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What about those non-autopilot vehicles? - Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day - An additional 20-50 milli

What about those non-autopilot vehicles? - Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day - An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled From https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/ https://www.asirt.org/safe-travel/road-safety-facts/

dunkmaster 7y ago
There are way more non-autopilot vehicles than autopilot
camjohnson26 7y ago
This idea gets brought up every time autopilot is discussed here but it’s not really relevant. If autopilot were safer than human drivers there would be an argument for allowing it, but there’s no evidence that it is. Sure Tesla claims that it is based on very specific, cherry picked internal metrics, but independent analysis shows there’s just not enough data to say. Also the class of errors that autopilot makes is completely different than a human. Most human car crashes are preventable, either driving under the influence or distracted driving. I would much rather be in a crash with a drunk driver where liability was clear than have my car drive underneath a tractor trailer in the middle of a clear day just because I hit some neural network edge case.
- Faark 7y ago
  > I would much rather be in a crash with a drunk driver where liability was clear than have my car drive underneath a tractor trailer in the middle of a clear day just because I hit some neural network edge case. Preferring to die by human error instead of shitty software doesn't make logical sense to me and feels like your trying to justify something irrational. Autopilot either drives safer than me or doesn't. And I wouldn't let a drunk friend drive me either. > but independent analysis shows there’s just not enough data to say Do you link a trustworthy analysis? I can't remember reading one that wasn't from a highly polarized source.
  - nscalf 7y ago
    This makes a lot of sense, and is actually seen a lot in the wild. Having control feels good for us, and I would argue that's probably why there is such a visceral response to drunk drivers---they're not in control. You can empathize with a mistake, but something just sort of happening with no real impact or control over it feels wrong. That being said, I'm on board with the self driving cars, we should approach it with a logical head and really try to figure out what we should do, not what feels good.
  - EthanHeilman 7y ago
    >Preferring to die by human error instead of shitty software doesn't make logical sense to me and feels like your trying to justify something irrational. The poster, camjohnson26, did not say die, the poster said crash. Camjohnson26's point as I understood it was to compare two situations: 1. A crash that occurs because one of the drivers was extreme drunk, 2. A crash that occurs because of an autopilot in one of vehicles did not make the current action. In the first case most people and the legal system will likely conclude that the drunk driver was at fault. In the second case it will be more difficult to determine who was at fault. This second case may add legal, insurance and ethical complications that camjohnson26 wishes to avoid. For instance what if your insurance decides you are at fault for activating the autopilot under unsafe conditions?
    - Domenic_S 7y ago
      > what if your insurance decides you are at fault for activating the autopilot under unsafe conditions? Seems reasonable to me. The driver is always responsible.
      - EthanHeilman 7y ago
        Which driver? How do you determine it was actually the autopilot that caused the crash? What if it wasn't the autopilot?
  - will_brown 7y ago
    >Preferring to die by human error instead of shitty software doesn't make logical sense to me It certainly does if both auto pilot Tesla’s and standard vehicles are resulting in death, but the law will provide a remedy to your survivors and heirs in one instance and actually turn around and hold you liable in another instance. After all the post was about liability and clearly nothing to do with how the poster prefers to die, which you somehow read into it.
- ashelmire 7y ago
  Average rates appear to be 12.5 per billion miles, and it appears Tesla Autopilot is at 3 for over a billion miles with the system engaged. That's a quarter of the usual fatality rate, for anyone counting. Saying "there’s no evidence that it is" isn't true; the above statements (and supporting facts) are evidence.
  - camjohnson26 7y ago
    You aren’t controlling for other factors. Luxury cars and new cars have lower rates.
  - Someone 7y ago
    ”That's a quarter of the usual fatality rate” I beg to differ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#United_States_compared_to_other_nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...: ”Comparing motorways (controlled-access, divided highways) […] the United States had 3.38 road fatalities per 1 billion vehicle-km on its Interstate-type highways, often called freeways” I think that number better reflects where Tesla’s autopilot is used. Also, if you remove motorcycle deaths from that number, I can’t see how the Tesla could be significantly safer, let alone four times less deadly. I think you should also correct for vehicle age (older cars and lighter cars are less safe). You could (and, IMO, should) also correct for vehicle size/price, as Tesla drivers won’t be interested in whether their car is safer than other cars on the road, but in whether it is safer than what they could have bought instead. And of course, there’s the elephant in the room. I expect that Tesla drivers prevented at least half the deadly accidents that would have occurred if Autopilot did all the highway driving.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    People keep saying (in defense of it) that the Tesla Autopilot does not drive the car for you. As such, it makes no sense to compare its fatality rate to the fatality rate of humans who are driving cars. It seems arguable to me that all those Autopilot fatalities were excess fatalities.
close04 7y ago
Driving is dangerous and many drivers suck at it. But if you want a relevant comparison only consider similar circumstances and driving conditions (motorway or city traffic? blizzard or sunny?). Then normalize for the number of vehicles of each type and their age/capability (20 year old clunkers with failing brakes aside). And in the end count in the times AP made a mistake and the driver corrected it (Tesla has the info, only they know why they refuse to make it public).
imtringued 7y ago
Do those non-autopilot vehicles exclusively drive on the highway? Highway driving might be more deadly but accidents are less likely to happen in the first place due to lane separation, large curve radius, no stationary obstacles, no pedestrians, lower relative velocity, etc. It's like trying to compare Rotweilers to Pitbulls. Both are dangerous but one of them is 20x more dangerous.
- dwighttk 7y ago
  which one?
will_brown 7y ago
>What about those non-autopilot vehicles? They don’t make fraudulent misrepresentations to the public regarding their technological capabilities to self-drive which people rely on leading to fatal accidents. But when those car manufacturers are at fault for the accidents vis-a-vis some manufacturing defect...they or their suppliers are liable.
tamalesfan 7y ago
Literal whataboutism. Automated systems are held to a higher standard. Telsa's Autopilot apparently has trouble spotting trailers and decapitates the occupants. Cite all the accident figures you want; it won't stop the reporting about Autopilot wrecks.
MS90 7y ago
There's something like 200,000 Teslas on the road vs. over 250,000,000 "non-autopilot" vehicles. You can't make a straight up comparison with numbers like that without weighting them accordingly. Though I'm not sure you could compare them really at all in this specific case regarding the autopilot. I'm not sure how many of the traditional vehicle fatalities involve someone flipping on their cruise control and taking their hands off the wheel and ignoring the road in the same manner that the autopilot fatalities seem to have occurred.
MrQuincle 7y ago
Okay, so do the numbers. 3.3 trillion miles per year. 1 fatality per 100 million miles. That means Tesla should have driven 0.3 billion miles. Might be at the same level. Definitely not orders of magnitude different.
Symmetry 7y ago
If I were made god emperor of some country I'd switch everyone to autonomous cars as soon as they were safer than normal driving. But sadly I'm not and both Tesla and the government are going to be constrained by public opinion. And one important aspect of that is that people are more accepting of danger when they feel like they're in control than when they don't. So for a successful rollout they need to be much safer than human drivers. This is something that looks achievable. But if you try to push them out too early you might get a backlash that delays progress and costs more lives in the long run through slower adoption when they're ready.
- OvidNaso 7y ago
  Why not just make driving a car as serious as piloting a plane? Planes are so much safer not because they are easier to fly, but solely because we take it seriously. If driver's licenses were giving and enforced like pilot's licenses...automobile fatalities would plummet!
Jasper_ 7y ago
> - Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day 20% of those are from motorcycles where collisions are far more dangerous. Of the remaining cars, a number of them happen in stronger weather conditions (where autopilot does not function yet) or cars that are old and unsafe. The number of fatal accidents for luxury cars with modern safety ratings under good weather conditions is much, much smaller. This data is all available from the NHTSA at https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm , though it might take a bit of finagling to get the queries you want out of these tables. If there is a better source, please let me know.

dunkmaster 7y ago

There are way more non-autopilot vehicles than autopilot

camjohnson26 7y ago

This idea gets brought up every time autopilot is discussed here but it’s not really relevant. If autopilot were safer than human drivers there would be an argument for allowing it, but there’s no evidence that it is. Sure Tesla claims that it is based on very specific, cherry picked internal metrics, but independent analysis shows there’s just not enough data to say. Also the class of errors that autopilot makes is completely different than a human. Most human car crashes are preventable, either driving under the influence or distracted driving. I would much rather be in a crash with a drunk driver where liability was clear than have my car drive underneath a tractor trailer in the middle of a clear day just because I hit some neural network edge case.

Faark 7y ago
> I would much rather be in a crash with a drunk driver where liability was clear than have my car drive underneath a tractor trailer in the middle of a clear day just because I hit some neural network edge case. Preferring to die by human error instead of shitty software doesn't make logical sense to me and feels like your trying to justify something irrational. Autopilot either drives safer than me or doesn't. And I wouldn't let a drunk friend drive me either. > but independent analysis shows there’s just not enough data to say Do you link a trustworthy analysis? I can't remember reading one that wasn't from a highly polarized source.
- nscalf 7y ago
  This makes a lot of sense, and is actually seen a lot in the wild. Having control feels good for us, and I would argue that's probably why there is such a visceral response to drunk drivers---they're not in control. You can empathize with a mistake, but something just sort of happening with no real impact or control over it feels wrong. That being said, I'm on board with the self driving cars, we should approach it with a logical head and really try to figure out what we should do, not what feels good.
- EthanHeilman 7y ago
  >Preferring to die by human error instead of shitty software doesn't make logical sense to me and feels like your trying to justify something irrational. The poster, camjohnson26, did not say die, the poster said crash. Camjohnson26's point as I understood it was to compare two situations: 1. A crash that occurs because one of the drivers was extreme drunk, 2. A crash that occurs because of an autopilot in one of vehicles did not make the current action. In the first case most people and the legal system will likely conclude that the drunk driver was at fault. In the second case it will be more difficult to determine who was at fault. This second case may add legal, insurance and ethical complications that camjohnson26 wishes to avoid. For instance what if your insurance decides you are at fault for activating the autopilot under unsafe conditions?
  - Domenic_S 7y ago
    > what if your insurance decides you are at fault for activating the autopilot under unsafe conditions? Seems reasonable to me. The driver is always responsible.
    - EthanHeilman 7y ago
      Which driver? How do you determine it was actually the autopilot that caused the crash? What if it wasn't the autopilot?
- will_brown 7y ago
  >Preferring to die by human error instead of shitty software doesn't make logical sense to me It certainly does if both auto pilot Tesla’s and standard vehicles are resulting in death, but the law will provide a remedy to your survivors and heirs in one instance and actually turn around and hold you liable in another instance. After all the post was about liability and clearly nothing to do with how the poster prefers to die, which you somehow read into it.
ashelmire 7y ago
Average rates appear to be 12.5 per billion miles, and it appears Tesla Autopilot is at 3 for over a billion miles with the system engaged. That's a quarter of the usual fatality rate, for anyone counting. Saying "there’s no evidence that it is" isn't true; the above statements (and supporting facts) are evidence.
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  You aren’t controlling for other factors. Luxury cars and new cars have lower rates.
- Someone 7y ago
  ”That's a quarter of the usual fatality rate” I beg to differ. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#United_States_compared_to_other_nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...: ”Comparing motorways (controlled-access, divided highways) […] the United States had 3.38 road fatalities per 1 billion vehicle-km on its Interstate-type highways, often called freeways” I think that number better reflects where Tesla’s autopilot is used. Also, if you remove motorcycle deaths from that number, I can’t see how the Tesla could be significantly safer, let alone four times less deadly. I think you should also correct for vehicle age (older cars and lighter cars are less safe). You could (and, IMO, should) also correct for vehicle size/price, as Tesla drivers won’t be interested in whether their car is safer than other cars on the road, but in whether it is safer than what they could have bought instead. And of course, there’s the elephant in the room. I expect that Tesla drivers prevented at least half the deadly accidents that would have occurred if Autopilot did all the highway driving.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  People keep saying (in defense of it) that the Tesla Autopilot does not drive the car for you. As such, it makes no sense to compare its fatality rate to the fatality rate of humans who are driving cars. It seems arguable to me that all those Autopilot fatalities were excess fatalities.

close04 7y ago

Driving is dangerous and many drivers suck at it. But if you want a relevant comparison only consider similar circumstances and driving conditions (motorway or city traffic? blizzard or sunny?). Then normalize for the number of vehicles of each type and their age/capability (20 year old clunkers with failing brakes aside). And in the end count in the times AP made a mistake and the driver corrected it (Tesla has the info, only they know why they refuse to make it public).

imtringued 7y ago

Do those non-autopilot vehicles exclusively drive on the highway? Highway driving might be more deadly but accidents are less likely to happen in the first place due to lane separation, large curve radius, no stationary obstacles, no pedestrians, lower relative velocity, etc. It's like trying to compare Rotweilers to Pitbulls. Both are dangerous but one of them is 20x more dangerous.

dwighttk 7y ago
which one?

will_brown 7y ago

>What about those non-autopilot vehicles? They don’t make fraudulent misrepresentations to the public regarding their technological capabilities to self-drive which people rely on leading to fatal accidents. But when those car manufacturers are at fault for the accidents vis-a-vis some manufacturing defect...they or their suppliers are liable.

tamalesfan 7y ago

Literal whataboutism. Automated systems are held to a higher standard. Telsa's Autopilot apparently has trouble spotting trailers and decapitates the occupants. Cite all the accident figures you want; it won't stop the reporting about Autopilot wrecks.

MS90 7y ago

There's something like 200,000 Teslas on the road vs. over 250,000,000 "non-autopilot" vehicles. You can't make a straight up comparison with numbers like that without weighting them accordingly. Though I'm not sure you could compare them really at all in this specific case regarding the autopilot. I'm not sure how many of the traditional vehicle fatalities involve someone flipping on their cruise control and taking their hands off the wheel and ignoring the road in the same manner that the autopilot fatalities seem to have occurred.

MrQuincle 7y ago

Okay, so do the numbers. 3.3 trillion miles per year. 1 fatality per 100 million miles. That means Tesla should have driven 0.3 billion miles. Might be at the same level. Definitely not orders of magnitude different.

Symmetry 7y ago

If I were made god emperor of some country I'd switch everyone to autonomous cars as soon as they were safer than normal driving. But sadly I'm not and both Tesla and the government are going to be constrained by public opinion. And one important aspect of that is that people are more accepting of danger when they feel like they're in control than when they don't. So for a successful rollout they need to be much safer than human drivers. This is something that looks achievable. But if you try to push them out too early you might get a backlash that delays progress and costs more lives in the long run through slower adoption when they're ready.

OvidNaso 7y ago
Why not just make driving a car as serious as piloting a plane? Planes are so much safer not because they are easier to fly, but solely because we take it seriously. If driver's licenses were giving and enforced like pilot's licenses...automobile fatalities would plummet!

Jasper_ 7y ago

> - Nearly 1.25 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day 20% of those are from motorcycles where collisions are far more dangerous. Of the remaining cars, a number of them happen in stronger weather conditions (where autopilot does not function yet) or cars that are old and unsafe. The number of fatal accidents for luxury cars with modern safety ratings under good weather conditions is much, much smaller. This data is all available from the NHTSA at https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm , though it might take a bit of finagling to get the queries you want out of these tables. If there is a better source, please let me know.