3 ms·

This says ~3000 successful flights with 2 crashes - how many road incidents per journey does a standard mail truck encouter? Is 1500 trips a low / mid / high f

This says ~3000 successful flights with 2 crashes - how many road incidents per journey does a standard mail truck encouter? Is 1500 trips a low / mid / high figure with regards to collisions?

liability 7y ago
That's an over-simplified analysis. With road accidents, people have reasonable expectations that certain behaviors can reduce their personal risk of being killed in an accident. For instance, that average includes people who drove drunk, run redlights, drive during ice storms, etc. By avoiding these activities an individual can reduce their personal risk dramatically below the national average. Not to mention I can virtually eliminate any possibility of dying in a traffic accident by remaining in my backyard, where I might still be struck in the head by a delivery drone. What risky behaviours am I meant to avoid there, being outside? You should instead compare the risk somebody following reasonable safety precautions would have in each scenario.
saalweachter 7y ago
The USPS has ~30,000 motor vehicle accidents per year. The entire USPS fleet travels ~1.28B miles / year, with the LLVs traveling 764M miles. The LLVs travel about 18 miles per day, 300 days per year, which gives you an estimated 43 million LLV trips per year. Assuming all 30,000 motor vehicle accidents are LLVs, that amounts to 1 accident every 1433 LLV trips. Of course, on each LLV "trip", it delivers letters and parcels to hundreds of addresses; each drone delivery is presumably one. (The USPS also averages 1 accident every ~43,000 miles; this is significantly above the US average of 1 accident per 165,000 miles driven. I would assume the increased rate is (1) USPS vehicles drive slow and stop frequently along their routes; I would guess many accidents are other vehicles driving too fast and trying to pass in unsafe areas (2) distracted driving; drivers are performing other tasks eg retrieving the next addresses mail while driving and (3) every USPS accident is likely reported; drivers are responsible for the condition of their vehicle and small fender-benders that we might not report are likely included in USPS statistics.)
- petra 7y ago
  // 1 accident every 1433 LLV trips. So an accident once per 1443 llv trips * ~400(average packages per llv trip) -> an accident per ~600k packages -> will need an accident per 600k drone trips * ~ 10mile/trip -> an accident per 6M drone miles.

This says ~3000 successful flights with 2 crashes - how many road incidents per journey does a standard mail truck encouter? Is 1500 trips a low / mid / high figure with regards to collisions?

liability 7y ago

That's an over-simplified analysis. With road accidents, people have reasonable expectations that certain behaviors can reduce their personal risk of being killed in an accident. For instance, that average includes people who drove drunk, run redlights, drive during ice storms, etc. By avoiding these activities an individual can reduce their personal risk dramatically below the national average. Not to mention I can virtually eliminate any possibility of dying in a traffic accident by remaining in my backyard, where I might still be struck in the head by a delivery drone. What risky behaviours am I meant to avoid there, being outside? You should instead compare the risk somebody following reasonable safety precautions would have in each scenario.

saalweachter 7y ago

The USPS has ~30,000 motor vehicle accidents per year. The entire USPS fleet travels ~1.28B miles / year, with the LLVs traveling 764M miles. The LLVs travel about 18 miles per day, 300 days per year, which gives you an estimated 43 million LLV trips per year. Assuming all 30,000 motor vehicle accidents are LLVs, that amounts to 1 accident every 1433 LLV trips. Of course, on each LLV "trip", it delivers letters and parcels to hundreds of addresses; each drone delivery is presumably one. (The USPS also averages 1 accident every ~43,000 miles; this is significantly above the US average of 1 accident per 165,000 miles driven. I would assume the increased rate is (1) USPS vehicles drive slow and stop frequently along their routes; I would guess many accidents are other vehicles driving too fast and trying to pass in unsafe areas (2) distracted driving; drivers are performing other tasks eg retrieving the next addresses mail while driving and (3) every USPS accident is likely reported; drivers are responsible for the condition of their vehicle and small fender-benders that we might not report are likely included in USPS statistics.)

petra 7y ago
// 1 accident every 1433 LLV trips. So an accident once per 1443 llv trips * ~400(average packages per llv trip) -> an accident per ~600k packages -> will need an accident per 600k drone trips * ~ 10mile/trip -> an accident per 6M drone miles.