5 ms·

It's also not good enough for them to be better than average human drivers. There are many bad drivers and if you are a good driver, you wouldn't want to switch

It's also not good enough for them to be better than average human drivers. There are many bad drivers and if you are a good driver, you wouldn't want to switch to anything less safe than your driving

bzzzt 5y ago
Because about 80% of all drivers consider themselves above-average I expect that bar to be placed unrealistically high.
- transportguy 5y ago
  It's plausible that 20% of drivers crash enough for 80% to be above average
  - transportguy 5y ago
    'According to the AA Charitable Trust, 40% of UK drivers have crashed by the time they are 23 years old, and 26% of drivers have crashed within two years of obtaining their licence. (Source: https://m.toptests.co.uk/driving-statistics/ https://m.toptests.co.uk/driving-statistics/)' Although maybe not
    - toast0 5y ago
      I was a pretty crap driver before I was 23 (regardless of what I would have said then), but I'm not too bad now. Although, it depends on what you measure, I suppose; I've driven behind a Waymo vehicle, and they stay in the lines a lot more than me (which could be a positive for following rules, or a negative for increased drive times), but I also didn't ever change lanes into a bus expecting it would move, and I can avoid some of the annoying driving behaviors I used to see with Waymo (signal a lane change, decide not to do it, loop); not sure where they're at with that since I no longer live in their test areas.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  Could you share your source?
  - Mordisquitos 5y ago
    Here is one of the classic research papers on the subject: Iain A. McCormick, Frank H. Walkey, Dianne E. Green, Comparative perceptions of driver ability— A confirmation and expansion, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 18, Issue 3, 1986, Pages 205-208, ISSN 0001-4575, https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(86)90004-7 https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(86)90004-7. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001457586900047 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001457586...)
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      "Hi, this is a recorded interview for a study we are running, have you ever committed an illegal act?" "Nah." "Thanks." Can you see the bias?
      - Mordisquitos 5y ago
        I would indeed see the bias if that was the question that they were asking. Was it?
        moralestapia 5y ago
        Almost. They were asked to answer whether they considered themselves "foolish, unpredictable, unreliable, inconsiderate, dangerous, tense, worthless and/or irresponsible". Very few people would have answered truthfully.
- michjedi 5y ago
  thanaverage.xyz actually suggests that only 54% of people think they drive better than average, with 19014 participants https://thanaverage.xyz/ https://thanaverage.xyz/
dagw 5y ago
if you are a good driver How do you objectively judge if you are such a good driver that you won't benefit?
- transportguy 5y ago
  1. You can only really go on metrics of crashes with your fault, currently. 2. You can't really be certain 3. It would be good to be able to collect data of driver faults without crashes. But how do we do it without giving insurance companies more reasons to hike prices?
  - buildint 5y ago
    I agree. However I just wanted to say that a good driver can still avoid crashes even if not 'at fault' by driving defensively. A friend of mine is a bad driver (in my opinion) but has never had an at fault accident. They have however had plenty of not-at-fault accidents but we're probably somewhat to blame or could have avoided if being more careful.
    - transportguy 5y ago
      Exactly! There are still many ways you can driver safer, so you wouldn't actively pick a riskier option
    - mikejb 5y ago
      I think this also translates to self-driving cars. I actually think automated cars have an edge there, because of 2 reasons: 1. Improved visibility: A human driver sits in the driver seat, and looks at the outside world from inside the car - partly through mirrors, partly with the view obscured. A self-driving car (at last current potential vehicles) has a view without being obstructed by the car's frame. 2. No limitation on focus: As a human driver, I can look to the front, or the back, or the sides, but I can't look everywhere all the time. I can do my best to maintain an overview of my surroundings, but need to update this constantly by changing where I'm looking - if I want to see if there's someone behind me, I (for a moment) have to stop looking where I'm going. Automated vehicles don't need to stop looking to the front to see to their back or the side. They can see a car 200 feet away coming from the right without having to miss the pedestrian coming from the left. I'm not saying that self-proclaimed self-driving cars do this already, but looking at perception capabilities, self-driving cars have the potential to avoid more accidents than humans.
slg 5y ago
Although a driver is not at fault in every accident they are involved in. Therefore it is possible that the good driver would be safer with an increased self-driving environment even if that individual's odds of causing an accident increase as long as the odds of other people causing an accident decrease. I have nothing but a hunch to back it up, but I have a feeling getting the worst drivers off the road would provide a greater benefit to public safety that would outweigh the damage caused by downgrading the skills of the best drivers.
yazaddaruvala 5y ago
As I’ve understood it, this notion is a fallacy. Some drivers are “better than others” but there are no “good drivers”. Everyone gets tired, everyone’s gets older, everyone gets distracted, everyone drives in a new location (potentially with a different driving style). I don’t know when it tips to be better off with the computer, but I’ll feel comfortable as soon as the crash/fatalities rates are equal or better than Uber/Lyft.
- transportguy 5y ago
  also, we have ways of testing tiredness and effects of age, so augmentation can improve many of the issues with human driving.
- transportguy 5y ago
  So if there are no 'good drivers', everyone must be a 'bad driver', so if self driving cars are to be 'good', they need to be better than at least 100% of humans. High bar!
- wubawam 5y ago
  This is just semantics, there are people who are better at driving than most others will be in less crashes per mile driven over time.
grecy 5y ago
> It's also not good enough for them to be better than average human drivers Of course it is, because it means there will be less deaths per million miles driven, which surely is the goal. yes, eventually we want them to be better than the average driver, then better then the best, then (hypothetically) perfect. But the reality is the day they're better than the average, we'll be saving lives if we all switch over.
- Silhouette 5y ago
  If you are talking about making it mandatory for everyone to switch, so human drivers are banned from the roads, I doubt you will be able to sell mere equality of performance by autonomous systems to the voting public. You can make as many greater good statistical arguments as you like, but you are still saying you are going to make many individual drivers and their passengers less safe. This kind of equivalence is also ignoring the possibility of a catastrophic system failure that simply can't happen with human drivers.
  - grecy 5y ago
    I don't think any jurisdiction will ban human-driven cars in our lifetime, though I think it's likely they'll outlaw the sales of human-driven vehicles at some point, which means then it's just a matter time until there are no more human driven vehicles on the road. I have no idea if that point is 30 or 80 years away, but I think it will happen. Exactly like what is happening with ICE vs. EV right now. Come 2030 there are plenty of places in the world you won't be able to buy a new ICE vehicle.. so a few decades after that there will be close to zero ICE on the road. Five or ten decades later there will be for all intents and purposes zero.
    - Silhouette 5y ago
      The irony of that comparison is that keeping some ICE vehicles on the road as EVs incrementally take over is actually helpful for the EVs since it limits the demand for related charging infrastructure that will take time to build. However, keeping some human-driven vehicles on the road as autonomous vehicles incrementally take over is very unhelpful for the AVs since humans introduce unpredictability and unexpected, unpredictable situations are the arch enemy of autonomous control systems.

bzzzt 5y ago

Because about 80% of all drivers consider themselves above-average I expect that bar to be placed unrealistically high.

transportguy 5y ago
It's plausible that 20% of drivers crash enough for 80% to be above average
- transportguy 5y ago
  'According to the AA Charitable Trust, 40% of UK drivers have crashed by the time they are 23 years old, and 26% of drivers have crashed within two years of obtaining their licence. (Source: https://m.toptests.co.uk/driving-statistics/ https://m.toptests.co.uk/driving-statistics/)' Although maybe not
  - toast0 5y ago
    I was a pretty crap driver before I was 23 (regardless of what I would have said then), but I'm not too bad now. Although, it depends on what you measure, I suppose; I've driven behind a Waymo vehicle, and they stay in the lines a lot more than me (which could be a positive for following rules, or a negative for increased drive times), but I also didn't ever change lanes into a bus expecting it would move, and I can avoid some of the annoying driving behaviors I used to see with Waymo (signal a lane change, decide not to do it, loop); not sure where they're at with that since I no longer live in their test areas.
moralestapia 5y ago
Could you share your source?
- Mordisquitos 5y ago
  Here is one of the classic research papers on the subject: Iain A. McCormick, Frank H. Walkey, Dianne E. Green, Comparative perceptions of driver ability— A confirmation and expansion, Accident Analysis & Prevention, Volume 18, Issue 3, 1986, Pages 205-208, ISSN 0001-4575, https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(86)90004-7 https://doi.org/10.1016/0001-4575(86)90004-7. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001457586900047 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001457586...)
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    "Hi, this is a recorded interview for a study we are running, have you ever committed an illegal act?" "Nah." "Thanks." Can you see the bias?
    - Mordisquitos 5y ago
      I would indeed see the bias if that was the question that they were asking. Was it?
      - moralestapia 5y ago
        Almost. They were asked to answer whether they considered themselves "foolish, unpredictable, unreliable, inconsiderate, dangerous, tense, worthless and/or irresponsible". Very few people would have answered truthfully.
michjedi 5y ago
thanaverage.xyz actually suggests that only 54% of people think they drive better than average, with 19014 participants https://thanaverage.xyz/ https://thanaverage.xyz/

dagw 5y ago

if you are a good driver How do you objectively judge if you are such a good driver that you won't benefit?

transportguy 5y ago
1. You can only really go on metrics of crashes with your fault, currently. 2. You can't really be certain 3. It would be good to be able to collect data of driver faults without crashes. But how do we do it without giving insurance companies more reasons to hike prices?
- buildint 5y ago
  I agree. However I just wanted to say that a good driver can still avoid crashes even if not 'at fault' by driving defensively. A friend of mine is a bad driver (in my opinion) but has never had an at fault accident. They have however had plenty of not-at-fault accidents but we're probably somewhat to blame or could have avoided if being more careful.
  - transportguy 5y ago
    Exactly! There are still many ways you can driver safer, so you wouldn't actively pick a riskier option
  - mikejb 5y ago
    I think this also translates to self-driving cars. I actually think automated cars have an edge there, because of 2 reasons: 1. Improved visibility: A human driver sits in the driver seat, and looks at the outside world from inside the car - partly through mirrors, partly with the view obscured. A self-driving car (at last current potential vehicles) has a view without being obstructed by the car's frame. 2. No limitation on focus: As a human driver, I can look to the front, or the back, or the sides, but I can't look everywhere all the time. I can do my best to maintain an overview of my surroundings, but need to update this constantly by changing where I'm looking - if I want to see if there's someone behind me, I (for a moment) have to stop looking where I'm going. Automated vehicles don't need to stop looking to the front to see to their back or the side. They can see a car 200 feet away coming from the right without having to miss the pedestrian coming from the left. I'm not saying that self-proclaimed self-driving cars do this already, but looking at perception capabilities, self-driving cars have the potential to avoid more accidents than humans.

slg 5y ago

Although a driver is not at fault in every accident they are involved in. Therefore it is possible that the good driver would be safer with an increased self-driving environment even if that individual's odds of causing an accident increase as long as the odds of other people causing an accident decrease. I have nothing but a hunch to back it up, but I have a feeling getting the worst drivers off the road would provide a greater benefit to public safety that would outweigh the damage caused by downgrading the skills of the best drivers.

yazaddaruvala 5y ago

As I’ve understood it, this notion is a fallacy. Some drivers are “better than others” but there are no “good drivers”. Everyone gets tired, everyone’s gets older, everyone gets distracted, everyone drives in a new location (potentially with a different driving style). I don’t know when it tips to be better off with the computer, but I’ll feel comfortable as soon as the crash/fatalities rates are equal or better than Uber/Lyft.

transportguy 5y ago
also, we have ways of testing tiredness and effects of age, so augmentation can improve many of the issues with human driving.
transportguy 5y ago
So if there are no 'good drivers', everyone must be a 'bad driver', so if self driving cars are to be 'good', they need to be better than at least 100% of humans. High bar!
wubawam 5y ago
This is just semantics, there are people who are better at driving than most others will be in less crashes per mile driven over time.

grecy 5y ago

> It's also not good enough for them to be better than average human drivers Of course it is, because it means there will be less deaths per million miles driven, which surely is the goal. yes, eventually we want them to be better than the average driver, then better then the best, then (hypothetically) perfect. But the reality is the day they're better than the average, we'll be saving lives if we all switch over.

Silhouette 5y ago
If you are talking about making it mandatory for everyone to switch, so human drivers are banned from the roads, I doubt you will be able to sell mere equality of performance by autonomous systems to the voting public. You can make as many greater good statistical arguments as you like, but you are still saying you are going to make many individual drivers and their passengers less safe. This kind of equivalence is also ignoring the possibility of a catastrophic system failure that simply can't happen with human drivers.
- grecy 5y ago
  I don't think any jurisdiction will ban human-driven cars in our lifetime, though I think it's likely they'll outlaw the sales of human-driven vehicles at some point, which means then it's just a matter time until there are no more human driven vehicles on the road. I have no idea if that point is 30 or 80 years away, but I think it will happen. Exactly like what is happening with ICE vs. EV right now. Come 2030 there are plenty of places in the world you won't be able to buy a new ICE vehicle.. so a few decades after that there will be close to zero ICE on the road. Five or ten decades later there will be for all intents and purposes zero.
  - Silhouette 5y ago
    The irony of that comparison is that keeping some ICE vehicles on the road as EVs incrementally take over is actually helpful for the EVs since it limits the demand for related charging infrastructure that will take time to build. However, keeping some human-driven vehicles on the road as autonomous vehicles incrementally take over is very unhelpful for the AVs since humans introduce unpredictability and unexpected, unpredictable situations are the arch enemy of autonomous control systems.