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“Safer than a drunk driver” is a crazy low bar. At the .08 BAC legal limit odds of crashing a car are 200% higher than a sober driver. The risks obviously incr

“Safer than a drunk driver” is a crazy low bar. At the .08 BAC legal limit odds of crashing a car are 200% higher than a sober driver. The risks obviously increase with higher alcohol levels. A .16 ‘double the legal limit’ drunk is 1500% more likely to crash. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/09/how-just-a-couple-drinks-make-your-odds-of-a-car-crash-skyrocket/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/09/how-j... So yeah, ‘safer than a drunk driver’ means basically ‘only about twice as likely to crash as an average sober human’.

adrianN 5y ago
There are gadgets that prevent the car from starting when your BAC is too high. Clearly we need the opposite for activating the autopilot.
- andrewclunn 5y ago
  Alcohol based mouthwash becomes a requirement in the glove box. Whiskey manufacturers start doing sponsorships where the autopilot is named after them. "Had a long day? Jim Beam will get you home."
  - msrenee 5y ago
    Why aren't alcohol manufacturers investing in self-driving technology? That seems like it would be a net positive for them now that you mention it.
lvh 5y ago
Should we let drunk people get home in their fully autonomous Mercedes? It's an interesting problem! I think the answer right now is no, we're still requiring the driver to be able to take over, and our thought experiment presupposes they're inebriated. On the other hand, it's obviously better to have the computer take a shot (no pun intended) at getting home than letting the driver do it themselves, even today. At what point does that moral balance tip? It seems like we're not too far off from the answer being "obviously let the car drive, whatever the drunk person was going to do is probably riskier for both themselves and everyone else".
- hef19898 5y ago
  That problem cries for a solution... Maybe some service, paid of course, that can drive those people home? Maybe combined with an app, and self-employed people providing that service, shared economy and so on... Seems to be a great opportunity!
  - scsilver 5y ago
    In my town, Uber absorbed a bunch of the travel, public transport was cut in half, and now with gas and other expenses no one can afford to run Ubers up here. Maybe one car around, often a 20 minute wait. Car pool services cannot fill the gap.
    - sorenjan 5y ago
      Gas is too expensive to afford using Uber, so you have to use your own car instead?
      - msrenee 5y ago
        I interpreted that as gas being too expensive to make it worth being an Uber driver.
        ensignavenger 5y ago
        I thought Uber had some fancy math that raised their rates to incentivize more drivers when their pool of drivers got too low? So why hasn't their math increased pay to offset the increase in gas prices if they don't have any drivers? I don't live in an area that has Uber, so I'm not that familiar with it, only used it a few times when traveling :)
        msrenee 5y ago
        I don't think I know them any better than you do. I used one to get to the airport once and it cost $40. Economy parking would have been cheaper, so I use that now. That's the only time I've used one personally. My impression of the the way drivers are compensated is that the hours, fuel, and wear on your vehicle make it kind of slim margins.
jchw 5y ago
Exactly. And yet, many people choose to do exactly this on a regular basis. Granted, it becomes an issue when people who wouldn’t drive drunk decide to use self-driving functionality simply because is there. But, there will be a point where it crosses over into being a net improvement, and that point may very well be a fair bit before meeting parity with humans. Obviously it’s not quite that simple (not all failure modes are equal) but it’s not that far off, either…
- c22 5y ago
  I suspect that point will come sooner if manufacturers are held liable for accidents their self-driving tech causes.
- bentcorner 5y ago
  Reminds me of what I've heard about how bicycle helmets can cause riders to take more risks, so overall accident rates go up (I don't know how true that is, but it sounds plausible). People who may not have chosen to drive (e.g., tired, drunk, impaired, or otherwise incapable of driving) might choose to do so since they can "lean on" the car doing it for them, and if the car encounters a situation it can't deal with the driver is completely incapable of handling it.
  - gundmc 5y ago
    I hadn't heard that in the context of bicycle helmets, but it's definitely true for football helmets and protective gear.
sneak 5y ago
200% increased chance of crashing would be 3x as likely to crash. A 100% increase would be 2x as likely.
- jameshart 5y ago
  Yes. That is how math works. I gave the ‘better than a drunk driver’ claim the benefit of the doubt and allowed it to be merely 2x as likely to crash than a sober driver, since that is still ‘better’ than a driver who is exactly at the federal US legal limit (and who will crash 3x as often).
tmpz22 5y ago
Why not lower all regulations based on the fact that some people do them drunk? Doctors? Bus drivers? Security forces?
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  > Why not lower all regulations Now we're onto something!
buttercraft 5y ago
> At the .08 BAC legal limit odds of crashing a car are 200% higher than a sober driver. What are the odds of a sober driver crashing a car?
- judge2020 5y ago
  Not sure, but 30% of crashes are alcohol-impaired. https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# -> chapter 2 -> alcohol -> table 31
- Veserv 5y ago
  The all cause rate is somewhere between once per 10.5 years according to Allstate [1], which at an average of 15,000 miles per year is ~157,000 miles, or once per 500,000 miles according to the Bureau of Transportation [2] numbers of police-reported accidents. The rate of injuries is 84 per 100 million miles (once per ~1.2 million miles or ~80 driver-years) and fatalities is 1.11 per 100 million miles (once per ~90 million miles or ~6,000 driver-years) by the same Bureau of Transportation statistics. [1] https://www.allstate.com/resources/allstate/attachments/best-drivers/2019bestdriversmediashareablebestdriversreport.pdf https://www.allstate.com/resources/allstate/attachments/best... Page 4 [2] https://www.bts.gov/content/motor-vehicle-safety-data https://www.bts.gov/content/motor-vehicle-safety-data
hammock 5y ago
200% (2x) higher is not as high as I believe many would guess. If you did a straw poll you'd likely get answers like 10x, 20x etc. Hell SOBER driving had 10x more crashes when you/your parents were learning to drive compared to you/your kids.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  It's actually 3x, not 2x. Probably why writers shouldn't express things this way, but it's clearer reading the article, this is a 200% increase, not that the rate is 200% of the normal rate. Also, the link to the NHTSA doesn't work, but I'd be interested to read the primary research. Concern is they're just taking accident rates for sober drivers and BAC 0.08 drivers, which isn't a fair comparison because they aren't time matched. As in, drunk driving is a lot more likely to happen very late at night/early in the morning when bars close, when traffic is extremely low and accident rates are also very low. If your chances are 3x the chances of a person driving any time at all, you're much more than 3x the chances of someone driving unimpaired at 2 in the morning. Of course, even if they time match the rates, there's still the reality that a lot of sober people driving at 2 in the morning are still impaired. Tired driving is also quite dangerous.
- jameshart 5y ago
  I found literally the most conservative statistic I could for how dangerous drunk driving is - that someone whose impairment is literally on the threshold of legal is 3x as likely to have an accident than a sober driver. I could have gone for a shock stat - 100000 people a year are injured in accidents involving drunk drivers. 10000 people are killed. I could have taken the position that a typical drunk driver is probably actually 10x as likely to have an accident as a sober driver, based on those NHTSA numbers. But I didn’t need to to make the point that a self driving car could be literally twice as likely as an average driver to crash and that would still be ‘better than a drunk driver’.
  - deleted 5y ago
mywittyname 5y ago
That's not a low bar at all. A lot of activities people do while driving are way more dangerous that driving "drunk". In fact, "drunk" (0.08 BAC) driving is often the baseline multiple that such activities are reported in. Self-driving cars which are merely as safe as driving with a 0.08BAC will still greatly reduce traffic accidents. Of course, no one will report it as such. Having something that's paying attention 100% of the time is going to be a huge boon for traffic safety. Spending 15 seconds picking a song on your phone is all it takes to rear end a car or blow through an intersection.

adrianN 5y ago

There are gadgets that prevent the car from starting when your BAC is too high. Clearly we need the opposite for activating the autopilot.

andrewclunn 5y ago
Alcohol based mouthwash becomes a requirement in the glove box. Whiskey manufacturers start doing sponsorships where the autopilot is named after them. "Had a long day? Jim Beam will get you home."
- msrenee 5y ago
  Why aren't alcohol manufacturers investing in self-driving technology? That seems like it would be a net positive for them now that you mention it.

lvh 5y ago

Should we let drunk people get home in their fully autonomous Mercedes? It's an interesting problem! I think the answer right now is no, we're still requiring the driver to be able to take over, and our thought experiment presupposes they're inebriated. On the other hand, it's obviously better to have the computer take a shot (no pun intended) at getting home than letting the driver do it themselves, even today. At what point does that moral balance tip? It seems like we're not too far off from the answer being "obviously let the car drive, whatever the drunk person was going to do is probably riskier for both themselves and everyone else".

hef19898 5y ago
That problem cries for a solution... Maybe some service, paid of course, that can drive those people home? Maybe combined with an app, and self-employed people providing that service, shared economy and so on... Seems to be a great opportunity!
- scsilver 5y ago
  In my town, Uber absorbed a bunch of the travel, public transport was cut in half, and now with gas and other expenses no one can afford to run Ubers up here. Maybe one car around, often a 20 minute wait. Car pool services cannot fill the gap.
  - sorenjan 5y ago
    Gas is too expensive to afford using Uber, so you have to use your own car instead?
    - msrenee 5y ago
      I interpreted that as gas being too expensive to make it worth being an Uber driver.
      - ensignavenger 5y ago
        I thought Uber had some fancy math that raised their rates to incentivize more drivers when their pool of drivers got too low? So why hasn't their math increased pay to offset the increase in gas prices if they don't have any drivers? I don't live in an area that has Uber, so I'm not that familiar with it, only used it a few times when traveling :)
        msrenee 5y ago
        I don't think I know them any better than you do. I used one to get to the airport once and it cost $40. Economy parking would have been cheaper, so I use that now. That's the only time I've used one personally. My impression of the the way drivers are compensated is that the hours, fuel, and wear on your vehicle make it kind of slim margins.

jchw 5y ago

Exactly. And yet, many people choose to do exactly this on a regular basis. Granted, it becomes an issue when people who wouldn’t drive drunk decide to use self-driving functionality simply because is there. But, there will be a point where it crosses over into being a net improvement, and that point may very well be a fair bit before meeting parity with humans. Obviously it’s not quite that simple (not all failure modes are equal) but it’s not that far off, either…

c22 5y ago
I suspect that point will come sooner if manufacturers are held liable for accidents their self-driving tech causes.
bentcorner 5y ago
Reminds me of what I've heard about how bicycle helmets can cause riders to take more risks, so overall accident rates go up (I don't know how true that is, but it sounds plausible). People who may not have chosen to drive (e.g., tired, drunk, impaired, or otherwise incapable of driving) might choose to do so since they can "lean on" the car doing it for them, and if the car encounters a situation it can't deal with the driver is completely incapable of handling it.
- gundmc 5y ago
  I hadn't heard that in the context of bicycle helmets, but it's definitely true for football helmets and protective gear.

sneak 5y ago

200% increased chance of crashing would be 3x as likely to crash. A 100% increase would be 2x as likely.

jameshart 5y ago
Yes. That is how math works. I gave the ‘better than a drunk driver’ claim the benefit of the doubt and allowed it to be merely 2x as likely to crash than a sober driver, since that is still ‘better’ than a driver who is exactly at the federal US legal limit (and who will crash 3x as often).

tmpz22 5y ago

Why not lower all regulations based on the fact that some people do them drunk? Doctors? Bus drivers? Security forces?

ARandomerDude 5y ago
> Why not lower all regulations Now we're onto something!

buttercraft 5y ago

> At the .08 BAC legal limit odds of crashing a car are 200% higher than a sober driver. What are the odds of a sober driver crashing a car?

judge2020 5y ago
Not sure, but 30% of crashes are alcohol-impaired. https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# https://cdan.nhtsa.gov/tsftables/tsfar.htm# -> chapter 2 -> alcohol -> table 31
Veserv 5y ago
The all cause rate is somewhere between once per 10.5 years according to Allstate [1], which at an average of 15,000 miles per year is ~157,000 miles, or once per 500,000 miles according to the Bureau of Transportation [2] numbers of police-reported accidents. The rate of injuries is 84 per 100 million miles (once per ~1.2 million miles or ~80 driver-years) and fatalities is 1.11 per 100 million miles (once per ~90 million miles or ~6,000 driver-years) by the same Bureau of Transportation statistics. [1] https://www.allstate.com/resources/allstate/attachments/best-drivers/2019bestdriversmediashareablebestdriversreport.pdf https://www.allstate.com/resources/allstate/attachments/best... Page 4 [2] https://www.bts.gov/content/motor-vehicle-safety-data https://www.bts.gov/content/motor-vehicle-safety-data

hammock 5y ago

200% (2x) higher is not as high as I believe many would guess. If you did a straw poll you'd likely get answers like 10x, 20x etc. Hell SOBER driving had 10x more crashes when you/your parents were learning to drive compared to you/your kids.[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year#/media/File:US_traffic_deaths_per_VMT,_VMT,_per_capita,_and_total_annual_deaths.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

nonameiguess 5y ago
It's actually 3x, not 2x. Probably why writers shouldn't express things this way, but it's clearer reading the article, this is a 200% increase, not that the rate is 200% of the normal rate. Also, the link to the NHTSA doesn't work, but I'd be interested to read the primary research. Concern is they're just taking accident rates for sober drivers and BAC 0.08 drivers, which isn't a fair comparison because they aren't time matched. As in, drunk driving is a lot more likely to happen very late at night/early in the morning when bars close, when traffic is extremely low and accident rates are also very low. If your chances are 3x the chances of a person driving any time at all, you're much more than 3x the chances of someone driving unimpaired at 2 in the morning. Of course, even if they time match the rates, there's still the reality that a lot of sober people driving at 2 in the morning are still impaired. Tired driving is also quite dangerous.
jameshart 5y ago
I found literally the most conservative statistic I could for how dangerous drunk driving is - that someone whose impairment is literally on the threshold of legal is 3x as likely to have an accident than a sober driver. I could have gone for a shock stat - 100000 people a year are injured in accidents involving drunk drivers. 10000 people are killed. I could have taken the position that a typical drunk driver is probably actually 10x as likely to have an accident as a sober driver, based on those NHTSA numbers. But I didn’t need to to make the point that a self driving car could be literally twice as likely as an average driver to crash and that would still be ‘better than a drunk driver’.
- deleted 5y ago

mywittyname 5y ago

That's not a low bar at all. A lot of activities people do while driving are way more dangerous that driving "drunk". In fact, "drunk" (0.08 BAC) driving is often the baseline multiple that such activities are reported in. Self-driving cars which are merely as safe as driving with a 0.08BAC will still greatly reduce traffic accidents. Of course, no one will report it as such. Having something that's paying attention 100% of the time is going to be a huge boon for traffic safety. Spending 15 seconds picking a song on your phone is all it takes to rear end a car or blow through an intersection.