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Student drivers (with an instructor in the car, and secondary controls) have very few accidents, if any, not because of their safety record but because every mi

Student drivers (with an instructor in the car, and secondary controls) have very few accidents, if any, not because of their safety record but because every mistake is saved by the instructor. A car can be considered as driving "safer than a human" when it can match the average human in any conditions the average human drives. Everything else is just squinting at the data and choosing an interpretation that fits your personal opinion. A Tesla can relatively safely cover traffic like divided or controlled access highways. That's a very narrow slice of all possible driving situations and not one responsible for most accidents.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
So as a thought experiment, if Autopilot + Human intervention reduced the rate of accidents by 50% vs. just humans after normalization; can we consider autopilot to be adding value?
- buran77 5y ago
  Of course the Autopilot adds value, all such driver assists are there to add value and help the driver on any car. I just don't think Autopilot can drive, let alone drive safer than a human. There's a difference between "helping a human drive safer" and "driving safer than a human". This is a confusion many people make when reading these stats, to Tesla's benefit. Also the oldest Tesla with AP is less than 10 years old (with an average of 3-4 years given the sales trends). The average age of cars on the street in the US is over 12 years old. An accident statistic that looks at reasonably new, premium cars against everything else won't paint the correct picture.
Dylan16807 5y ago
If that means the supervision actually works, then it doesn't sound like there's a problem?
runarberg 5y ago
> Student drivers (with an instructor in the car, and secondary controls) have very few accidents [...] because every mistake is saved by the instructor Is that the only reason? I suspect that many (most) student drivers are also in general more alert, drive slower, and follow each rule/guideline to an extreme. If they don’t the instructor will probably end the lesson and remove a dangerous driver of the road.
- buran77 5y ago
  All student drivers particularly at the beginning are "dangerous drivers" because they aren't drivers but they're asked to drive. In their first half of driving school most students would probably cause an accident within minutes if not for the instructor. I live on a quiet street where most driving schools take their students due to the almost non-existing traffic. I can't count how many times I see the instructor having to intervene to avoid a crash even at simple things like keeping a straight line or a right turn (too tight or too wide).

spywaregorilla 5y ago

So as a thought experiment, if Autopilot + Human intervention reduced the rate of accidents by 50% vs. just humans after normalization; can we consider autopilot to be adding value?

buran77 5y ago
Of course the Autopilot adds value, all such driver assists are there to add value and help the driver on any car. I just don't think Autopilot can drive, let alone drive safer than a human. There's a difference between "helping a human drive safer" and "driving safer than a human". This is a confusion many people make when reading these stats, to Tesla's benefit. Also the oldest Tesla with AP is less than 10 years old (with an average of 3-4 years given the sales trends). The average age of cars on the street in the US is over 12 years old. An accident statistic that looks at reasonably new, premium cars against everything else won't paint the correct picture.

Dylan16807 5y ago

If that means the supervision actually works, then it doesn't sound like there's a problem?

runarberg 5y ago

> Student drivers (with an instructor in the car, and secondary controls) have very few accidents [...] because every mistake is saved by the instructor Is that the only reason? I suspect that many (most) student drivers are also in general more alert, drive slower, and follow each rule/guideline to an extreme. If they don’t the instructor will probably end the lesson and remove a dangerous driver of the road.

buran77 5y ago
All student drivers particularly at the beginning are "dangerous drivers" because they aren't drivers but they're asked to drive. In their first half of driving school most students would probably cause an accident within minutes if not for the instructor. I live on a quiet street where most driving schools take their students due to the almost non-existing traffic. I can't count how many times I see the instructor having to intervene to avoid a crash even at simple things like keeping a straight line or a right turn (too tight or too wide).