Only .61% of car crashes involve fatalities, so that’s like .2% of car crashes you are referring to. Probably more due to alcohol, but we don’t know the ratio of accidents that involve alcohol, which would be more telling.
> How sure are we that the people who don't trust technology are older? And again, the insurance company already knows your age
Boomers are already the primary anti-EV demographic, with the complaint that real cars have engines. It doesn’t matter if they know your age of state laws keep them from acting on it.
> that more of a problem for the self-driving pool? Also, isn't most of the cost that the sensors aren't as common and they'd end up costing less as a result of volume production anyway?
I think you misunderstood me: If you get into an accident and are found at fault, you are responsible for damage to the other car. Now, if it’s a clunker Toyota, that will be a few thousand dollars, if it’s a roll Royce, it’s a few hundred thousand dollars. The reason insurances are increasing lately is that the average car on the road is more expensive than it was ten years ago, so insurance companies are paying out more. If most cars are $250k Waymo cars, and you hit one…and you are at fault, ouch. And we will know if it is your fault or not since the Waymo is constantly recording.
> If half of human drivers switched to self-driving cars but they were chosen completely at random then the insurance rates for the remaining drivers would be essentially unaffected.
That’s not how the math works out (smaller risk pools are more expensive per person period). And it won’t be people switching at random to self driving cars (the ones not switching will be the ones that are more likely to have accidents).