'Anyone Rooting Against Self-driving Cars is Cheering For Tens of Thousands of Deaths, Year After Year' (thefp.com) 365
Journalist Eric Newcomer, writing at The Free Press: There was a time when I believed that self-driving cars should be held to the standard of airplanes. Every mistake needed to be rigorously understood and any human death was unforgivable. But my view has evolved over time as human drivers have continued to kill tens of thousands of people a year. We need a solution that's meaningfully better than human drivers, yes, but we shouldn't wait for perfection before we start getting dangerous human drivers off the streets.
Lost in all the fulminating about automation and big-tech tyranny is the fact that self-driving cars are an attempt to solve a very serious problem. Traffic fatalities are a leading cause of death in the United States for anyone between the ages of 1 and 54. About 40,000 people die in car crashes a year in the U.S., with about one-third involving drunk drivers. There's a natural, though irrational, human bias toward the status quo. We tend to believe that things are the way they are for a good reason. But of course, technology has drastically improved human lives and human life spans already. Why stop now that more powerful computer chips and sophisticated artificial intelligence models open up new possibilities?
[...] Leaving aside seething hostility toward tech and private capital, and worries over job losses, the most credible objection to self-driving cars from the left is the fear that deploying them means doubling down on roads and sprawl, and undermining support for public transportation projects. But there's no reason self-driving cars and public transportation need to be at odds. They can fulfill different needs. Autonomous vehicles are being deployed in San Francisco in fleets through ride-hailing programs, reducing the need for personal car ownership. If we can get self-driving cars working, self-driving buses on regular routes should be even easier. And contrary to the view that driverless cars are being deployed unilaterally by tech billionaires, the people's representatives -- government officials -- gave Alphabet-owned Waymo a license to operate. Our roads and motor vehicles are tightly regulated. Single incidents have derailed self-driving car projects, from Uber and more recently, GM-owned Cruise, while human drivers kill tens of thousands a year unimpeded.
Lost in all the fulminating about automation and big-tech tyranny is the fact that self-driving cars are an attempt to solve a very serious problem. Traffic fatalities are a leading cause of death in the United States for anyone between the ages of 1 and 54. About 40,000 people die in car crashes a year in the U.S., with about one-third involving drunk drivers. There's a natural, though irrational, human bias toward the status quo. We tend to believe that things are the way they are for a good reason. But of course, technology has drastically improved human lives and human life spans already. Why stop now that more powerful computer chips and sophisticated artificial intelligence models open up new possibilities?
[...] Leaving aside seething hostility toward tech and private capital, and worries over job losses, the most credible objection to self-driving cars from the left is the fear that deploying them means doubling down on roads and sprawl, and undermining support for public transportation projects. But there's no reason self-driving cars and public transportation need to be at odds. They can fulfill different needs. Autonomous vehicles are being deployed in San Francisco in fleets through ride-hailing programs, reducing the need for personal car ownership. If we can get self-driving cars working, self-driving buses on regular routes should be even easier. And contrary to the view that driverless cars are being deployed unilaterally by tech billionaires, the people's representatives -- government officials -- gave Alphabet-owned Waymo a license to operate. Our roads and motor vehicles are tightly regulated. Single incidents have derailed self-driving car projects, from Uber and more recently, GM-owned Cruise, while human drivers kill tens of thousands a year unimpeded.
disingenuous (Score:5, Interesting)
"but we shouldn't wait for perfection before we start getting dangerous human drivers off the street"
As written, this implies that all humans are dangerous. And yet millions of road trips are taken daily with no one dying or being injured. The vast, vast majority of drivers will drive their entire lives and never get injured or injure someone in an accident. And it's been this way for decades.
If you read the above quote another way, it implies that we should get those drivers who are dangerous off the streets... which implies getting drunk drivers, those who can't pass driving tests, the extremely elderly out of cars. But that doesn't mean that we should get everyone else out of cars, because *most* drivers aren't dangerous. And if we don't need perfection when it comes to autonomous vehicles, why do we need it for humans? This is a difference of degree, not of kind.
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As long as they don't come with laws prohibiting humans still being able to drive cars.
All my life, I've bought and owned nothing but 2-seater sports cars.
Why?
Not that I care what other people think as I drive by...I generally don't notice that, but I do so because they are FUN to drive to me. I like having a vehicle with good performance and I like the looks of them.
Whereas a lot of people only look at a car as something to get from point A to B
Re:disingenuous (Score:5, Insightful)
>As long as they don't come with laws prohibiting humans still being able to drive cars.
They will not need to explicitly ban man from driving cars. They'll just make it cost prohibitive to do so via insurance premiums. (Or our lovely federal friends will strong arm states into doing their dirty work by withholding fedbux for highway maintenance; much like they did with alcohol purchasing age)
There is a cost to living in a free society (yes, freedom of movement included). People will die on the roads, it's unavoidable; but it's preferable to living in a safety-mom dominated police state. Being able to get in your car and go wherever you want without mommy's oversight and permission is a security nightmare for the feds and police of course, but that's just too bad.
Re: disingenuous (Score:3, Insightful)
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So if you decide to brake hard the self driving car behind you knows when you touch the brake pedal and not when you are visibly slowing down.
I have an old car, but it already has this implemented. If I press the brake pedal even slightly, two light bulbs at the back turn on, informing the driver behind me that I am pressing the brake pedal.
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What fun is life, without a little risk?
If you want to have fun driving your car at high speeds, then go for it. Just do it on a racetrack. That way when you lose control and smash into the wall and burst into flames, it's just you getting toasted and not a 6-year-old girl on her way to swimming lessons, or a 35-year-old new mother running to get some groceries whose children will grow up without a mother. Your interest in "taking a risk" and "having a little fun" ends 18 inches on all sides of everyone else's vehicles.
So do us all a favor - do
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So don't buy new...buy classic. Buy a classic Italian sports car, ain't nothin' better.
Re:disingenuous (Score:4, Insightful)
When did we get so many pussies out there that are so risk adverse, as to be willing to give up so much automomy or ability to do things that are fun but come with risks?
You missed the answer in your own post. "Whereas a lot of people only look at a car as something to get from point A to B, pretty much...." . We've always had these "pussies", they're called people who arent into driving anywhere near as much as you apparently are. I know I would be incredibly happy to give up my driving autonomy to both save lives and also give me time to take a nap, read a bit, or maybe play a video game. It's a win-win in my book.
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As long as they don't come with laws prohibiting humans still being able to drive cars.
They won't have to prohibit it - it will merely go the way of the manual gearbox. They'll just start with having the steering wheel and pedals be a costly add-on option, if available at all. And your insurance company is going to hatefuck your wallet for the privilege.
I maintain the best theft deterrence device you can fit on a car today is a manual transmission - it practically makes it theft-proof any more unless you're dealing with pros.
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I've never owned anything BUT manual transmission cars.....even c
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All my life, I've bought and owned nothing but 2-seater sports cars.
Why?
Because they're really good at carrying lumber.
You think I joke but I had a friend (an engineer of course) who literally drove a 2 seater for exactly that reason.
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Here is a list [motortrend.com] of all stick shift vehicles you can buy in 2024. With luck, one will fit your bill. Not listed is the Aston Martin Vantage AMR. The first 200 stick shifts sold out [go.com] in 2020 and the company planned to offer a manual gearbox going forward.
Like you, I only drive stick shift and have been keeping an eye on the situation. Fortunately, the
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Such as having them die in vehicle accidents?
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No argument that automatic is faster than manual.
I've tried the "flappy paddles", and I just don't think it is as much fun.
For one thing, I can not for the life of me, figure how to downshift while I'm turning the wheel....how do you keep up with which paddle is where when you're turning hand over hand...so you can know which one (by touch) is up or down shifting?
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human: 2.78
waymo: 0.41
I truly think that, someday in the not too far future, the insurance industry is going to wake up to those figures and make it _very_ expensive to 'self drive' a car.
source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/... [theverge.com]
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Those million miles aren't equivalent. How many miles does Waymo drive at high speeds, in bad weather, on roads it hasn't trained on, and so forth?
Re:disingenuous (Score:4, Informative)
No, they're not equivalent. Waymo only does urban driving, and humans have a death rate in urban areas about 10X that of humans freeway driving, which Waymo doesn't do.
In other words, normalizing the miles makes Waymo look a lot better.
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...humans have a death rate in urban areas about 10X that of humans freeway driving...
Depends on whether you mean pedestrian deaths or occupant deaths. For pedestrian deaths, yeah, it's obviously higher in cities. But although the accident rate is higher in cities, IIRC, slower speeds mean that those accidents are way less likely to kill vehicle occupants than accidents on highways.
For occupant deaths, the farther outside a city you are, the higher the risk of dying in an accident. Per mile, rural roads are 62% more deadly than urban roads [ghsa.org].
That means urban roads (including freeways) are
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Indeed - it's the fallacy of not understanding the difference between absolute numbers and proportions, among other things.
Yes, the absolute number of deaths per year due to vehicle incidents is a Scary Number. However, it amounts to roughly two deaths per day, in each state. This is not a "high rate" even though it's a scary total number.
Humans really are bad at understanding risk, full stop.
This doesn't even get into the fact that car crashes are not "random" (even though they are statistical) - so in or
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"As written, this implies that all humans are dangerous. And yet millions of road trips are taken daily with no one dying or being injured. The vast, vast majority of drivers will drive their entire lives and never get injured or injure someone in an accident. And it's been this way for decades."
BS. Here in the US alone we have 5.5 million auto accidents each and every year. Which in turn injured 2.5 million people and killed 40,000 others.
And if you don't care about the lives and misery, those accidents ca
Anyone rooting against robot soldiers... (Score:3)
"Anyone rooting against robot soldiers is cheering for tens of thousands of people killed every year by human soldiers."
or how about this one:
"Anyone rooting against AI generated news articles is cheering for tens of thousands of bullshit, false-equivalence arguments from human journalists like Eric Newcomer."
I am Spartacus (Score:5, Insightful)
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...nor do I want anyone to know exactly where I choose to go.
So you dont carry a cellphone then, right?
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Not the OP, but yes, there are times when I leave my phone at home. Sometimes I forget it. It's no big deal to not have it with me.
And to make my actions even more sinister, sometimes I pay in cash so my purchases can't be traced. Surely I'm on some government watchlist because of these actions.
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...nor do I want anyone to know exactly where I choose to go.
So you dont carry a cellphone then, right?
a) this is whataboutism, b) no, I don't carry cellphone everywhere I go, c) even if most people do, they can be configured to minimize tracking.
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You think the huge, rich car companies will just roll over and go with not being allowed to sell you as much shit as you want, as often as you want?
Re:I am Spartacus (Score:4, Informative)
Re: I am Spartacus (Score:3)
The Supreme Court has specifically ruled that Crandall does not imply a right to use any particular mode of travel, such as driving an automobile. In Hendrick v. Maryland (1915), the appellant asked the court to void Maryland's motor vehicle statute as a violation of the freedom of movement. The court found "no solid foundation" for the appellant's argument and unanimously held that "in the absence of national legislation covering the subject, a state may rightfully prescribe uniform regulations necessary f
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A counter-example from more recent rulings, a federal judge ruled that travel by air is a constitutional right [papersplease.org]].
Of course, the right to travel without presenting identification in response to a directive that we still have not been shown is still restricted [wikipedia.org], at least in the 9th circuit.
Re:I am Spartacus (Score:5, Informative)
So when the Supreme Court said:
The right to travel is a part of the "liberty" of which a citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.
in the 1958 decision Kent v. Dulles [justia.com], in your opinion that means there is no constitutionally protected right to travel?
Or how about this analysis of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, which enumerates the "right to travel" as actually encompassing three different recognized constitutional rights; namely the right of a citizen to move freely between states, the first sentence of Article IV which provides a citizen of one state who is temporarily visiting another state the “Privileges and Immunities” of a citizen of the latter state, and the right of a new arrival to a state who establishes citizenship in that state to enjoy the same rights and benefits as other state citizens? [cornell.edu]
TL;DR: The United States Constitution, and the Supreme Court of the United States say you're wrong, and did so 150+ and 70+ years ago, respectively. Try talking about things you have any knowledge of, or at least try doing a fucking Google search.
Liability (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm all for a future with self driving cars but they need to sort out liability in the case of accidents before I'll ever let a car drive me around. If I'm held liable for any crash my car gets into then there's no way I'm letting the car drive me on its own.
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You are already liable for damage your vehicle causes.
Yes and if I still am with a self driving car then that's the problem as I won't be held liable for bugs in software I didnt write. What if there's a bad software update and my car kills someone because of it?
Or maybe not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Self-driving cars perpetuate an inefficient, dangerous, expensive mode of transportation. Individual cars contribute to deaths far more than buses, trams, trains and subways. They clog up streets and cause more traffic. They insulate the wealthy from the poor, making it easier to ignore society's problems. And the poor can barely afford public transit, much less the more-expensive self-driving cars which take up more of the roads (which taxpayers fund).
I'd love to not have to drive myself around! But I'd love it even more if there were affordable, timely public transit to drive me around.
Re:Or maybe not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not me....public transport does not get me door-to-door on my schedule.
That's a deal breaker for me right off to bat.
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Not me....public transport does not get me door-to-door on my schedule.
Huh, so you've never been caught in traffic?
And of course since you don't drink and drive, it only operates door to door on your schedule if you're not having a drink at your destination.
anyhow my local trains are 4 an hour, so the schedule changes are I look at my phone and think "oh I need to go now" versus "I need to go in 5 minutes", and respectively hustle a bit or take a stroll. Bonus points, I get to my destination quicker than go
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Rarely over my life....
I don't and won't live in nightmare cities like L.A. or Houston...so, no, I've rarely had traffic problems of any note over my life.
I really don't anymore....I used to without a second thought. Hell everyone I was running with did.
But now, in general, when going out and having drinks, I do use Ube
Get it delivered? (Score:3)
Doesn't Costco do home deliveries? Actually I can see why they wouldn't, but that could be changed. Or just get a taxi for the one thing where there is a need for personal transport.
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Neither does your car, unless you want it to get towed. Right now, only a taxi can drop you off at the front door. The rest of us have to walk from the parking lot.
So I look forward to the day when an autonomous vehicle will drop you off at the front door and park itself, and then return when summoned. That's all I ask.
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They live within walking distance of the nearest grocery store, and they buy groceries a few times a week so they don't have to make big trips. Walking is healthy, and they also get fresher meat, dairy and produce that way.
Re:Or maybe not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that ONLY works if you live in a densely packed, highly urban city.
Not how everyone lives that way in the US, nor do they want to live that way.
I personally hope I never have to share walls with someone else again as long as I live...I worked hard to be able to afford to live in a free standing, single family home in a nice neighborhood.
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I'd love to not have to drive myself around! But I'd love it even more if there were affordable, timely public transit to drive me around
Public transportation will never take much hold in the US, because it's not a practical solution for people for many reasons. The current transportation situation is Already perpetuated: It is never going to end period, unless you can actually define something that most people will want and Like.
How about Non-owned SDCs that would work something like Taxis?
You order a t
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Self-driving cars perpetuate an inefficient, dangerous, expensive mode of transportation. Individual cars contribute to deaths far more than buses, trams, trains and subways. They clog up streets and cause more traffic. They insulate the wealthy from the poor, making it easier to ignore society's problems. And the poor can barely afford public transit, much less the more-expensive self-driving cars which take up more of the roads (which taxpayers fund).
I'd love to not have to drive myself around! But I'd love it even more if there were affordable, timely public transit to drive me around.
Depending on how you look at it and where you live, public transit can be FAR more expensive than owning a car.
Around here, public transit adds about a minimum of an hour to most trips, easily topping that if you go multiple places in a day. So lets just say an extra hour both ways on your commute every weekday, and figure that also includes some extra stops when needed.
That would cost someone making $15/hr about $7,500 a year in lost time, not counting fares. For me, the number would be closer to $40,000/y
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Just as soon as any public transit stops come within 2 miles of my house, I'll start thinking about using public transportation for my intra-city needs. That being said, I really like being able to have my car drive me to the train stop 2 miles from my house, allowing me to leverage transit to go into the central city where parking is always a pain in the ass.
I am not getting off a bus or train and then walking up 2 miles of a twisting road with blind corners and no sidewalks climbing 700 feet of elevation
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That's perfectly logical. They want their freedom.
And control over everyone else.
I don't get it (Score:2)
I'd rather cheer for 10's of thousands of deaths per year from self driving cars if it replaces the hundreds of thousands of deaths per year we have now. Especially knowing that even if it is that bad (and I doubt it would be) it can only *improve* year over year.
Wouldn't anyone?
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Ugh. Ignore my previous post - got suckered in by a very poorly written title, which hit my brain opposite to it's actual meaning.
OK, move along now, nothing to see here.
Logic doesn't work on the (Score:2)
...pissed nor habitual troglodytes.
They're sorta right but also not there yet (Score:3)
Feels like we are going to start reaching an uncanny valley of sorts with self driving and driver-assist features reaching a point where they are mostly good enough to make people complacent.
Like the tiring thing about driving isn't the turning of the wheel or pressing the pedals, it's the maintenance of attention and now the attention of the driver isn't just taking in all the visual and audio stimuli and coordinating that with your actions behind the wheel but babysitting the computer driving the car "just in case" it makes the wrong move which is just shifting the attention span and in some cases making it worse.
I don't know if this is going to increase or decrease accidents overall but for now I think we've replaced one issue with a different issue while on the path towards what we all actually want which is the ability for the car to take us to the destination and not have to think about it. Self driving has always felt pretty binary in that respect, not that driver assist features aren't good overall and probably a net benefit but there is a hard line between those and "self driving" imo.
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Maybe, but I haven't gone into the valley yet. My wife's car ('23 Santa Fe Hybrid) has some great driver assist features, and does in fact drive itself, on the highway, in good weather, in sparse or crowded traffic, just fine. The lessening of fatigue from driving is real, and quite significant.
But, if I even see an emergency vehicle I go back to manual control. If I get to a construction zone (lane shifts, confusing or missing lane markers/lines, etc.) I also go manual. In bad weather (driving rain,
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Feels like we are going to start reaching an uncanny valley of sorts with self driving and driver-assist features reaching a point where they are mostly good enough to make people complacent.
Like the tiring thing about driving isn't the turning of the wheel or pressing the pedals, it's the maintenance of attention and now the attention of the driver isn't just taking in all the visual and audio stimuli and coordinating that with your actions behind the wheel but babysitting the computer driving the car "just in case" it makes the wrong move which is just shifting the attention span and in some cases making it worse.
The funny part is, driving 55mph on a straight empty highway in the country (we have a few of those here in TX) will put you to sleep pretty quickly. If I could drive 80 or 90mph on the same road, I guarantee you I'd be WIDE awake the whole time.
A bit clickbait, but sadly true... (Score:2)
Okay, first up, I'm not an uncritical fanboy of self-driving. But neither am I a fanboy of people driving either. For example, I've never assumed a 0% accident rate with them - I've usually gone for 10% of that of humans as an attainable point. Still safer. I was also predicting professional drivers operating in remote operating centers to help "stuck" AI cars, long before the news broke that they were being used.
I also figure that self-driving cars will easily avoid some of the accidents humans have, w
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I tend to view this through mathematical terms.
I think approaching complicated social-economic issue like this with an assumption it is a perfectly round cow in a vacuum is foolish. This issue should not be purely about road safety, it should also be about who can afford personal transportation currently vs. under the new regime, it should be about use of resources such as energy and fuel, it should be about privacy, it should be about potential for monopolistic capture, it should be about robustness of our society against natural disasters and sabotage
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All things to consider. But note how I mentioned injury and maiming as well. Auto accidents injure people a lot more frequently than they kill, and they cause property damage/loss more frequently than they injure.
Consider that with ~40k fewer deaths, with $340B in damages each year, how much cheaper could we make transportation? That's $1k/person in the USA per year. That would pay for a fair bit of transportation. Who can afford personal transportation - it should drop the costs for those least able t
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Who can afford personal transportation - it should drop the costs for those least able to right now.
I disagree. You failed to account for increased complexity of self-driving car's hardware, additional infrastructure such as the need to frequently update mapping. Additionally, there well be more profit-seeking entities (both car manufacturers and self-driving providers, as they are not the same) involved in providing this service, as such it will be closed in cost to taxi service than car ownership. My prediction is that you will pay a lot more and get less service, and less convenience but it will be opt
Need quality data to know.. (Score:5, Interesting)
This assumes that obviously self driving cars are safer than humans, but I don't know that we have the data to bear that out yet.
Currently, the self driving experience is highly restricted and on rails. When in doubt, the self driving systems will refuse to drive. As close as we get to self-driving cars, they are all newer cars without maintenance issues.
Tesla repeatedly trots out miles driven as "apples to apples" despite opting out of adversarial conditions that cause the most human incidents.
Also a question of how much forced human engagement can help cover. It might be that "eyes on road, hands on wheel" nanny combined with "self driving" results in the most safety, even if that's unappealing because the human operator wanted to do other things.
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Yep.
Self-driving cars are some of the most dangerous cars on the road, as both a pedestrian and a motorist. They're erratic and do not move predictably. Nothing like being behind a Tesla and getting brake-checked because the software fucks up. Nevermind they typically go under the speed limit and drive like they're 70 year old Asians.
Self-driving cars are a long way from a serviceable replacement for normal cars.
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Nevermind they typically go under the speed limit and drive like they're 70 year old Asians.
As in: they actually stick to the law.
Er sorry what was the problem again?
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Over two decades of work and... (Score:2)
So with two decades of work from the brightest minds at the biggest tech companies and car companies, with tens of billions of dollars thrown at the problem, the best they can do is kill people at a rate higher than human drivers.
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What's funny is you think that two decades of trial and error before achieving success is somehow unusual, or unacceptable.
I was thinking of starting a list of things that we routinely rely on to be near perfect but which took decades of refinement to build...
https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
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Yes, it's unusual and unacceptable for mass acceptance of an automation technology which will markedly increase death and injury.
What world are you on?
Can you think of any other automation technologies with similar issues?
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I'm not sure I understand your objection. Are you moving the goalposts to the exact point at which you are able to be right?
I'm pointing out that many things started with dubious safety records were improved over decades to the point where they are considered safe and effective. If the world stuck to the line of thinking you seem to be espousing - i.e. if it can't be near perfect within 20 years, don't do it at all - we would be without a lot of things, including air travel, cancer treatment, plenty of medi
Fallacious argument (Score:5, Insightful)
'Anyone Rooting Against Self-driving Cars is Cheering For Tens of Thousands of Deaths
False, wrong. Bad-faith argument.
Nobody gets to define what their opposition's beliefs are outside the point you are arguing over. That's called trying to maliciously attack opposition by putting extra words into their mouth that they never said.
For example: Anyone who does Not agree with Banning the internet, Cell phones for kids, and End to End encryption Is in celebrating the fact that millions of children being exploited online.
Do you not see the problem?
People can be opposed to all the Thousands of deaths, but still reject your Proposed solution that has other drawbacks.
Self-driving cars stand to Cost a lot of people their jobs. They might not be as safe as claimed. They may result in higher costs and less control. There are a million possible reasons for people to Object to different self-driving car technology Over claims about them preventing deaths. Maybe People don't actually believe the claim that current self-driving car implementations will Put a dent in those deaths. Maybe self-driving cars will cause more Innocent deaths that would not happen otherwise. Maybe there will be other problems. Possibly self-driving cars will malfunction and cause different deaths of more vulnerable people That Humans have no ability to stop anymore; perhaps There will be higher probability of deaths caused by SDCs to certain minorities, etc.
Your opposition Does not have to state a position on the problem of those thousands of deaths to Avoid being in favor of them, let-alone celebrating them. They may also believe they are the better tradeoff Versus some alternatives. Deaths can also be reduced by introducing additional automated safety measures Or "Driver intermediation technologies" to non-SDCs; for example, Automatic breaking, Speed governing, or Measures that prevent drivers from veering around. Possibly an added safety feature will Block the driver from accelerating if someone is in front and force breaking, etc. That is features that Don't involve autonomous self-driving, but Introduce restrictions that limit the Unsafe things a driver can do.
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The one question I haven't seen asked is who paid him to write this article.
Should be obvious.
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It needs better standards of driver training. (Score:5, Informative)
The population of the UK is a fifth of that of the USA yet road deaths are just 1,633 for 2023, not even 1/20th that of the USA. The reasons are clear for anyone to see, much better driver training with much higher test pass standards, a DUI or drug driving is an automatic 12 month minimum ban from driving, the penalty system allows 12 points before a ban with things like mobile phone usage getting 6 points just for one offence.
And it's not just that that's different. For the vehicles there is also a mandatory annual safety inspection, the MOT test, with high standards a vehicle has to be able to meet. No MOT, no driving the car on the road. There are a lot of vehicles in the USA with suspension, steering, brakes and tyres that would not pass a MOT in the UK or the MOT equivalent in EU countries. And those are defects that can result in a accident that wouldn't have otherwise occurred if it weren't for the poor state of the vehicle.
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I'm not saying you're wrong, but the metric you should be using is miles driven per year,
Well, not necessarily for a few reasons, but even if you do that the UK has roads which are less than half as dangerous as the US.
But America is largely set up with zoning and road building rules that ensure the existence of longer drives for routine things and make those drives particularly dangerous.
Also, as far as countries with model drivers, in my experience Germany sets the bar.
No it does not. The country you are
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Another thing that's clear to see is that in the UK you typically don't drive oversized tanks down the road at high speeds. A significant cause of the increase in auto and pedestrian deaths in the US has been the incessant trend towards buying and driving oversized SUVs and "light" trucks with high hoods that are more likely to kill and maim.
Of course, the US also has a lot more stroads...
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The population of the UK is a fifth of that of the USA yet road deaths are just 1,633 for 2023, not even 1/20th that of the USA. The reasons are clear for anyone to see, much better driver training with much higher test pass standards, a DUI or drug driving is an automatic 12 month minimum ban from driving, the penalty system allows 12 points before a ban with things like mobile phone usage getting 6 points just for one offence.
And it's not just that that's different. For the vehicles there is also a mandatory annual safety inspection, the MOT test, with high standards a vehicle has to be able to meet. No MOT, no driving the car on the road. There are a lot of vehicles in the USA with suspension, steering, brakes and tyres that would not pass a MOT in the UK or the MOT equivalent in EU countries. And those are defects that can result in a accident that wouldn't have otherwise occurred if it weren't for the poor state of the vehicle.
I'm an Australian who moved to the UK, I think driving in the UK is better for three reasons.
1. Everyone seems to know what they're doing, very rarely do I end up behind stationary cars at green lights, people seem to be able to move off together and watching traffic part like the red sea when an Ambulance comes brings a tear to my eye. There are exceptions of course, but by and large UK drivers are respectful, courteous and understand what they're doing and when they should be doing it.
2. Morons on p
Doesn't matter. (Score:2)
The emotional demand for the hammer of retribution against "someone" overrides the intellectual knowledge of statistically improved safety.
Security? (Score:5, Interesting)
A fun bit of potential math:
These cars all phone "home" for updates, etc.
Lets say there are 6 primary manufacturers for self-driving car systems.
Lets say there are 200M cars.
Then, a manufacturer could have control systems in ~33m cars.
So, if a malicious hacker group is able to gain control over some of these cars (lets say half of one manufacturer's cars), we could see those cars going for important infra (like power transmission lines) en-mass out of the blue. This could result in significant deaths as we don't have a water or food system that can tolerate widespread extended electrical outages.
That is way less likely with humans. So, yea, more random deaths with humans, but less apocalyptic "oh !)@#" kinds of things with 'em at the wheels too.
Really? (Score:2)
"leaving aside seething hostility toward tech and private capital, and worries over job losses" - and why should we leave those aside? Because you have zero interest in anyone in the "bottom" 80% of the population working?
Here's a better idea: spend a fraction the money being spent on self-driving cars, and on roads, and spend it on public transportation.
What's public transportation? Let's see, last time I was living in Chicago, and had to take a bus from the el, the schedule for the bus I need read: "durin
Are they actually safer? (Score:3, Interesting)
280,000,000 people driven cars resulted in 40,000 deaths per year?
That's about 1 death per year per 7000 cars.
There are something like 2000 self driving cars, and they've killed 11 people in the past 3 years.
That's more than an order of magnitude worse.
Self driving cars might have the potential to be safer, but they aren't yet.
When a self driving car can correctly handle a plastic bag blowing across the road AND correctly handle a baby carriage rolling across the road, then we can talk about letting them drive.
Yep, perfectly true (Score:2)
But people are generally stupid.
I'm Not Rooting Against It (Score:3)
Hard Problem in a Capitalist System (Score:2)
I think it's simplistic to say that issues are because people are rooting against it. It's just a hard problem to solve. Plus the solution needs to be cost effective enough to compete in a capitalistic system against human driven vehicles with this cost including manufacturer acceptance of liability.
A human with low risk of causing an accident versus a manufacturer accepting a possibly lower risk of any of their vehicles causing an accident is a pretty high cost. So technology really needs to do a lot but b
Don't whine, make it work. (Score:3)
I wish people would stop telling me how many deaths self driving cars would save and instead get on with it and create bloody self driving cars that are safe!
We would push down traffic deaths much sooner if we had technology to prevent drunk driving (which basically exists). But apparently not sexy enough, too easy to circumvent, and (probably) a case of "my freedom to be stupid is at stake!" case.
Liability of self-driving cars is an issue, too. But that is easy to fix, by comparison.
Where I live there is so much road construction even on the most major roads that the only reason people do not crash at night (and just imagine, with rain) because they drive there every day and just know where to go. Just looking at the road (here is looking at you Elon!) gets you nowhere (certainly does not keep you in your "lane").
I was hoping that by the time I have to retire from driving because of old age I could have a self- driving car ... now I wonder whether it is going the way of fusion energy. And I have ways to go.
BTW, Waymo in Phoenix (Arizona) is cool. But driving there is also quite easy, by comparison. Still, kudos to their Robocabs.
I'm not "rooting against"... (Score:5, Insightful)
...self-driving cars. I'm optimistic that they will eventually be developed to the point where they are useful
I'm critical of companies that push them onto the roads long before the tech is ready
I'm critical of dishonest names, like FSD that mislead people into believing the tech is ready
I'm critical of investors who want profit now
I'm critical of pundits and futurists who ignore the very real and difficult problems
I worked on a self-driving car project for a major automaker and have some idea how hard the problem is
Even if you think the problem is hard, it's actually much harder than you can imagine
Current solutions barely work under good conditions, and are easily confused by any small thing outside of their training data
The global numbers (Score:2)
This is from the SHO:
"Every year the lives of approximately 1.19 million people are cut short as a result of a road traffic crash. Between 20 and 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring a disability.
"Road traffic injuries cause considerable economic losses to individuals, their families, and to nations as a whole. These losses arise from the cost of treatment as well as lost productivity for those killed or disabled by their injuries, and for family members who need to take tim
Self driving if and only if.... (Score:3)
The following items are true.... 1) Self driving is 100% autonomous and handled 100% in vehicle and does not give government or insurance any information about my current or historical locations. and 2) It can 100% over-ridden and driven as a regular vehicle with the human being the sole entity in control.
What a load of horseshit (Score:2)
Lost in all the fulminating about automation and big-tech tyranny is the fact that self-driving cars are an attempt to solve a very serious problem.
This jackass wants us to believe that corporations in 2024 do anything that isn't about making more money for their investors. I wonder how he feels about censoring the internet in the name of "protecting the children". Or does he only care about the things that pay him money?
Insurance will drive the change (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Insurance will drive the change (Score:4, Insightful)
My self driving car should not need accident liability insurance. Not under my name, anyway. Why would I be responsible for a car I'm not in control of?
My liability for collision, medical, uninsured driver, almost everything should be zero in a level 5 autonomous driving world.
No more car insurance Yeah! (Score:2)
rooting (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not a football game. Who cares about rooters? Maybe the sewer cleaning companies.
Robot cars have only been tried in very limited locations and very limited conditions. There is no way to know how well they would work in all the unlimited conditions faced by human drivers.
I would recommend crowd sourcing the learning from new human-driving cars, as many have sensors including cameras.
Getting drunk drivers off the road would probably be much more effective than changing all cars to autonomous, certainly in the short term.
impractical, unrealistic futureism (Score:2)
It's way too early (Score:3)
Self driving cars are great at many things, but actually understanding and adapting to the unusual isn't on that list of abilities.
Currently they're so primitive that 'self driving' means the human has to wait, at the ready to take over whenever the car can't handle something. I don't call that self driving, I call that advanced driver assist.
The current generation of automated cars shouldn't be allowed on roads at all.
False dichotomy (Score:3)
Just because I root for one side doesn't mean that I'm rooting for the other side to die. That's ridiculous.
Re:Anyone rooting against self driving cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
If someone could be arrested [bbc.com] and unbanked for peaceful protesting
If someone parks outside your house and blasts their air horns and music 24x7 while peeing in your yard you won't consider it peaceful, nor if they block your business and harass your customers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
we saw all the video
Yes, we saw the testimony from the people living in the apartment blocks, and the business owners who could not get or make deliveries.
trucks fit in the area because the area had trucks every day.
Trucks don't park in the street making it impassable all day every day. Pretty unlikely all of the supporters would put up with it in their own neighborhood.
My butt sat at an economic disadvantage for for 3 years for a virus I concluded would not kill me me after 4 weeks or observing who who was dying on a morbid national web site with government filtered numbers. Any discussions about no 45 year olds dying to speak of, nobody under 20 dying was shot down by the fucking hive mind in 30 seconds.
Much like masks it was not about protecting you, it was about protecting others. If nothing else the pandemic certainly showed how many people really don't give a fuck about anyone else. On the bright side given we ha
Re: (Score:3)
The truckers that were protesting were idiots, and I think you might have no idea what you're actually talking about.
Those unvaxxed truckers were complaining that the law wouldn't let them back into the country. Too bad that the USA's laws wouldn't have let them LEAVE THE COUNTRY in the first place. They were protesting for nothing. There was no freedom at stake. They held Ottawa hostage for however many weeks because they weren't willing to do what 90% of all the other truckers still driving were doing. It
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
But you may be one of those people who believe Tesla would materially be dishonest on their public page, exposing them to billions in liability. Let's clear that FUD up right quick: Tesla is required to share this data with the manner it is collected having been prescribed by the DMV in CA. Here is the relevant regulatory document: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/... [ca.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Eliminating the private ownership of property is not a good thing.
Eliminating the need to own something that you only use occasionally is potentially a very good thing. If you don't regularly carry a bunch of stuff around with you in your car for use after work or whatever, then if there were autonomous vehicles that could consistently be at your house in two minutes, there would be basically zero reason for you to need a car, and a lot of people would not buy them. This would save resources for future use, and might even make cars cheaper for the people who do need the