3 ms·

ABS isn't the best example because it does prevent lots of accidents in its own right, including a >50% prevention rate of some types of accidents in rainy, sno

ABS isn't the best example because it does prevent lots of accidents in its own right, including a >50% prevention rate of some types of accidents in rainy, snowy, or icy weather. The overall fatal accident reduction is 15% for cars and 27% for trucks and light trucks. Source: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811182 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... And, anecdotally, I've had ABS kick in in some occurrences for which I was very thankful.

perl4ever 7y ago
The first thing I read in your link seems to be the opposite of what you wrote: "ABS has close to a zero net effect on fatal crash involvements." Further down, there is a chart which seems to show that ABS is associated with a huge increase in fatal accidents in inclement weather, and a large increase in side impact accidents, both fatal and non-fatal. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing?
cameldrv 7y ago
Having a safety system that rarely fails to prevent an accident is much different statistically than a safety system that rarely causes an accident. Suppose the crash probability on a normal flight is 1/1E7, but without MCAS it's 100x more dangerous, or 1/1E5. Suppose MCAS failure probability is 1/1E6, the probability of an additional crash due to the failure of MCAS is 1/1E11, which is acceptable. The problem is that in practice, the crash probability if MCAS fails is empirically 2/3 instead of 1/1E5, because MCAS actually causes the crash rather than merely failing to prevent a crash.