Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
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Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#2It's important to remember they're only testing and using these cars in areas that don't have winters. The results don't extrapolate to driving in non-cherry picked areas. This article should only be considered re: the context of local SF politics and the recent Cruise revocation.
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#3Good video from Waymo covering these same points here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-Qu6HNZu8g
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#4Aren't they operating under a lot of constraints? The comparison should be with human drivers operating under similar conditions and on similar roads, similar cars(eg. new ones), weather conditions etc.
Plus they have a fleet of support folks and standby remote and dispatchable operators which cannot be cheap, we get no insight into the financials except that they're losing several billion dollars a year. If at the end you end up paying more than for a Uber for the service to be sustainable then what's the point.
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#5Been a flurry of self driving car safety news lately. Both Cruise and Waymo are reaching for more sophisticated comparison samples than nationwide stats to demonstrate the safety of their systems.
But the obvious way to prove this, to me anyway, is to run a randomized controlled trial. Put them in a dispatch system with human driven cars, randomize whether any given assignment goes to a human or a robot, and you've got the statistical gold standard.
Anybody understand why they're not doing this?
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#6It's important to remember they're only testing and using these cars in areas that don't have winters. The results don't extrapolate to driving in non-cherry picked areas. This article should only be considered re: the context of local SF politics and the recent Cruise revocation.
If you are comparing insurance rates then you are already comparing a similar area. If insurance companies would give you a discount if your car had self driving enabled that seems like a pretty sure fire guarantee that self driving is better.
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#7Been a flurry of self driving car safety news lately. Both Cruise and Waymo are reaching for more sophisticated comparison samples than nationwide stats to demonstrate the safety of their systems. But the obvious way to prove this, to me anyway, is to run a randomized controlled trial. Put them in a dispatch system with human driven cars, randomize whether any given assignment goes to a human or a robot, and you've g…
Out of curiosity, what would you measure? Accidents? Injuries? The power might be too low to get good data on rare events.
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#8Aren't they operating under a lot of constraints? The comparison should be with human drivers operating under similar conditions and on similar roads, similar cars(eg. new ones), weather conditions etc. Plus they have a fleet of support folks and standby remote and dispatchable operators which cannot be cheap, we get no insight into the financials except that they're losing several billion dollars a year. If at the e…
> Plus they have a fleet of support folks and standby remote and dispatchable operators which cannot be cheap, we get no insight into the financials except that they're losing several billion dollars a year. If at the end you end up paying more than for a Uber for the service to be sustainable then what's the point.
I think they are banking on the technology continuing to improve, the number of manual interventions decreasing, and costs coming down.
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#9Aren't they operating under a lot of constraints? The comparison should be with human drivers operating under similar conditions and on similar roads, similar cars(eg. new ones), weather conditions etc. Plus they have a fleet of support folks and standby remote and dispatchable operators which cannot be cheap, we get no insight into the financials except that they're losing several billion dollars a year. If at the e…
Part of being a safe driver is knowing when it's not safe to drive and resisting pressure to drive anyway.
Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
#10Been a flurry of self driving car safety news lately. Both Cruise and Waymo are reaching for more sophisticated comparison samples than nationwide stats to demonstrate the safety of their systems. But the obvious way to prove this, to me anyway, is to run a randomized controlled trial. Put them in a dispatch system with human driven cars, randomize whether any given assignment goes to a human or a robot, and you've g…
Because accidents are rare and drivers are expensive so that might be the world's most expensive study to get to a statistically meaningful number.
It's easy enough to simply compare with existing Uber in the same city along the same roads and get something nearly as accurate for virtually none of the cost.