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Human drivers average about 1 fatality per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. [1] So we are still a long ways from being able to access safety in comparison

by dzdt 8y ago

Human drivers average about 1 fatality per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. [1] So we are still a long ways from being able to access safety in comparison to humans. [1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812451 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

hcnews 8y ago
Number of fatalities per million miles driven is only one of the metrics. Hours spent per lifetime driving is arguably a more important metric. I can't wait for everything (cities, highways etc.) to be redesigned for self-driving cars but looks like its not going happen in my life time :(
- pvarangot 8y ago
  If you have to sell self driving cars as "more people will die but some people will have more free time" it's not going to be as easy as if they are unarguably safer for everyone.
  - xyzzyz 8y ago
    I don't think that's true. That's exactly how we were sold on cars in the first place -- you're more likely to die when you drive than when you walk, but you can get places faster to save time. Same can be said about e.g. caffeine. Humans are notoriously bad at estimating and considering tail risks.
    - Smoofer 8y ago
      Care to expand on what you mean by risk vs. return of caffeine?
      - natrik 8y ago
        People drink coffee (consume caffeine) because they wish to be more alert/are sleepy. This is a consequence of not getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep has many documented negative effects, but people trade sleep (health) for productivity/etc. via caffeine intake.
    - perl4ever 8y ago
      Cars didn't replace walking, they replaced horses. I think you are begging the question - are cars more dangerous than horses? Just from reading random history, it seems like a lot of famous people were killed by riding accidents. And even today when the vast majority of people don't ride horses, I bet you can name a famous person who had a terrible accident.
      - xyzzyz 8y ago
        Horse riding was much less popular than you think. What was much more popular was horse-powered carriages, which are much more convenient than riding, and also less dangerous. Horse riding was pretty much a hobby, a hobby of the rich at that. Try reading some books from the era. For example, in Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” there is a quite funny moment when Hamilton sons were going for dances, when two older brothers already took family buggies, the younger didn’t choose to ride on a horse, but did something quite different, which made his mother very unhappy.
        perl4ever 8y ago
        Do you have any specific reason for believing the transition from horses to internal combustion engines increased casualties in the long run? Or is it just a gut feeling?
- ummonk 8y ago
  I mean, it is already hard enough to redesign infrastructure for trains, trolleys, buses, etc...
- ucaetano 8y ago
  > I can't wait for [cities] to be redesigned for self-driving cars Personally, I hope it never happens. The US is still suffering from when its cities were redesigned for cars, vs. public transit and pedestrians. Self-driving cars can and will play a very important role in transportation, but cities should be designed around people, not cars. Edit: I'm by no means criticizing your hope, and I do agree with you that cities should be redesigned to "accommodate" self driving cars, such as "buffer garages" (where autonomous cars are parked in a FIFO way, not in the way cars are parked today), auto-charging stations, smart curbs for pick-up/drop-off, etc.
  - kjeetgill 8y ago
    One of the biggest issues is that the road infrastructure and the city layout is already there. Sure cities may be better if they were walkable but most people live across the full metropolitan areas. Taking the SF Bay area an example: Sure I can take the Caltrain or the Bart to get to nearly any city but it'll always be the long way around. Think San Mateo to Union City. Crossing a bridge it's direct. The road infra structure is already there and the cities are built around it. Sure there's probably some cryptic bus route but the difference right now is (with a quick google) 35 mins vs 1.5 hr. I think self driving cars have the potential to build on our car centric ecosystems. Look at how Uber/Lyft have adapted into Uber Pool and Lyft Line. They've done more to change people's driving habits than any changes to the public transportation system. I'm excited to see how self driving cars solve this by dropping the price point further and exploring larger pools.
    - trhway 8y ago
      >Think San Mateo to Union City. Crossing a bridge it's direct. The road infra structure is already there and the cities are built around it. Sure there's probably some cryptic bus route but the difference right now is (with a quick google) 35 mins vs 1.5 hr. that is the use case best suited for flying tub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQK9m_OBVgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQK9m_OBVgY
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
gok 8y ago
Seems like you could estimate fatality rate from crash rate? From your source, about 1 in 200 crashes are fatal.
- Skunkleton 8y ago
  Yeah, but humans crash differently than robots. The fatality rate for human crashes does not apply to robot crashes.
bmcusick 8y ago
There's more to safety statistics than just the mortality rate. We should be able to look at frequency and severity of non-fatal accidents too. Those happen a lot more often. For example, accidents that occur at 35 MPH or less are much less likely to result in a fatality or major injury, due to the amount of kinetic energy that a human body can safely dissipate. So if Google cars have even slightly better braking or speed control, you're going to see an improvement. Looking at the average speed at which accidents occur would be useful information.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  >> There's more to safety statistics than just the mortality rate. We should be able to look at frequency and severity of non-fatal accidents too. Those happen a lot more often. When the industry or the press discuss the safety of self-driving cars, they almost always do it in terms of fatality rates. Not general accident rates.
  - dmoy 8y ago
    Huh I thought there was that huge fixation on just "disengagements" or whatever a year back.
    - gpm 8y ago
      "Disengagements" are a measure of how close we are to a self driving car. I.e. one that doesn't need a human sitting in the drivers seat to handle these disengagements, not a measure of safety.
      - Animats 8y ago
        Right. Only Waymo has disengagement numbers that are even vaguely decent. The CA DMV data has enough info that you can distinguish between "driver had to take over to avoid crash" vs. "vehicle was unable to proceed due to problem ahead and needed help". The first number needs to get very low before self-driving can work. The second, Waymo proposes to handle by having a very limited remote control capability, so remote support can get a vehicle past a strange problem.
kuprel 8y ago
Also, some people are more reckless than others. A responsible driver might have a much lower chance of fatality than the average
- jkaptur 8y ago
  That sounds like common sense, but do you happen to know if it is actually true?
  - rickycook 8y ago
    i’m sure insurance companies know whether it’s true or not
icc97 8y ago
Waymo have driven 5 billion in simulation. I think simulation is going to be the major change that automous vehicles can bring. Assuming simulation is proven to be good enough for training cars, then having the ability to simulate crashes so that cars can respond in an optimal way is going to make a massive difference.
- Animats 8y ago
  Waymo uses simulation to fuzz test their algorithms. When real driving records a troublesome situation, they load that data into a simulator and run it over and over with variations to see that the results are safe. Remember the problem with machine learning - most of the time it's right, and sometimes it's really, really wrong for no visible reason.
- jacksmith21006 8y ago
  Simulation is really needed for automated testing. I do not know how you would ever develop self driving technology safely without. How else would you make sure a change did not break something g else? On public roads? Plus simulation enables situational injection which you also need. Waymo being sister to Google makes it so they have the infrastructure to pull this off. The others do not have. Plus we do not have Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook developing who would also have the infrastructure.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
People almost always tell me autonomous vehicles are much safer than Human drivers, but that has not yet been proven [1]. Luckily Tesla, Waymo, etc. are starting to put major amounts of mileage into the data. https://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/RAND_TestingAV_HowManyMiles.pdf https://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/R...
- rickycook 8y ago
  well, that’s not really the right question; given enough time, they’re always going to be safer than human drivers the question is at what point we decide that it’s “good enough” to be a life saving compromise humans are really terrible drivers compared to sensors. the number of inputs, precision, and quick decision making are all much better for driving than humans

by dzdt 8y ago

hcnews 8y ago

Number of fatalities per million miles driven is only one of the metrics. Hours spent per lifetime driving is arguably a more important metric. I can't wait for everything (cities, highways etc.) to be redesigned for self-driving cars but looks like its not going happen in my life time :(

pvarangot 8y ago
If you have to sell self driving cars as "more people will die but some people will have more free time" it's not going to be as easy as if they are unarguably safer for everyone.
- xyzzyz 8y ago
  I don't think that's true. That's exactly how we were sold on cars in the first place -- you're more likely to die when you drive than when you walk, but you can get places faster to save time. Same can be said about e.g. caffeine. Humans are notoriously bad at estimating and considering tail risks.
  - Smoofer 8y ago
    Care to expand on what you mean by risk vs. return of caffeine?
    - natrik 8y ago
      People drink coffee (consume caffeine) because they wish to be more alert/are sleepy. This is a consequence of not getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep has many documented negative effects, but people trade sleep (health) for productivity/etc. via caffeine intake.
  - perl4ever 8y ago
    Cars didn't replace walking, they replaced horses. I think you are begging the question - are cars more dangerous than horses? Just from reading random history, it seems like a lot of famous people were killed by riding accidents. And even today when the vast majority of people don't ride horses, I bet you can name a famous person who had a terrible accident.
    - xyzzyz 8y ago
      Horse riding was much less popular than you think. What was much more popular was horse-powered carriages, which are much more convenient than riding, and also less dangerous. Horse riding was pretty much a hobby, a hobby of the rich at that. Try reading some books from the era. For example, in Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” there is a quite funny moment when Hamilton sons were going for dances, when two older brothers already took family buggies, the younger didn’t choose to ride on a horse, but did something quite different, which made his mother very unhappy.
      - perl4ever 8y ago
        Do you have any specific reason for believing the transition from horses to internal combustion engines increased casualties in the long run? Or is it just a gut feeling?
ummonk 8y ago
I mean, it is already hard enough to redesign infrastructure for trains, trolleys, buses, etc...
ucaetano 8y ago
> I can't wait for [cities] to be redesigned for self-driving cars Personally, I hope it never happens. The US is still suffering from when its cities were redesigned for cars, vs. public transit and pedestrians. Self-driving cars can and will play a very important role in transportation, but cities should be designed around people, not cars. Edit: I'm by no means criticizing your hope, and I do agree with you that cities should be redesigned to "accommodate" self driving cars, such as "buffer garages" (where autonomous cars are parked in a FIFO way, not in the way cars are parked today), auto-charging stations, smart curbs for pick-up/drop-off, etc.
- kjeetgill 8y ago
  One of the biggest issues is that the road infrastructure and the city layout is already there. Sure cities may be better if they were walkable but most people live across the full metropolitan areas. Taking the SF Bay area an example: Sure I can take the Caltrain or the Bart to get to nearly any city but it'll always be the long way around. Think San Mateo to Union City. Crossing a bridge it's direct. The road infra structure is already there and the cities are built around it. Sure there's probably some cryptic bus route but the difference right now is (with a quick google) 35 mins vs 1.5 hr. I think self driving cars have the potential to build on our car centric ecosystems. Look at how Uber/Lyft have adapted into Uber Pool and Lyft Line. They've done more to change people's driving habits than any changes to the public transportation system. I'm excited to see how self driving cars solve this by dropping the price point further and exploring larger pools.
  - trhway 8y ago
    >Think San Mateo to Union City. Crossing a bridge it's direct. The road infra structure is already there and the cities are built around it. Sure there's probably some cryptic bus route but the difference right now is (with a quick google) 35 mins vs 1.5 hr. that is the use case best suited for flying tub https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQK9m_OBVgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQK9m_OBVgY
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

gok 8y ago

Seems like you could estimate fatality rate from crash rate? From your source, about 1 in 200 crashes are fatal.

Skunkleton 8y ago
Yeah, but humans crash differently than robots. The fatality rate for human crashes does not apply to robot crashes.

bmcusick 8y ago

There's more to safety statistics than just the mortality rate. We should be able to look at frequency and severity of non-fatal accidents too. Those happen a lot more often. For example, accidents that occur at 35 MPH or less are much less likely to result in a fatality or major injury, due to the amount of kinetic energy that a human body can safely dissipate. So if Google cars have even slightly better braking or speed control, you're going to see an improvement. Looking at the average speed at which accidents occur would be useful information.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> There's more to safety statistics than just the mortality rate. We should be able to look at frequency and severity of non-fatal accidents too. Those happen a lot more often. When the industry or the press discuss the safety of self-driving cars, they almost always do it in terms of fatality rates. Not general accident rates.
- dmoy 8y ago
  Huh I thought there was that huge fixation on just "disengagements" or whatever a year back.
  - gpm 8y ago
    "Disengagements" are a measure of how close we are to a self driving car. I.e. one that doesn't need a human sitting in the drivers seat to handle these disengagements, not a measure of safety.
    - Animats 8y ago
      Right. Only Waymo has disengagement numbers that are even vaguely decent. The CA DMV data has enough info that you can distinguish between "driver had to take over to avoid crash" vs. "vehicle was unable to proceed due to problem ahead and needed help". The first number needs to get very low before self-driving can work. The second, Waymo proposes to handle by having a very limited remote control capability, so remote support can get a vehicle past a strange problem.

kuprel 8y ago

Also, some people are more reckless than others. A responsible driver might have a much lower chance of fatality than the average

jkaptur 8y ago
That sounds like common sense, but do you happen to know if it is actually true?
- rickycook 8y ago
  i’m sure insurance companies know whether it’s true or not

icc97 8y ago

Waymo have driven 5 billion in simulation. I think simulation is going to be the major change that automous vehicles can bring. Assuming simulation is proven to be good enough for training cars, then having the ability to simulate crashes so that cars can respond in an optimal way is going to make a massive difference.

Animats 8y ago
Waymo uses simulation to fuzz test their algorithms. When real driving records a troublesome situation, they load that data into a simulator and run it over and over with variations to see that the results are safe. Remember the problem with machine learning - most of the time it's right, and sometimes it's really, really wrong for no visible reason.
jacksmith21006 8y ago
Simulation is really needed for automated testing. I do not know how you would ever develop self driving technology safely without. How else would you make sure a change did not break something g else? On public roads? Plus simulation enables situational injection which you also need. Waymo being sister to Google makes it so they have the infrastructure to pull this off. The others do not have. Plus we do not have Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook developing who would also have the infrastructure.

prolikewh0a 8y ago

People almost always tell me autonomous vehicles are much safer than Human drivers, but that has not yet been proven [1]. Luckily Tesla, Waymo, etc. are starting to put major amounts of mileage into the data. https://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/RAND_TestingAV_HowManyMiles.pdf https://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/R...

rickycook 8y ago
well, that’s not really the right question; given enough time, they’re always going to be safer than human drivers the question is at what point we decide that it’s “good enough” to be a life saving compromise humans are really terrible drivers compared to sensors. the number of inputs, precision, and quick decision making are all much better for driving than humans