5 ms·

I don’t understand why human drivers are live testing with lethal metal vehicles, causing 3000 deaths per day globally[1]. Human drivers should be banned from t

I don’t understand why human drivers are live testing with lethal metal vehicles, causing 3000 deaths per day globally[1]. Human drivers should be banned from the roadways until vehicles include the safety systems needed to prevent these needless deaths. [1] 3000 deaths per day is 1.25 million annually, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic... Edit: Uber’s program is a fiasco wrapped around a joke, but Waymo has taken an extremely careful approach and it’s a mistake to conflate the two.

pretendscholar 8y ago
Am I callous for thinking that isn't such a bad death rate?
- gowld 8y ago
  That's a subjective judgment. What's fact is that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_motor_vehicle_collisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_motor_vehicle_... > This makes motor vehicle collisions the leading cause of death among young adults of 15–29 years of age (360,000 die a year) and the ninth cause of death for all ages worldwide. > It is estimated that motor vehicle collisions caused the deaths of around 60 million people during the 20th century,[6] around the same as the number of World War II casualties. Approximately 1% of all deaths are in car incidents.
  - pretendscholar 8y ago
    These may be facts, but extremely misleading facts. Why are you comparing WWII casualties (a five year period involving half the worlds population) with a century of the global population? Its also a fact the total deaths per year, at least in the US, is falling and the deaths per mile has dropped precipitously.
  - gambiting 8y ago
    The problem with those statistics is that they include drunk driving accidents(particularly people who drunk drive and die) - it's like saying "10,000 people die on holidays every year!" while including people who do underwater cave diving. If you don't engage in a certain activity, it's impossible to die from it(obviously it's still possible to get killed by a drunk driver at no fault of your own, but to me that shouldn't count in the same category as drunk people dying when driving).
    - lhorie 8y ago
      > shouldn't count in the same category Why? Isn't the entire premise of a fully autonomous vehicle that you can get wasted and still hop in your own car and get home safely?
      - gambiting 8y ago
        Because it makes it look like your risk of dying is much higher than it actually is. To pick another example - it's like saying "your risk of dying before 30 years old is 10%" and then calculating that risk including heroin users. If you don't use heroin that's not your risk.
        lhorie 8y ago
        That's a poor comparison. A heroin user is not going to accidentally kill anybody else when overdosing. Children that never even drove a car can die when a drunk driver smashes into a pedestrian crossing.
        gambiting 8y ago
        And I have addressed exactly this.
- mrep 8y ago
  Nope, I also think humans are pretty good drivers given the complexity of the task. That's not to say we couldn't do better nor that machines cannot do better, but we aren't that bad.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  Although these two statements appear to conflict, I believe both are true: - the rate of traffic fatalities are unacceptably high - the benefits of automobile usage far outweigh the costs, even with today's fatality rate. The changes necessary to get fatalities completely down to zero would likely increase costs and reduce benefits too much. But reducing fatalities by an order of magnitude? Very feasible IMO.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pwinnski 8y ago
This statement seems to be based on the assumption that Uber's efforts can only do better, never worse. This is by no means proven, and evidence suggests that it is wrong. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death, but I would still like some testing to be done on possible preventative measures before they're given to patients.
microcolonel 8y ago
Because in order to live a decent life, they have chosen to work and live in two different places which are not close enough to other people's destinations to warrant mass transit, and thus need to drive between them.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  And because of possibility of making such choices, desirable living places and desirable work places are moving further apart. Don't forget the feedback loops. People use cars because they need cars, but they need cars precisely because they use them.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    You think if people didn't have cars, SF Bay Area communities would build enough housing to support their job growth?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      And better public transport, maybe. With no cars and no public transport, there would probably be no SF Bay Area at all, but a bunch of smaller communities, each with housing and jobs.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > but they need cars precisely because they use them. Have you ever left the city for a destination which is not another city, or a suburb? Sure, if space ships were impossible or too expensive to even consider, we wouldn't be planning to visit Mars; but it isn't equally valid to not visit Mars altogether as an alternative to visiting Mars, just because going to Mars is harder than going to the corner store.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      I'm not criticizing, I'm pointing out some critical feedback loops that happen in our society. > Have you ever left the city for a destination which is not another city, or a suburb? Sure. My point is not about vacations, or Mars trips, but precisely about regular commute. As more people started having long-range vehicles, the landscape of work and living spaces changed so that now people are required to have such vehicles, and if you don't have one, you're significantly disadvantaged on the job and residential markets. The same thing happened with cellphones, bank accounts, plastic cards - cool tools at first, and then soon requirements for living in modern society. I'm just pointing out this phenomenon for consideration.

pretendscholar 8y ago

Am I callous for thinking that isn't such a bad death rate?

gowld 8y ago
That's a subjective judgment. What's fact is that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_motor_vehicle_collisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_motor_vehicle_... > This makes motor vehicle collisions the leading cause of death among young adults of 15–29 years of age (360,000 die a year) and the ninth cause of death for all ages worldwide. > It is estimated that motor vehicle collisions caused the deaths of around 60 million people during the 20th century,[6] around the same as the number of World War II casualties. Approximately 1% of all deaths are in car incidents.
- pretendscholar 8y ago
  These may be facts, but extremely misleading facts. Why are you comparing WWII casualties (a five year period involving half the worlds population) with a century of the global population? Its also a fact the total deaths per year, at least in the US, is falling and the deaths per mile has dropped precipitously.
- gambiting 8y ago
  The problem with those statistics is that they include drunk driving accidents(particularly people who drunk drive and die) - it's like saying "10,000 people die on holidays every year!" while including people who do underwater cave diving. If you don't engage in a certain activity, it's impossible to die from it(obviously it's still possible to get killed by a drunk driver at no fault of your own, but to me that shouldn't count in the same category as drunk people dying when driving).
  - lhorie 8y ago
    > shouldn't count in the same category Why? Isn't the entire premise of a fully autonomous vehicle that you can get wasted and still hop in your own car and get home safely?
    - gambiting 8y ago
      Because it makes it look like your risk of dying is much higher than it actually is. To pick another example - it's like saying "your risk of dying before 30 years old is 10%" and then calculating that risk including heroin users. If you don't use heroin that's not your risk.
      - lhorie 8y ago
        That's a poor comparison. A heroin user is not going to accidentally kill anybody else when overdosing. Children that never even drove a car can die when a drunk driver smashes into a pedestrian crossing.
        gambiting 8y ago
        And I have addressed exactly this.
mrep 8y ago
Nope, I also think humans are pretty good drivers given the complexity of the task. That's not to say we couldn't do better nor that machines cannot do better, but we aren't that bad.
bryanlarsen 8y ago
Although these two statements appear to conflict, I believe both are true: - the rate of traffic fatalities are unacceptably high - the benefits of automobile usage far outweigh the costs, even with today's fatality rate. The changes necessary to get fatalities completely down to zero would likely increase costs and reduce benefits too much. But reducing fatalities by an order of magnitude? Very feasible IMO.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pwinnski 8y ago

This statement seems to be based on the assumption that Uber's efforts can only do better, never worse. This is by no means proven, and evidence suggests that it is wrong. Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death, but I would still like some testing to be done on possible preventative measures before they're given to patients.

microcolonel 8y ago

Because in order to live a decent life, they have chosen to work and live in two different places which are not close enough to other people's destinations to warrant mass transit, and thus need to drive between them.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
And because of possibility of making such choices, desirable living places and desirable work places are moving further apart. Don't forget the feedback loops. People use cars because they need cars, but they need cars precisely because they use them.
- ummonk 8y ago
  You think if people didn't have cars, SF Bay Area communities would build enough housing to support their job growth?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    And better public transport, maybe. With no cars and no public transport, there would probably be no SF Bay Area at all, but a bunch of smaller communities, each with housing and jobs.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > but they need cars precisely because they use them. Have you ever left the city for a destination which is not another city, or a suburb? Sure, if space ships were impossible or too expensive to even consider, we wouldn't be planning to visit Mars; but it isn't equally valid to not visit Mars altogether as an alternative to visiting Mars, just because going to Mars is harder than going to the corner store.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    I'm not criticizing, I'm pointing out some critical feedback loops that happen in our society. > Have you ever left the city for a destination which is not another city, or a suburb? Sure. My point is not about vacations, or Mars trips, but precisely about regular commute. As more people started having long-range vehicles, the landscape of work and living spaces changed so that now people are required to have such vehicles, and if you don't have one, you're significantly disadvantaged on the job and residential markets. The same thing happened with cellphones, bank accounts, plastic cards - cool tools at first, and then soon requirements for living in modern society. I'm just pointing out this phenomenon for consideration.