Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives • Hacker News Board

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#691

Post by infecto » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 12:50 PM UTC

jokteur wrote: post #664

infecto wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for your country but also your country is quite small. I think a better analog is taking a trip from Zurich to Madrid. You could do it via train but it is probably going to be filled with lots of transfers and take 20 hours or you could take a 2 hour flight.

Fun fact: you can do Zürich Madrid with 3 transfers and 14 hours. The car will take 16 hours. Obviously, nobody is going to do that, and the plane is a better alternative. Your example does not get solved by autonomous cars, I am quite certain nobody is going to do this in a rideshare either. Most people commute to the nearest city, move within a city, or go see friends in a neighboring city. Yes, US is much bigger,…

I did a poor job with my example. My point is that your example is just a cherry picked anecdote from an extremely small country that has the luxury of a handful of dense cities and a large number of smaller towns that sit on the couple of major roads arteries.

I think you don’t have enough exposure. Yes yes road design great. Bike lanes great. Higher density great. It still does not solve the problem in American. My own cherry-picked example. The DFW metro area is half the land size of your country. A lot of it is already built up and it’s massively sprawling. On a normal commute from any given 5mile radius is going to be highly unpredictable, people are going in every direction. It’s extremely hot in the summer and it rains. Huge change management problem that you will not overcome. At the end of the day it’s hard to make a comparison from a country where a city by land is 2% the size of Dallas.

Last mile is an incredibly challenging problem in the US. It is typically not economically feasible even ignoring the culture change management. Short of rebuilding entire cities and forcing people into high density buildings most of this will not change. Now if you can make really amazing autonomous vehicles that can actually solve most of the last mile problem and introduces the ability for cities to create mass transit that is an interesting solution. Even if use for the full commute those have real potential to eliminate congestion as after all it’s usually some combination of accidents and poor driving. Parking those at night? That is no issue at all.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#692

Post by Levitz » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 12:53 PM UTC

buu700 wrote: post #531

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. 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. Superman: I want to get rid of guns. Mr. Terrific: For use around the world 24×7, you’d need to replicate the T-Spheres on a massive scale. Still, you could never get r…

This is ultimately silly but, I thought this dialogue was with the Flash? Isn't it this one? https://i.redd.it/vmmv2d3h2q181.jpg

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#693

Post by win311fwg » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 12:54 PM UTC

Zambyte wrote: post #678

win311fwg wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically a large landmass, but essentially nothing happens in the western half. For the sake of travel it is a relatively small country. Whereas NY->LA is the route the USA would need to most service if it were to get serious about such a thing. The short-run corridors are already reasonably well serviced. Trouble is most people doing the NY->LA run are going to choose flight instead.

People would absolutely choose trains over flying if we actually had modern train infrastructure. NY to LA would be about 11 hours at 250 MPH. That's 100 MPH slower than the fastest passenger train, but seems like a reasonable estimate for an average speed including stops. The difference between chilling on public transit for 8 hours and chilling on public transit for 11 hours is not that big of a deal for most peopl…

> NY to LA would be about 11 hours at 250 MPH.

There are no trains in regular service that operate at anywhere close to those speeds. There are trains technically capable of doing it (and much more), sure, but the economics quickly stop making sense when you start pushing that much air. And flight still gets you there meaningfully faster, door-to-door, even if there were people theoretically willing to pay excessively to reach 250 mph, so there is still no reason for those who need to prioritize time to take the train.

> The difference between chilling on public transit for 8 hours and chilling on public transit for 11 hours is not that big of a deal for most people.

Of course, most people have no reason to travel from NY->LA in the first place. Especially not on a regular basis. The primary users will be business customers and they tend to be quite time sensitive. Furthermore, even if there was that 250 mph train, it is unlikely that it would beat air on price, so those who don't care about time are still apt to choose the cheapest option. At best there is a small segment of people who are both willing to give up their time and spend more just to avoid flying, but you can't realistically make trains work with a small number of riders.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#694

Post by sandworm101 » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 12:56 PM 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.

And in the future it will be robots pushing you around. They will learn to be intimidating. That's what AI does. It spots patterns and then exploits them for its own purposes.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#695

Post by Zambyte » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 12:59 PM UTC

baud147258 wrote: post #580

leviathant wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow! Sounds dangerous. Do more cyclists kill drivers, or do more drivers kill cyclists?

cyclists kill (and hurt) pedestrians, just like drivers

Can you back that up with numbers or do you just expect people to take your word that cyclists have killed about as many people as WWII?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

https://www.academia.edu/115164883/Car_harm_A_global_review_...

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#696

Post by estearum » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

stevage wrote: post #633

pfdietz wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope the cops showed up at his house and confiscated his vehicle. One advantage of existence of self-driving cars is the state can permanently revoke someone's ability to own or operate manually driven motor vehicles, without the argument this is ruining their lives.

But taxis already existed?

In many places in the US they effectively do not.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#697

Post by estearum » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

grosswait wrote: post #690

Gigachad wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. The human brain reinforces circuitry that is used often, meaning the human brain is generally quite adaptable. Ancient (and modern) hunters sit still and silent for hours waiting for game, with their brains ready to take over in an instant on the rare occasion something happens.

Right but you don't get in car accidents or near-accidents often. Ergo your brain becomes wired for the 99.9999999% of driving that is completely uneventful.

Hunters are a self-selecting group of people who enjoy the activity you describe. If you don't like it or can't do it, you just don't do it.

Virtually every single adult in America has to drive, however, to live a functional life.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#698

Post by brokensegue » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 1:07 PM UTC

hamdingers wrote: post #290

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…

> rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person. Do you have evidence of this? It's certainly true for some kinds of professional drivers (i.e. truck and bus drivers) but I can't find any kind of crashes/100m mile numbers for rideshare drivers. Anecdotally as both a rider and road user I find rideshare drivers to be some of the worst. Aggressive, distracted, impatient, and overconf…

surely you'd have to also control for the kind of driving rideshares do (e.g. local v. highway) to have any real sense.

maybe we could look for insurance rates?

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#699

Post by Zigurd » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 1:11 PM 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…

If you make the wrong decision about which car to buy, your insurance can cost hundreds of dollars a month. Cutting that substantially is as good as banning non-automated driving. Cars that aren't automated will plummet in value.

The thing is, the automated cars can't afford to have obvious and readily understandable faults like being blinded by the sun.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#700

Post by jokteur » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 1:11 PM UTC

infecto wrote: post #691

jokteur wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: you can do Zürich Madrid with 3 transfers and 14 hours. The car will take 16 hours. Obviously, nobody is going to do that, and the plane is a better alternative. Your example does not get solved by autonomous cars, I am quite certain nobody is going to do this in a rideshare either. Most people commute to the nearest city, move within a city, or go see friends in a neighboring city. Yes, US is much bigger,…

I did a poor job with my example. My point is that your example is just a cherry picked anecdote from an extremely small country that has the luxury of a handful of dense cities and a large number of smaller towns that sit on the couple of major roads arteries. I think you don’t have enough exposure. Yes yes road design great. Bike lanes great. Higher density great. It still does not solve the problem in American. My…

I am aware that the country is extremly small.

Here is the thing: the DFW metro area (from Wikipedia) has > 8.3M residents, Switzerland has 9.1M residents. The DFW metro density sits at 339.9/km2 (I took the conurbation number which has a lower number), and Switzerland sits at 207/km2.

So, in your example, Switzerland has less density than the metro area you mentionned, and yet it has much better public transit. Half of swiss population lives in tiny villages with no more than 5'000 residents. The last mile problem is also a problem for Switzerland. And yes, our summers are also hot, and winters even worse with lots of rain and snow. Not counting the mountainnous terrain, for example the city of Lausanne has difference in elevation of 400m, which is challenging to do by bike.

My point here is: you don't need a lot of density to create transit. It does not depend on the absolute size of the country. Yes, changing a city is hard (especially politically and culturally). But you need repave streets every 20 to 30 years anyways. You could make the city better by just changing how you decide to allocate the space every time you need to redesign a street.