Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans • Hacker News Board

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#161

Post by a_humean » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:01 AM UTC

sw104 wrote: post #160

cipheredStones wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that someone always makes this sort of comment when driverless cars come up is really weird to me. I've never owned a car, use public transit very regularly, and think the state of it in the US is pretty bad and underinvested in. However, that's due to a huge set of systemic factors (political, organizational, spatial, ...) which nobody seems to have made much progress on, and not for lack of trying. Yeah, i…

Where I live in Northern England, buses are (amongst other reasons) mostly hampered in their reliability by delays and cancellations caused by sharing roads congested with cars. Here there's an almost palpable attitude of disgust towards using the bus. Almost a me versus the plebs attitude. The car represents the people's private island. It would be slightly improved if people moved from tank-like SUVs to smaller car…

In London, which is a much denser city that any in Northern England, that attitude to buses and public transport is not shared. We have had a lot more sustained investment into reliable and affordable public transport.

The lack of comparable investment in northern cities is of course not really the fault of the cities in question (London centric institutions, political culture, and voting base power).

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#162

Post by sersi » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:02 AM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #148

harhargange wrote: post #89

To the folks particularly in US obsessed about driverless cars, why don't you instead focus on public transport, which is by default "driverless" for millions of people if you ignore a couple of metro/train drivers per 1000s of people. The point of a driverless car, from what I understand, is having end-to-end connectivity without the need to drive which is pain. I live in a place where public transport already has l…

I am currently sitting in a European train that was a replacement for another train that had, at point of replacement, a delay of 30 minutes on a 55 minute trip. Since, well, everything could be much better and it's still fairly unclear who makes substantial progress on one of these problems, I am fairly happy to let various playbooks play out and see where progress can be made.

Germany? I don't think Germany is a good example of a working public transport infrastructure. Trains being actually on time is a cause worthy of celebration over there.

The last time I took a train there, my train was so late that the next train on the same route (scheduled for 1 hour after) arrived first. Normally since it was not my train I wasn't allowed to board according to the announcement on PA. I played the confused foreigner card and boarded...

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#163

Post by omgJustTest » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:02 AM UTC

harhargange wrote: post #89

To the folks particularly in US obsessed about driverless cars, why don't you instead focus on public transport, which is by default "driverless" for millions of people if you ignore a couple of metro/train drivers per 1000s of people. The point of a driverless car, from what I understand, is having end-to-end connectivity without the need to drive which is pain. I live in a place where public transport already has l…

As you point out there are solutions to the problem publicly promoted.

I have always understood this double think in two ways:

1. The problem needs to make sense to the people who are working on the tech and people who might buy the tech, but it only needs to be and is preferable to be only adjacent to the real value proposition of the tech. This provides opportunities to incrementally capitalize (“businesses don’t make products they make money”) without providing too much value for “too little” money.

2. The “I want x” vs “I need x” is a chasm easily bridged by “this is entertaining to me”. Life is small experiences summed together, providing a blank canvas on which people can extrapolate is engaging but mostly wasted time except for a small number of people who can actually change the direction of the tech. It’s fun for people to dream.

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#164

Post by _lex » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:06 AM UTC

omgJustTest wrote: post #163

harhargange wrote: post #89

To the folks particularly in US obsessed about driverless cars, why don't you instead focus on public transport, which is by default "driverless" for millions of people if you ignore a couple of metro/train drivers per 1000s of people. The point of a driverless car, from what I understand, is having end-to-end connectivity without the need to drive which is pain. I live in a place where public transport already has l…

As you point out there are solutions to the problem publicly promoted. I have always understood this double think in two ways: 1. The problem needs to make sense to the people who are working on the tech and people who might buy the tech, but it only needs to be and is preferable to be only adjacent to the real value proposition of the tech. This provides opportunities to incrementally capitalize (“businesses don’t m…

Hey, I want to get in contact with you - you're thinking the way I like folks in my company to think, and I want to hire you or do a deal with you.

Check my profile and reach out.

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#165

Post by jillesvangurp » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:11 AM UTC

pseudosavant wrote: post #45

I'd never really thought about it, but in a capitalist society like the US, this is how you really determine how safe something is: how much does it cost to insure?

It's a better way than gut feelings, confirmation bias, magical thinking, and other ways arm chair experts tend to casually assert or dismiss stuff.

Insurers are on the spot financially. If they get it wrong, it comes out of their margins.

Ultimately, you need insurance to be on the road. If you cause an accident, the other side will want to see some money. That's why insurance is mandatory: to make sure that money is there. The price of the insurance is directly correlated to how likely you are to cause an accident. Insurers use all sorts of criteria, including how young or old you are and how much claims you've made before.

Insurers noticing that they get a lot less claims for self driving cars is going to pretty soon lead to price differences for people who still choose to drive themselves. Cars without self driving features are going to be more expensive to insure. Liability with self driving cars vs. manual drivers is also going to be different.

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#166

Post by pembrook » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:15 AM UTC

harhargange wrote: post #89

To the folks particularly in US obsessed about driverless cars, why don't you instead focus on public transport, which is by default "driverless" for millions of people if you ignore a couple of metro/train drivers per 1000s of people. The point of a driverless car, from what I understand, is having end-to-end connectivity without the need to drive which is pain. I live in a place where public transport already has l…

You do realize that Europe has 3X the population density (and subsequent urbanization) as the US right? That alone explains literally every difference between Europe and America, in everything from public transportation down to socialist political leaning.

Yes, as an engineer, it is absolutely more “efficient” if everyone lived in small government subsidized boxes, in centrally planned cities, taking centrally planned transport to only the places you’ve decided they should go.

However, central planning and praying at the god of efficiency has its downsides. Namely a total lack of innovation or people having children. It turns out having 2 crying babies in your tiny 2 bedroom apartment and taking 2 trains and a bus to the pediatrician kind of sucks.

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#167

Post by caskstrength » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:15 AM UTC

harhargange wrote: post #89

To the folks particularly in US obsessed about driverless cars, why don't you instead focus on public transport, which is by default "driverless" for millions of people if you ignore a couple of metro/train drivers per 1000s of people. The point of a driverless car, from what I understand, is having end-to-end connectivity without the need to drive which is pain. I live in a place where public transport already has l…

Maker of driverless cars (Waymo) obviously would promote their product. What is surprising to you about this?

If you are talking about US users of HN who upvote such news I would venture I guess that they know that any new public transportation that could be built in California would have following deal-breakers for them:

1. It will (maybe) start operation in 10-20 years, long after they have sold they RSUs and moved to another state.

2. Will be huge money sink, potentially leading to tax increases.

3. Even if they live in alternative fairy tale timeline where is is built on time and on budget (and connects actual places where SDEs live, not Bakersfield!) they still won't use it because it would be full of homeless people and thieves snatching their latest iPhones and running away. Saying that last part out loud in Cali would just get you attacked as privileged rich SDE who is antihomeless Trump-supporting Rand-reading nazi or something.

PS I also live in a place with good public transport and have never owned a car.

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#168

Post by watwut » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:21 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #166

harhargange wrote: post #89

To the folks particularly in US obsessed about driverless cars, why don't you instead focus on public transport, which is by default "driverless" for millions of people if you ignore a couple of metro/train drivers per 1000s of people. The point of a driverless car, from what I understand, is having end-to-end connectivity without the need to drive which is pain. I live in a place where public transport already has l…

You do realize that Europe has 3X the population density (and subsequent urbanization) as the US right? That alone explains literally every difference between Europe and America, in everything from public transportation down to socialist political leaning. Yes, as an engineer, it is absolutely more “efficient” if everyone lived in small government subsidized boxes, in centrally planned cities, taking centrally planne…

America has huge spaces with basically no population at all and then very populated places.

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#169

Post by dathinab » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:22 AM UTC

harhargange wrote: post #89

To the folks particularly in US obsessed about driverless cars, why don't you instead focus on public transport, which is by default "driverless" for millions of people if you ignore a couple of metro/train drivers per 1000s of people. The point of a driverless car, from what I understand, is having end-to-end connectivity without the need to drive which is pain. I live in a place where public transport already has l…

because due to multiple decades of bad lobbying seriously messing up regulations related to cars and trains in such a manifold multi layered an sometimes well hidden ways that it's basically impossible to build proper public transportation in many (not all) areas of the US

this lead to a situation where a lot of well meant public transport projects had very underwhelming results

worse if how in many areas trains just don't integrate well with the surrounding in the US. For public transportation to be usable it needs to be reachable. This means reliable and save walkways and/or bicycle ways to the next bus/train station (and having the schedule of trains and busses synced up even if they are from different providers). It also means you shouldn't have a massive parking lot directly in the front of the train station (don't mean there can't be a parking lot, just not in front) and similar

Another problem is the approach to housing the US has, for public transportation to work well (especially wrt. cost) you need to have reasonable compact housing. For example in many EU citices where public transportation is the main transport factors the main used housing unit is a apartment block often something like 2-4 apartments per floor and 3-5 floors where even in the more rural close by city areas houses often have 2 or 3 apartments or if not are in general much smaller then housing in the US (but in many rural areas in the EU cars are the main transport mean, often followed by bicycles for "short trips to "close by" neighbors, restaurants etc.).

If you combine that with the fact or how convenient privileged cars are in the US it really strongly favors self driving cars in many places (except some of the quite compact city centers, where cars of any form are a curse and self driving cars won't fix that).

Re: Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

#170

Post by soco » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 9:28 AM UTC

sw104 wrote: post #160

cipheredStones wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that someone always makes this sort of comment when driverless cars come up is really weird to me. I've never owned a car, use public transit very regularly, and think the state of it in the US is pretty bad and underinvested in. However, that's due to a huge set of systemic factors (political, organizational, spatial, ...) which nobody seems to have made much progress on, and not for lack of trying. Yeah, i…

Where I live in Northern England, buses are (amongst other reasons) mostly hampered in their reliability by delays and cancellations caused by sharing roads congested with cars. Here there's an almost palpable attitude of disgust towards using the bus. Almost a me versus the plebs attitude. The car represents the people's private island. It would be slightly improved if people moved from tank-like SUVs to smaller car…

So let me understand this: waiting stuck in traffic in your car (self-driving or not) is acceptable, but waiting stuck in traffic in a bus is not?