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> Do you think self driving cars should be prohibited as long as they are less safe than the standard set by human+collision avoidance cars? If having a human

> Do you think self driving cars should be prohibited as long as they are less safe than the standard set by human+collision avoidance cars? If having a human in the car reduces the accident rate, then I propose making it necessary for the human to be in the car. Are you advocating that we make roads unsafe so that disabled people be able to take taxis more? > I don't see why the safety standard should be even higher for self-driving cars. I see it as the opposite. The advocates for driverless cars are advocating lowering standards. For me the standard is simple. If the same car is as safe driving itself as it is assisting a human driving it, then it can drive itself. You can only remove the human if the human adds no safety in the same car. Please do not compare to "the average car on the road". I see there are positive externalities to cheaper taxis. There are really negative externalities too, in terms of traffic, urban sprawl, and carbon emissions. But I don't think we should deviate from the topic of safety for those externalities

throwaway34241 7y ago
Safety is important, but I don't think any amount of safety is worth any amount of negative externalities. I mean there's things we could do right now that would make things more safe. We could ban everyone with older cars from driving (since they don't have as many safety features). We could ban everyone from the roads that has a somewhat-higher than average accident rate. We could ban all people past a certain age. If safety is always more important than access to transportation we should do those things. I disagree with those, so I also disagree with the premise that having a human in the car should be required for any amount of increased safety. I think the amount matters. And keep in mind we are only talking about safety increases from present day, you're just proposing to ban them in order to achieve a greater safety increase. My >90 year old grandmother still drives. She hasn't run anyone over, but I imagine her reaction time isn't the best. Apparently it's common for cops to be lenient with elderly folks who are known bad drivers, since in many areas they wouldn't be able to get groceries or go to the doctor otherwise. I'd argue that maintaining the status quo (by having a blanket policy) for many groups of drivers would probably be safety theater instead of anything real. Lastly, I touched on this in my earlier post, but if you care about deaths it's very important to consider what cars are actually being replaced in addition to individual car statistics. Imagine in scenario A, 10 million older cars are replaced by 10 million driver-assist cars, and scenario B where 30 million older cars are replaced by 15 million self-driving taxis. Assume the driver-assist car is safer than the self-driving car, which is safer than the older car. Even so, the driver assist scenario may have thousands more deaths, since the uptake rate is different. And this is without taking into account any safety-improving software updates, which are very difficult to estimate but may be very significant statistically. A simple per-car comparison may lead to all of the negative externalities and thousands of more people killed. I really do not see how that outcome could be justified in the name of "safety". At the very least, even if safety is the first and only concern, policy makers should try to minimize vehicular deaths which requires considering things at the fleet level.

throwaway34241 7y ago

Safety is important, but I don't think any amount of safety is worth any amount of negative externalities. I mean there's things we could do right now that would make things more safe. We could ban everyone with older cars from driving (since they don't have as many safety features). We could ban everyone from the roads that has a somewhat-higher than average accident rate. We could ban all people past a certain age. If safety is always more important than access to transportation we should do those things. I disagree with those, so I also disagree with the premise that having a human in the car should be required for any amount of increased safety. I think the amount matters. And keep in mind we are only talking about safety increases from present day, you're just proposing to ban them in order to achieve a greater safety increase. My >90 year old grandmother still drives. She hasn't run anyone over, but I imagine her reaction time isn't the best. Apparently it's common for cops to be lenient with elderly folks who are known bad drivers, since in many areas they wouldn't be able to get groceries or go to the doctor otherwise. I'd argue that maintaining the status quo (by having a blanket policy) for many groups of drivers would probably be safety theater instead of anything real. Lastly, I touched on this in my earlier post, but if you care about deaths it's very important to consider what cars are actually being replaced in addition to individual car statistics. Imagine in scenario A, 10 million older cars are replaced by 10 million driver-assist cars, and scenario B where 30 million older cars are replaced by 15 million self-driving taxis. Assume the driver-assist car is safer than the self-driving car, which is safer than the older car. Even so, the driver assist scenario may have thousands more deaths, since the uptake rate is different. And this is without taking into account any safety-improving software updates, which are very difficult to estimate but may be very significant statistically. A simple per-car comparison may lead to all of the negative externalities and thousands of more people killed. I really do not see how that outcome could be justified in the name of "safety". At the very least, even if safety is the first and only concern, policy makers should try to minimize vehicular deaths which requires considering things at the fleet level.