Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

Post by darkwizard42 » Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

bogwog wrote: post #152

> Road safety is a major, global public health crisis. More than 1.3 million people die on the world’s roads every year, according to WHO. That’s more people than die from HIV/AIDS, and is equivalent to a passenger plane’s worth of people crashing every single hour—or one death every 30 seconds. > I’ve spent over 20 years working in crash avoidance research, in the belief that improved driving technology is the key t…

I think if we want to solve large scale intersectional problems like traffic (where lots of individuals with their own goals and own variables intersect) we will need to give up SOME of our privacy in terms of where we are headed (just heading), speed, car model/make or some kind of capabilities estimate... This could result in a smarter traffic flow, road design, or in Google's case powering safer self-driving cars.

I'm up for any of those outcomes and am also concerned about giving up data unnecessarily. I think the crux of the article besides hyping up self-driving simulated driver's better decision making is that roads aren't designed as safely as they could be and some minor inconvenience to the user (time, some data given up) could save lots of lives.

Post by elric » Thu, Mar 11, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

Laarlf wrote: post #95

elric wrote: post #92

Another thing that would avoid fatal crashes is reducing the number of cars on the roads, making them smaller and making them slower. That's a lot cheaper than making them more complex.

Not leaving your house would solve a lot of things. Why don’t people do that? Anyway, slowing down traffic is not the answer. Driving should either be more automated or more engaging so drivers stop using their phones. 2 hours of driving 20 mph in a straight line will be boring enough to create more accidents.

That comparison is obviously nonsense. I don't drive and I can live my life just fine, without staying confined indoors.

If people had to drive 2 hours at 30km/h, they'd be more inclined to quit driving. It's a stupid addiction which is way more lethal than smoking. Better public transport is a much better idea than messing around trying to improve driving. The situation where the majority of the population has (or "needs") a car is ridiculous.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes