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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.

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.