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> Granted, we're not quite ready for self driving And yet it's literally in cars on the road. I'm not saying you're wrong because of that. I just wonder how f

> Granted, we're not quite ready for self driving And yet it's literally in cars on the road. I'm not saying you're wrong because of that. I just wonder how far from "ready" we are, and how much of a gamble manufacturers are taking, and how much risk that presents for not just their customers, but everyone else their customers may drive near.

ascar 7y ago
Based on tesla's safety report [1] it's already less dangerous than letting humans drive (alone). The error rate of human drivers tends to be downplayed, while the perceived risks of automated driving is exaggerated, distorting the picture. Yes, it's a hard problem, yes we are not nearly there and there is a lot of development/research to do. Yes, accidents will happen during the process. But humans suck at driving and kill themselves and other people daily. It's the least safe form of transportation we have. [1] https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport?redirect=no
- notahacker 7y ago
  The gross human fatal accident rate is ~7 accidents per billion miles in the US, including fatalities caused by incompetent or irresponsible drivers, and substantially lower in Europe. But humans drive a lot of miles Based on Tesla's safety report, 'more than 1 billion' miles have been driven using autopilot. Given the small data sample and the fatalities already attributed to autopilot, I think we're some way from proving it's safer than letting drivers drive alone, never mind close to being a driver substitute.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Marginal Revolution just highlighted an interesting detailed look at US car (driver) fatalities. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/02/what-causes-car-deaths-and-how-to-limit-them.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/02/wh... >> After accounting for freeways (18%) and intersections and junctions (20%), we’re still left with more than 60% of drivers killed in automotive accidents left accounted for. >> It turns out that drivers killed on rural roads with 2 lanes (i.e., one lane in each direction divided by a double yellow line) accounts for a staggering 38% of total mortality. This number would actually be higher, except to keep the three categories we have mutually exclusive, we backed out any intersection-related driver deaths on these roads and any killed on 2-lane rural roads that were classified as “freeway.” >> In drivers killed on 2-lane rural roads, 50% involved a driver not wearing a seat belt. Close to 40% have alcohol in their system and nearly 90% of these drivers were over the legal limit of 0.08 g/dL. I don't think people give enough attention to whether broad statistics actually apply to cases of interest. That's about 40% of all driver fatalities occurring on rural non-freeway roads, of which 35% (~14% overall) were legally driving drunk. People compare various fatality rates associated with riding an airplane vs driving a car all the time, but I've never seen anyone point out that an incredibly simple mitigation you're probably already doing -- not driving on non-freeway rural roads -- lowers your risk of dying in a car accident by more than a third. And it gets even better if you're not driving drunk! If you measure driving quality in terms of fatality rate, it is actually the case that almost everyone is better than average. A lot better than average. But public discussion completely misses this, because we prefer to aggregate unlike with unlike.
    - CPLX 7y ago
      You’re committing a logical fallacy here. Avoiding driving on those roads is only a mitigation if the accident rate is highly disproportional to their usage. If half of all driving occurs on highways and half doesn’t, and half of all accidents are on highways, then avoiding highways will have absolutely no effect on your accident rate. It’s possible that driving on these roads leads to a disproportionate accident rate, but you haven’t actually said that.
      - notahacker 7y ago
        True. I think there's plenty of non-statistical reason to believe you can reduce your risk of death by not being one of the 50% of drivers involved in accidents on those roads who weren't wearing a seat belt or ~35% who are over the drink drive limit though.
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        > You’re committing a logical fallacy here. Avoiding driving on those roads is only a mitigation if the accident rate is highly disproportional to their usage. You're right in spirit. I actually addressed this in passing in the comment "an incredibly simple mitigation you're probably already doing". Rural roads carry less traffic than non-rural roads for the very obvious reason that most people don't live in rural areas. The disparity is documented: https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/traffic-safety-on-rural-roads.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/traffic-safety-... We can also note that freeway vehicle-miles (excluded from this rural roads statistic) are going to be an inflated share of driven miles precisely because the purpose of the freeway is to cover long distances. But as to the specific number I provided ("more than a third"), you're on target in accusing me of a fallacy.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  What a surprise that Tesla's report would say that! Have they released all the data to be analyzed by independent people? Also autopilot only runs in the best of conditions. Are they comparing apples to apples?
- amanaplanacanal 7y ago
  That report is comparing humans driving in all conditions vs autopilot driving in only the best conditions. Humans are deciding when it is safe enough to turn autopilot on. So no, it is not less dangerous.
  - ascar 7y ago
    That's not what the report is comparing at all. The report is comparing all vehicles driving in all conditions vs Teslas driving in all conditions (separate for with and without autopilot). The numbers show that Teslas experience a lower crash rate than other vehicles. Granted, this can be to a number of reasons including the hypothesis that humans deciding to buy Teslas drive more carefully to begin with. And the numbers show that turning on autopilot further reduces crash rates. This at least tells us that letting the vehicles with the automated driving and safety features on the road doesn't increase the risk for the driver and others, which was the original premise I responded to.
    - badpun 7y ago
      There's a million hidden variables here that could explain the difference: - The mechanical state of the car (Teslas with autopilot tend to be new/newish vehicles, and thus in excellent mechanical shape) - The age and competence of the driver - I'm guessing people who make enough to buy a Tesla are usually not senile 80 years olds or irresponsile 18 year olds - Other security gizmos in Teslas that cheaper cars may lack Overall, it would be more fair to compare against cars of similar age and at similar price point.
    - tsimionescu 7y ago
      And how much have Teslas driven in snowy fog in the mountains on autopilot?
    - skat20phys 7y ago
      I think the tricky part is that at some level you want to be comparing counterfactuals. That is, accident rates of Teslas on autopilot with a driver of Tesla-driver abilities, in road conditions where the accidents occur, and so forth. It kinda seems self evident that a car that drives you into a wall randomly is less safe than one that doesn't. I grant that Teslas might be safer than eg a drunk driver, and so we might be better off replacing all cars with Teslas in some sense, but we'd also be better off if we replaced drunk drivers with sober ones. But would safe, competent drivers be safer, and would that be ethical? At that point are you penalizing safe competent drivers? Drunk drivers in Teslas are actually interesting for me to think about, because I suspect they'd inappropriately disengage autopilot at nontrivial rates. I'm not sure what that says but it seems significant to me in thinking about issues. To me it maybe suggests autopilot should be used as a feature of last resort, like "turn this on if you're unable to drive safely and comply with driving laws." But then shouldn't you just not be behind the wheel, and find someone who can?
- aguyfromnb 7y ago
  >Based on tesla's safety report [1] it's already less dangerous than letting humans drive (alone) You mean the company that has staked it's future on selling this technology claims the technology is better than any alternative? This is aside from the fact that the NHTSA says the claim of "safest ever" is nonsense and that there is zero data in that PR blog post.
- simion314 7y ago
  Is there any chance that tesla is lying with statistics? A fun example, someone was selling some meat, he said it is 50% rabbit and 50% horse because he used 1 rabbit and 1 horse. The conclusion is when you read some statistics you want to find the actual data and find if statistics are used correctly, most of the time as in this case the people doing the statistics are manipulating you. There was an article about a city in Norway with 0 deaths in 2019, if I would limit my statistics to that city only, to that year only I will get the number of 0 people killed by human drivers.
neor 7y ago
I believe every car manufacturer has a disclaimer that the autopilot can only be used as an assist. That the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road, and ready to intervene at any given time. Were not at the self-driving level of kicking back the seat and watching netflix on your phone yet. I doubt we will ever get there; there will always be edge cases which are difficult for a computer to grasp. Faded lane marking, some non-self-driving car doing something totally unexpected, extreme weather conditions limiting visibility for the camera's etc.
- lb1lf 7y ago
  > I believe every car manufacturer has a disclaimer that the autopilot can only be used as an assist. That the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road, and ready to intervene at any given time. -This is the scariest bit, IMHO. Basically, autopilot is well enough developed to mostly work under normal conditions; humans aren't very good at staying alert for extended periods of time just monitoring something which mostly minds its own business. Result being that the 'assist' runs the show until it suddenly veers off the road or into a concrete barrier, bicyclist, whatever. 'Driver' then blames autopilot; autopilot supplier blames driver, stating autopilot is just an aid, not a proper autopilot. This is the worst of both worlds. Driver aids should either be just that - aids, in that they ease the cognitive burden, but still require you to pay attention and intervene at all times - or you shouldn't be a driver anymore, but a passenger. Today's 'It mostly works, except occasionally when it doesn't' is terrifying.
  - skat20phys 7y ago
    This "driver aid" model itself is starting to sound like a problem to me. You either have safe, autonomous driving or you don't. A model where a driver is assumed to disengage attention, etc but then be expected to rengage in a fraction of a second to respond to an anomalous event is fundamentally at its core flawed I think. It's like asking a human to drive and not drive at the same time. Most driving laws assume a driver should be alert and at the wheel; this is what...? Assuming you're not alert and at the wheel? As you're pointing out, this leads to a convenient out legally for the manufacturer, who can just say "you weren't using it correctly." I fail to see the point of autopilot at all if you're supposed to be able to correct it at any instant in real-world driving conditions.
l33tman 7y ago
The weird thing is there seems to be a discrepancy between these publicized figures of millions of miles of auto-pilot on the roads, and the general feeling you get when you turn on the system yourself. I've used it on a Model 3 and it at least feels horribly insecure, the lines used to show detection of the curbs are far from stable and jitters around often, maybe it's more safe than it seems, but the feeling is I would absolutely not put my life in the hands of such a system... just looking at all the YouTube videos of enthusiasts driving around the countryside with autopilot and it's like watching a game of Russian roulette. Suddenly the car starts driving along the other side of the road or veer off into a house.. I would categorize it as a glorified lane-assist system, in its current state.
- codewench 7y ago
  Even Tesla's marketing copy describes it that way, so I don't think you are to far off. >Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane. >Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.
moooo99 7y ago
> And yet it's literally in cars on the road. It is not. There is no real self-driving on the road, at least not in conventional vehicles. Teslas autopilot is basically a collection of conventional assistive systems that work under specific circumstances. Granted, the circumstances where it works are much broader than the ones defined by the competition, but for a practical use-case its still very restricted. Self-driving systems can be affected by very minor changes in lighting, weather and other circumstances. While Teslas stats on x Million miles driven under Autopilot are impressive, they do not show the real capabilities of the self-driving system. For example, you can only enable the Autopilot under specific circumstance for example while driving on an Autobahn with clear weather. Under circumstances with for example limited sight the Autopilot won't turn on or will hand over to the driver, simply because it would fail. Of course, this is for passenger security, but these are situations real self-driving vehicles need to handle. Other leading projects like Waymo also test the vehicles under ideal circumstances with clear weather etc. We'll most likely see fully self-driving vehicles in the future, but this future is probably not as close as Tesla PR makes us think.
- stephenr 7y ago
  > There is no real self-driving on the road Emphasis on real. There is definitely something that most people would refer to as "self driving" in cars on the road. I'm not saying what is there is specifically good at what it does - I'm saying someone put it into use regardless of how fit for purpose it is. > but this future is probably not as close as Tesla PR makes us think Unless you're suggesting the PR team decided to make shit like "Summon" available to the public, then it's not just "PR spin".
  - moooo99 7y ago
    > Emphasis on real. There is definitely something that most people would refer to as "self-driving" in cars on the road. Then you'd have to define what a self-driving car actually means. At least for me, self-driving means level 4 upwards. Everything below I'd consider assisted driving. > Unless you're suggesting the PR team decided to make shit like "Summon" available to the public, then it's not just "PR spin". As I said, this Smart Summon feature also only works under very specific circumstances with multiple restrictions (and from what I've seen on Twitter it received mixed feedback) Just because the car manages to navigate a parking lot with 5km/h relatively reliable, that doesn't mean that at the end of the year it'll be able to drive the car with 150 km/h on the Autobahn. Edit: Fixed my formatting

ascar 7y ago

Based on tesla's safety report [1] it's already less dangerous than letting humans drive (alone). The error rate of human drivers tends to be downplayed, while the perceived risks of automated driving is exaggerated, distorting the picture. Yes, it's a hard problem, yes we are not nearly there and there is a lot of development/research to do. Yes, accidents will happen during the process. But humans suck at driving and kill themselves and other people daily. It's the least safe form of transportation we have. [1] https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport?redirect=no

notahacker 7y ago
The gross human fatal accident rate is ~7 accidents per billion miles in the US, including fatalities caused by incompetent or irresponsible drivers, and substantially lower in Europe. But humans drive a lot of miles Based on Tesla's safety report, 'more than 1 billion' miles have been driven using autopilot. Given the small data sample and the fatalities already attributed to autopilot, I think we're some way from proving it's safer than letting drivers drive alone, never mind close to being a driver substitute.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Marginal Revolution just highlighted an interesting detailed look at US car (driver) fatalities. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/02/what-causes-car-deaths-and-how-to-limit-them.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/02/wh... >> After accounting for freeways (18%) and intersections and junctions (20%), we’re still left with more than 60% of drivers killed in automotive accidents left accounted for. >> It turns out that drivers killed on rural roads with 2 lanes (i.e., one lane in each direction divided by a double yellow line) accounts for a staggering 38% of total mortality. This number would actually be higher, except to keep the three categories we have mutually exclusive, we backed out any intersection-related driver deaths on these roads and any killed on 2-lane rural roads that were classified as “freeway.” >> In drivers killed on 2-lane rural roads, 50% involved a driver not wearing a seat belt. Close to 40% have alcohol in their system and nearly 90% of these drivers were over the legal limit of 0.08 g/dL. I don't think people give enough attention to whether broad statistics actually apply to cases of interest. That's about 40% of all driver fatalities occurring on rural non-freeway roads, of which 35% (~14% overall) were legally driving drunk. People compare various fatality rates associated with riding an airplane vs driving a car all the time, but I've never seen anyone point out that an incredibly simple mitigation you're probably already doing -- not driving on non-freeway rural roads -- lowers your risk of dying in a car accident by more than a third. And it gets even better if you're not driving drunk! If you measure driving quality in terms of fatality rate, it is actually the case that almost everyone is better than average. A lot better than average. But public discussion completely misses this, because we prefer to aggregate unlike with unlike.
  - CPLX 7y ago
    You’re committing a logical fallacy here. Avoiding driving on those roads is only a mitigation if the accident rate is highly disproportional to their usage. If half of all driving occurs on highways and half doesn’t, and half of all accidents are on highways, then avoiding highways will have absolutely no effect on your accident rate. It’s possible that driving on these roads leads to a disproportionate accident rate, but you haven’t actually said that.
    - notahacker 7y ago
      True. I think there's plenty of non-statistical reason to believe you can reduce your risk of death by not being one of the 50% of drivers involved in accidents on those roads who weren't wearing a seat belt or ~35% who are over the drink drive limit though.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > You’re committing a logical fallacy here. Avoiding driving on those roads is only a mitigation if the accident rate is highly disproportional to their usage. You're right in spirit. I actually addressed this in passing in the comment "an incredibly simple mitigation you're probably already doing". Rural roads carry less traffic than non-rural roads for the very obvious reason that most people don't live in rural areas. The disparity is documented: https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/traffic-safety-on-rural-roads.aspx https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/traffic-safety-... We can also note that freeway vehicle-miles (excluded from this rural roads statistic) are going to be an inflated share of driven miles precisely because the purpose of the freeway is to cover long distances. But as to the specific number I provided ("more than a third"), you're on target in accusing me of a fallacy.
brokenmachine 7y ago
What a surprise that Tesla's report would say that! Have they released all the data to be analyzed by independent people? Also autopilot only runs in the best of conditions. Are they comparing apples to apples?
amanaplanacanal 7y ago
That report is comparing humans driving in all conditions vs autopilot driving in only the best conditions. Humans are deciding when it is safe enough to turn autopilot on. So no, it is not less dangerous.
- ascar 7y ago
  That's not what the report is comparing at all. The report is comparing all vehicles driving in all conditions vs Teslas driving in all conditions (separate for with and without autopilot). The numbers show that Teslas experience a lower crash rate than other vehicles. Granted, this can be to a number of reasons including the hypothesis that humans deciding to buy Teslas drive more carefully to begin with. And the numbers show that turning on autopilot further reduces crash rates. This at least tells us that letting the vehicles with the automated driving and safety features on the road doesn't increase the risk for the driver and others, which was the original premise I responded to.
  - badpun 7y ago
    There's a million hidden variables here that could explain the difference: - The mechanical state of the car (Teslas with autopilot tend to be new/newish vehicles, and thus in excellent mechanical shape) - The age and competence of the driver - I'm guessing people who make enough to buy a Tesla are usually not senile 80 years olds or irresponsile 18 year olds - Other security gizmos in Teslas that cheaper cars may lack Overall, it would be more fair to compare against cars of similar age and at similar price point.
  - tsimionescu 7y ago
    And how much have Teslas driven in snowy fog in the mountains on autopilot?
  - skat20phys 7y ago
    I think the tricky part is that at some level you want to be comparing counterfactuals. That is, accident rates of Teslas on autopilot with a driver of Tesla-driver abilities, in road conditions where the accidents occur, and so forth. It kinda seems self evident that a car that drives you into a wall randomly is less safe than one that doesn't. I grant that Teslas might be safer than eg a drunk driver, and so we might be better off replacing all cars with Teslas in some sense, but we'd also be better off if we replaced drunk drivers with sober ones. But would safe, competent drivers be safer, and would that be ethical? At that point are you penalizing safe competent drivers? Drunk drivers in Teslas are actually interesting for me to think about, because I suspect they'd inappropriately disengage autopilot at nontrivial rates. I'm not sure what that says but it seems significant to me in thinking about issues. To me it maybe suggests autopilot should be used as a feature of last resort, like "turn this on if you're unable to drive safely and comply with driving laws." But then shouldn't you just not be behind the wheel, and find someone who can?
aguyfromnb 7y ago
>Based on tesla's safety report [1] it's already less dangerous than letting humans drive (alone) You mean the company that has staked it's future on selling this technology claims the technology is better than any alternative? This is aside from the fact that the NHTSA says the claim of "safest ever" is nonsense and that there is zero data in that PR blog post.
simion314 7y ago
Is there any chance that tesla is lying with statistics? A fun example, someone was selling some meat, he said it is 50% rabbit and 50% horse because he used 1 rabbit and 1 horse. The conclusion is when you read some statistics you want to find the actual data and find if statistics are used correctly, most of the time as in this case the people doing the statistics are manipulating you. There was an article about a city in Norway with 0 deaths in 2019, if I would limit my statistics to that city only, to that year only I will get the number of 0 people killed by human drivers.

neor 7y ago

I believe every car manufacturer has a disclaimer that the autopilot can only be used as an assist. That the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road, and ready to intervene at any given time. Were not at the self-driving level of kicking back the seat and watching netflix on your phone yet. I doubt we will ever get there; there will always be edge cases which are difficult for a computer to grasp. Faded lane marking, some non-self-driving car doing something totally unexpected, extreme weather conditions limiting visibility for the camera's etc.

lb1lf 7y ago
> I believe every car manufacturer has a disclaimer that the autopilot can only be used as an assist. That the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road, and ready to intervene at any given time. -This is the scariest bit, IMHO. Basically, autopilot is well enough developed to mostly work under normal conditions; humans aren't very good at staying alert for extended periods of time just monitoring something which mostly minds its own business. Result being that the 'assist' runs the show until it suddenly veers off the road or into a concrete barrier, bicyclist, whatever. 'Driver' then blames autopilot; autopilot supplier blames driver, stating autopilot is just an aid, not a proper autopilot. This is the worst of both worlds. Driver aids should either be just that - aids, in that they ease the cognitive burden, but still require you to pay attention and intervene at all times - or you shouldn't be a driver anymore, but a passenger. Today's 'It mostly works, except occasionally when it doesn't' is terrifying.
- skat20phys 7y ago
  This "driver aid" model itself is starting to sound like a problem to me. You either have safe, autonomous driving or you don't. A model where a driver is assumed to disengage attention, etc but then be expected to rengage in a fraction of a second to respond to an anomalous event is fundamentally at its core flawed I think. It's like asking a human to drive and not drive at the same time. Most driving laws assume a driver should be alert and at the wheel; this is what...? Assuming you're not alert and at the wheel? As you're pointing out, this leads to a convenient out legally for the manufacturer, who can just say "you weren't using it correctly." I fail to see the point of autopilot at all if you're supposed to be able to correct it at any instant in real-world driving conditions.

l33tman 7y ago

The weird thing is there seems to be a discrepancy between these publicized figures of millions of miles of auto-pilot on the roads, and the general feeling you get when you turn on the system yourself. I've used it on a Model 3 and it at least feels horribly insecure, the lines used to show detection of the curbs are far from stable and jitters around often, maybe it's more safe than it seems, but the feeling is I would absolutely not put my life in the hands of such a system... just looking at all the YouTube videos of enthusiasts driving around the countryside with autopilot and it's like watching a game of Russian roulette. Suddenly the car starts driving along the other side of the road or veer off into a house.. I would categorize it as a glorified lane-assist system, in its current state.

codewench 7y ago
Even Tesla's marketing copy describes it that way, so I don't think you are to far off. >Autopilot enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically within its lane. >Current Autopilot features require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle autonomous.

moooo99 7y ago

> And yet it's literally in cars on the road. It is not. There is no real self-driving on the road, at least not in conventional vehicles. Teslas autopilot is basically a collection of conventional assistive systems that work under specific circumstances. Granted, the circumstances where it works are much broader than the ones defined by the competition, but for a practical use-case its still very restricted. Self-driving systems can be affected by very minor changes in lighting, weather and other circumstances. While Teslas stats on x Million miles driven under Autopilot are impressive, they do not show the real capabilities of the self-driving system. For example, you can only enable the Autopilot under specific circumstance for example while driving on an Autobahn with clear weather. Under circumstances with for example limited sight the Autopilot won't turn on or will hand over to the driver, simply because it would fail. Of course, this is for passenger security, but these are situations real self-driving vehicles need to handle. Other leading projects like Waymo also test the vehicles under ideal circumstances with clear weather etc. We'll most likely see fully self-driving vehicles in the future, but this future is probably not as close as Tesla PR makes us think.

stephenr 7y ago
> There is no real self-driving on the road Emphasis on real. There is definitely something that most people would refer to as "self driving" in cars on the road. I'm not saying what is there is specifically good at what it does - I'm saying someone put it into use regardless of how fit for purpose it is. > but this future is probably not as close as Tesla PR makes us think Unless you're suggesting the PR team decided to make shit like "Summon" available to the public, then it's not just "PR spin".
- moooo99 7y ago
  > Emphasis on real. There is definitely something that most people would refer to as "self-driving" in cars on the road. Then you'd have to define what a self-driving car actually means. At least for me, self-driving means level 4 upwards. Everything below I'd consider assisted driving. > Unless you're suggesting the PR team decided to make shit like "Summon" available to the public, then it's not just "PR spin". As I said, this Smart Summon feature also only works under very specific circumstances with multiple restrictions (and from what I've seen on Twitter it received mixed feedback) Just because the car manages to navigate a parking lot with 5km/h relatively reliable, that doesn't mean that at the end of the year it'll be able to drive the car with 150 km/h on the Autobahn. Edit: Fixed my formatting