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> Perhaps it will finally cue people in to how intrinsically dangerous cars are. Until you consider the _billions_ of miles that cars in the US drive every mon

> Perhaps it will finally cue people in to how intrinsically dangerous cars are. Until you consider the _billions_ of miles that cars in the US drive every month. Cars are exceptionally safe, and they're getting better every year.. because we keep driving _more_ miles year after year, yet fatalities continue to drop. Also, how do you interpret facts like: California has 30% more people living in it than Texas, yet TX has a _greater_ number of roadway fatalities than CA? > they're still orders of magnitude more of a risk factor for ordinary The problem is: you absolutely cannot view vehicles as a _single_ risk factor. Thus, any comparison between human drivers and AI drivers on these terms is flawed from the outset.

caconym_ 9y ago
Cars are a leading cause of death in the US, especially among young people. That's a fact worth taking notice of, regardless of how many miles are driven or whatever else. Yes, it's great that fatalaties are trending downwards.
- petre 9y ago
  So cap the power, weight and speed of cars young people are allowed to drive. In the US you can only vote at 21, but you can join the army and kill people if you're 18 and in most states drive powerful cars at 16 (although subject to some conditions such as a curfew and limits on the number of underage passengers present in the vehicle). In most European countries one can only drive heavy quadricycles (<=450 kg curb weight, <=15kW, <=45 km/h by construction) at 16 years of age. Same for autonomous vehicles: until the NTSB or whatever federal or state agency is responsible decides which tech is mature enough and issues licenses for a given AV system. A person has to have a driver's license, however AV systems do not. Why not certify which of them are able to operate heavier/more powerful/faster vehicles without human intervention (meaning they'd slow down to a stop when the driver would take his/her hands off the wheel).
CydeWeys 9y ago
Cars are not anything close to exceptionally safe. Indeed, they are the exact opposite: They are the most dangeorus thing that most people encounter on a daily basis. There are many age and other cohorts of the population for which the leading cause of death is vehicles. And compare against commercial aviation, which has a per-mile death rate three orders of magnitude less than driving.
- akira2501 9y ago
  > They are the most dangeorus thing that most people encounter on a daily basis. It's actually yourself, and it's worse when you're at work. Deaths due to vehicles: 36k per year. Deaths due to suicides: 44k per year. Deaths due to accidents: 190k per year. > There are many age and other cohorts of the population for which the leading cause of death is vehicles. This is not true for any cohort. [1] And yes, I'm aware that accidental deaths include vehicular deaths, but if you dig into the FARS data [2] and do a comparison between the two sets, you'll see that this statement can't be correct. It is; however, true that young men 15-24 exhibit the highest risk rate in vehicles compared to anyone else.. it's even 8x higher than females of the same age, but it doesn't make vehicles the greatest risk they face. > And compare against commercial aviation, which has a per-mile death rate three orders of magnitude less than driving. Yea, but a "deaths-per-journey" that's three times worse [3]. By the way, the aviation insurance industry uses the per-journey statistic, not the per-mile. Which further reveals my point, I don't think you can't take a single axis view on this information and come to any meaningful conclusion. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2015-a.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_dea... [2]: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    If we are considering deaths-per-journey, then cars look even worse when compared to planes: most people take many more journeys by car in comparison to planes. Let's say we take 500 journeys by car for every one journey we take by plane (not that outlandish), then cars are 1500 times worse than planes. Edit: it seems like it is the other way around. Planes are 3 times as worse than cars per journey, so flip that number around a bit (3 times better, but 500 more trips, so cars are only 166 times more dangerous than planes).
megy 9y ago
> Until you consider the _billions_ of miles that cars in the US drive every month. Cars are exceptionally safe, and they're getting better every year.. because we keep driving _more_ miles year after year, yet fatalities continue to drop. How many people do pedestrians kill per mile? Or bicycle? Or subway? And either way, cars are still the number one killer if you look at miles per death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U... It is disgusting we allow this to encroach on society and kill so many people.
noobermin 9y ago
The problem with the "billions of miles" metric, I have nothing to compare it to. If you compare it to safe of trains or buses (at least in countries that properly fund their public transport), how does it compare?

caconym_ 9y ago

Cars are a leading cause of death in the US, especially among young people. That's a fact worth taking notice of, regardless of how many miles are driven or whatever else. Yes, it's great that fatalaties are trending downwards.

petre 9y ago
So cap the power, weight and speed of cars young people are allowed to drive. In the US you can only vote at 21, but you can join the army and kill people if you're 18 and in most states drive powerful cars at 16 (although subject to some conditions such as a curfew and limits on the number of underage passengers present in the vehicle). In most European countries one can only drive heavy quadricycles (<=450 kg curb weight, <=15kW, <=45 km/h by construction) at 16 years of age. Same for autonomous vehicles: until the NTSB or whatever federal or state agency is responsible decides which tech is mature enough and issues licenses for a given AV system. A person has to have a driver's license, however AV systems do not. Why not certify which of them are able to operate heavier/more powerful/faster vehicles without human intervention (meaning they'd slow down to a stop when the driver would take his/her hands off the wheel).

CydeWeys 9y ago

Cars are not anything close to exceptionally safe. Indeed, they are the exact opposite: They are the most dangeorus thing that most people encounter on a daily basis. There are many age and other cohorts of the population for which the leading cause of death is vehicles. And compare against commercial aviation, which has a per-mile death rate three orders of magnitude less than driving.

akira2501 9y ago
> They are the most dangeorus thing that most people encounter on a daily basis. It's actually yourself, and it's worse when you're at work. Deaths due to vehicles: 36k per year. Deaths due to suicides: 44k per year. Deaths due to accidents: 190k per year. > There are many age and other cohorts of the population for which the leading cause of death is vehicles. This is not true for any cohort. [1] And yes, I'm aware that accidental deaths include vehicular deaths, but if you dig into the FARS data [2] and do a comparison between the two sets, you'll see that this statement can't be correct. It is; however, true that young men 15-24 exhibit the highest risk rate in vehicles compared to anyone else.. it's even 8x higher than females of the same age, but it doesn't make vehicles the greatest risk they face. > And compare against commercial aviation, which has a per-mile death rate three orders of magnitude less than driving. Yea, but a "deaths-per-journey" that's three times worse [3]. By the way, the aviation insurance industry uses the per-journey statistic, not the per-mile. Which further reveals my point, I don't think you can't take a single axis view on this information and come to any meaningful conclusion. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2015-a.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_dea... [2]: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comparisons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_safety#Transport_comp...
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  If we are considering deaths-per-journey, then cars look even worse when compared to planes: most people take many more journeys by car in comparison to planes. Let's say we take 500 journeys by car for every one journey we take by plane (not that outlandish), then cars are 1500 times worse than planes. Edit: it seems like it is the other way around. Planes are 3 times as worse than cars per journey, so flip that number around a bit (3 times better, but 500 more trips, so cars are only 166 times more dangerous than planes).

megy 9y ago

> Until you consider the _billions_ of miles that cars in the US drive every month. Cars are exceptionally safe, and they're getting better every year.. because we keep driving _more_ miles year after year, yet fatalities continue to drop. How many people do pedestrians kill per mile? Or bicycle? Or subway? And either way, cars are still the number one killer if you look at miles per death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U... It is disgusting we allow this to encroach on society and kill so many people.

noobermin 9y ago

The problem with the "billions of miles" metric, I have nothing to compare it to. If you compare it to safe of trains or buses (at least in countries that properly fund their public transport), how does it compare?