kind of allergic to that. Talk about traffic calming or road diets and a lot of folks get absolutely furious.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#563

Post by TulliusCicero »

robner wrote: post #360
socalgal2 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the Netherlands were I live we use trains for this

Trains or bikes, really (plenty of Waymo/Uber/Lyft trips aren't super far).

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#564

Post by hliyan »

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.

Inclined to agree. I think what we call "car brain" is just one manifestation of hardwired circuits in our brain that detect any (even temporary) power differential and leverages it for maximum survival advantage. There is no way to put nearly 200 horse power at the disposal of one man, without triggering at least some part of those circuits.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#565

Post by sofixa »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #562
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…

> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. The biggest thing would be safer road/street design, but Americans are kind of allergic to that. Talk about traffic calming or road diets and a lot of folks get absolutely furious.

And an even bigger thing would be providing viable alternatives to driving, which would reduce the amount of cars on the roads, and help with those driving unsafely (because they're tired, not good drivers, "had a couple of drinks", etc).

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#566

Post by TulliusCicero »

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…

> 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.

How is that 'skewed'? It sounds like you're just listing dangerous things, and yeah of course dangerous things are associated with fatalities, duh.

It's like saying that accidental gun deaths are 'skewed' because they're associated with keeping your gun loaded and not locking it up in a safe.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#567

Post by TulliusCicero »

sofixa wrote: post #565
TulliusCicero wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. The biggest thing would be safer road/street design, but Americans are kind of allergic to that. Talk about traffic calming or road diets and a lot of folks get absolutely furious.

And an even bigger thing would be providing viable alternatives to driving, which would reduce the amount of cars on the roads, and help with those driving unsafely (because they're tired, not good drivers, "had a couple of drinks", etc).

Correct, part of safer street and road design is supporting transit, biking, and walking.

That said, it's essentially impossible to get rid of cars entirely, and you can see that just by looking at countries or even regions that have good transit and notice that they still have tons of cars. Even Singapore has lots of cars, and the entire country is a super-dense city-state!

So it's definitely worthwhile to develop self-driving cars and trucks, even if you have fantastic transit and biking and walking available.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#568

Post by asdff »

vrosas wrote: post #143
marssaxman wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rental scooters/bikes cover last mile service very well in my experience. I use transit a great deal more than I would if I had to walk so much on either end of the trip.

Americans would rather die than give up their air conditioned bubbles on wheels. I've wondered why someone hasn't tried manufacturing an enclosed go kart with AC and enough trunk space for a few groceries.

They really should just open up letting you have a small vehicle everywhere in the country. Sometimes you visit some city or little rural area where they let you drive golf carts or atvs or snow mobiles on the roads, grocery store lots are more full of those instead of bigger vehicles as a result, and the sky doesn't seem to fall down either.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#569

Post by zimpenfish »

david-gpu wrote: post #408
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I am not putting words in his mouth. I am pointing out the logical error in this memetic argument that cyclists are tired of reading again and again. Whenever we mention that drivers harass and kill cyclists, there is somebody retorting that "cyclists don't follow the rules of the road", as if it somehow justified road violence against all cyclists, law abiding or not. It is a complete non-sequitur that pops up every…

> "cyclists don't follow the rules of the road"

Boy, have I got news for him about car drivers...

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#570

Post by asdff »

solatic wrote: post #551
dfabulich wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expansio…

If buses are autonomous, it no longer makes sense to have arbitrary routes that people need to wait at a bus stop for. They can wait in parking lots, charging their batteries, until they are summoned, and give people door-to-door transportation. It sounds like an autonomous taxi, but not necessarily. A taxi usually has only one rider, whereas a bus would have more seats, and potentially pick up and drop off other rid…

That model doesn't really work with high demand I wouldn't think. The thing with the fixed route case is you no longer have to serve the many edge cases, you force people to solve it themselves and maximize the service you can offer over a more collectively beneficial routing.
Post reply on HN