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Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

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Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#791

Post by xnx »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #750
jonas21 wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either) I suppose you can claim fault doesn't matter. But if you read the narratives of both fatal incidents, they are so clearly not the Waymo's fault that I don't see how you can hold it against them. In the first [1], the Waymo was stopped at a red light when the c…

These are all Waymo's narratives, carefully written. Not the objective truth. There will eventually be a serious or fatal crash and the investigation will shed light on what's happening inside. That will be the real test. Cruise collapsed the moment they were involved in a single serious crash. It collapsed because we suddenly found out how the company was actually run.

> Cruise collapsed the moment they were involved in a single serious crash

The crash was bad, but the cover-up was even worse.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#792

Post by drob518 »

OroPla wrote: post #764
drob518 wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but those situations are irrelevant to this issue. The question is, who pays when your self-driving car injures or kills somebody? I assure you that the answer to that question is not “nobody.”

What is the problem with having the answer be the same as when lightning strikes down and kills people or a flood happens? Sometimes damage happens without anyone being responsible.

Because a car killing somebody means there is someone (the owner, “driver,” manufacturer, etc.) for the victim’s family to sue. And while anyone can bring a lawsuit against anyone at any time, regardless of how frivolous, you can’t sue God for an act of God.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#793

Post by mordymoop »

jcranmer wrote: post #235
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The majority of drivers are good, but some drivers are really bad." I take issue with this. The majority of drivers are "mostly fine as long as circumstances are favorable", not "good". People for the most part do not even know about the concept of defensive driving let alone practice it. Even the best people are fundamentally complacent in basically everything they do. They zone out sometimes, they get too close,…

As a point of evidence in favor of this viewpoint: Multi-dozen car pileups aren't particularly rare, with the common cause for a lot of these being "one car hits an icy patch, hits another car, car behind them tries but fails to stop in time due to the ice, rinse and repeat a few dozen times". And the root cause of that is every single driver in that collision driving too fast for conditions and unable to make the re…

In my callow youth I was responsible for a couple of fender benders and the cause was always a highly imperfect understanding of the appropriate stopping distance of my car. This obviously gets worse, the worse the conditions are. My Tesla never makes this kind of mistake.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#794

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

hiddencost wrote: post #756
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #433

>> In March, Waymo’s independent study showed 92 percent fewer fatal or serious-injury crashes, a 13-fold reduction versus human drivers in comparable city environments. I can't progress beyond this point in the article. How is Waymo's study "independent"? I don't understand.

The study was done by one of the most respected and independent groups out there (insurance companies have a very high incentive to know what's real here). Waymo provided the data and probably helped pay for it.

Thanks. Well, that doesn't sound independent at all.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#795

Post by dfxm12 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #790
dfxm12 wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad we don't have a better way for people in these situations to do what they need without driving. It will be incredible to have autonomous driving just for older and or disabled drivers like this. We likely do. First and foremost, services already exist to have people driven to places, like uber, taxis and public transport. Other possibilities to help them do what they need to do include: neighbors, family, do…

That really depends on where you live. Where I live there are no taxis, no public transport, no shops or services in the village - you want anything , it’s a minimum 30 minute drive to town - which includes collecting your mail, as they no longer deliver here. And yeah, it falls on neighbours. Pretty much every day I give one old lady or another a ride to town and back. It’s a pain in the ass, I am not a fucking taxi…

Where you live there are also no autonomous cars either though. Car services can pop up much more quickly/easily. This is capitalism. If there's money to be made, people will make it! OK, if you live in an area where they don't deliver mail, first, please understand that this is already an outlier of a situation for an outlier of a situation. In the context of elderly people living on their own, if my mother lived on her own in such a place, thinking about her driving would not even be close to the top of my concerns.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#796

Post by charcircuit »

cjcenizal wrote: post #470
charcircuit wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Think about what you’re saying. You want more traffic?

Roads should be built to handle the throughput needed of them for the next several years. Adding more cars doesn't add more traffic if throughput of the pipe is big enough.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#797

Post by stkdump »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #782

My hypothesis of why autocars will make life so much better than we're imagining, which I think a lot of negative/hater folks miss includes: (All of this is very USA centric because that's my context) - Very old people who lose their license will get mobility back, as will blind or otherwise unlicenseable people - Autocars can break phantom traffic jams - They should massively reduce DUIs - They will serve as a form…

Arguments I heard that make no sense to me:

- Autonomous cars will improve traffic because stopped cars can start going at the same time at an intersection -> Then you have no safety distance. And while theoretical improved reaction times mean you might need a bit less distance, the quadratic term comes from the needed breaking deceleration, not the reaction time.

- Autonomous cars will reduce congestion: they can't if they are supposed to drive around empty either to park somewhere else or to get to the next person to transport. On the contrary, they will increase congestion.

Note also that I don't buy the "work" inside "very small cars". It's not just that having to drive prevents you from working. Also the overall comfort while traveling isn't good enough outside of trains or planes for anything but some tiny amount of work.

I am on board with the benefits for old, disabled, tired and drunk people though. Also, I do accept that they will prevent a lot of accidents and deaths.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#798

Post by IshKebab »

worldsavior wrote: post #669
IshKebab wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sure! In theory they should be cheaper one day because you don't need to pay someone to drive. This means you can use them in situations where for cost reasons you would have driven yourself - e.g. for long journeys, in the countryside, for commuting etc. Getting people out of their own cars and into autonomous cars is better for several reasons: 1. We need to own fewer cars collectively, which is better for the…

It won't be cheaper. 1. If auto cars will be cheap, every one will use them, and none will use public transportation. 2. Oh yeah, we would just waste space outside the city. 3. Right now it's not safer. It will probably drive at the speed of 25% less than the limit, sure than it might be safer.

1. People already don't use public transport in 99% of the world. In any case I don't see why that is relevant to the price.

2. Which is vastly better than wasting it in cities. And also no we wouldn't. Autonomous cars would be in use way more of the time than normal cars so we'll need fewer of them and therefore less parking space.

3. RTFA.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#799

Post by charcircuit »

wpm wrote: post #485
charcircuit wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I await your check for the purchase price of an automobile. I can also do Venmo if you prefer.

I'm not interested in issuing an automobile loan to you, but there are others who specialize in this. Even dealerships themselves can help you finance it.

Re: Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives

#800

Post by ihsw »

cbondurant wrote: post #125

I'd much rather all of the resources that are going into autonomous cars was instead going into proper public transit infrastructure. Cars are so hopelessly space and energy inefficient, and I hate driving them. If I could get around by bus, light rail, bike, and all of the wasted city space devoted to parking could be turned into more housing and amenities, that would be great. I think it would be meaningful to also…

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