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Should we allow teenagers to drive on the road before they have proven to be safe? We don’t know how safe they are.

jackmott42 4y ago
No, we should require that they pass a driving test, pay for insurance, and register their vehicle with license plates. If I were emperor I would raise the driving age to 18 as well. vote often, vote early
- simondotau 4y ago
  A person who was passed a driving test, paid for insurance and registered the vehicle is responsible for the car at all times, even when FSD beta is operating. Come to Australia, the driving age here is 18. (And for your first three years as a licensed driver, you have to show plates to indicate your lack of experience because, unlike in the stupid USA, we don’t assume that passing one driving test is enough to qualify you as a “good driver”.)
tsimionescu 4y ago
No, and we don't. That's why driving instruction and driving tests exist.
- simondotau 4y ago
  Thirty thousand people die on US roads every year because of the actions of people who received driving instruction and passed a driving test.
  - kibwen 4y ago
    And ubiquitous FSD could easily make that number worse, not better.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    This is a better argument for improving training and testing than it is in lowering the bar and letting a buggy computer program drive.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      Do you really think there's more room to improve human nature than AI technology? I don't. I think they both have a ceiling and that the ceiling on AI is much higher.
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        Yes? The largest causes of accidents are fairly well understood, if we decided it were worth the effort. Not coincidentally, this is why all the arguments for self-driving fall flat. Being as good as an average driver is a low bar. Being as good as a median driver is a harder task. But it's the latter that is the bar we have to pass if self-driving cars are ever to become mainstream.
        jjoonathan 4y ago
        Deaths = N*average, not N*median.
        rootusrootus 4y ago
        I was not trying to claim otherwise. But unless you are intending to make self-driving cars mandatory, N*average is meaningless. The median driver is who you actually need to convince, and they are not going to choose a self-driving car that is less safe than they are.
    - simondotau 4y ago
      It was only intended as an argument as a direct response to the post by tsimionescu. Tesla could focus on making FSD beta satisfy the driver test given to teenagers. It could perform the test as well as any 16-year-old and we'd all agree that it wouldn't really prove anything about the safety of FSD or the human teenager. Which is my point — the road is full of hideously bad/dangerously inexperienced human drivers holding driver licenses. Given this, it's hard for me to interpret the pearl-clutching around humans co-driving with FSD beta as anything other than confected paranoia.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    Many (most?) accidents are due to a clearly in the wrong driver (drunk-driving, texting, etc), and the other parties have no way of avoiding that. How exactly would a few self-driving cars help here? They can’t prevent a collision when the other party goes over a red light at some insane speed. They could start breaking sooner, which is great, but that doesn’t need self driving, it is a feature of plenty of cars already. Of course if every car would be self driving we wouldn’t have crazy drivers, and accidents would diminish, but so would if we simply didn’t have crazy drivers. Neither is feasible in the near future, and in the short term, humans are much better at handling tricky situations (like.. not emergency braking at the sight of a plastic bag in the air)
- hnburnsy 4y ago
  I'd bet that Tesla FSD could pass most DMV driving tests in the US.
  - ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
    That'd be really interesting to see how well it does. I wonder why there's no modified version of driving tests for AVs that each software iteration takes.

No, we should require that they pass a driving test, pay for insurance, and register their vehicle with license plates. If I were emperor I would raise the driving age to 18 as well. vote often, vote early

simondotau 4y ago
A person who was passed a driving test, paid for insurance and registered the vehicle is responsible for the car at all times, even when FSD beta is operating. Come to Australia, the driving age here is 18. (And for your first three years as a licensed driver, you have to show plates to indicate your lack of experience because, unlike in the stupid USA, we don’t assume that passing one driving test is enough to qualify you as a “good driver”.)

tsimionescu 4y ago

No, and we don't. That's why driving instruction and driving tests exist.

simondotau 4y ago
Thirty thousand people die on US roads every year because of the actions of people who received driving instruction and passed a driving test.
- kibwen 4y ago
  And ubiquitous FSD could easily make that number worse, not better.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  This is a better argument for improving training and testing than it is in lowering the bar and letting a buggy computer program drive.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    Do you really think there's more room to improve human nature than AI technology? I don't. I think they both have a ceiling and that the ceiling on AI is much higher.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      Yes? The largest causes of accidents are fairly well understood, if we decided it were worth the effort. Not coincidentally, this is why all the arguments for self-driving fall flat. Being as good as an average driver is a low bar. Being as good as a median driver is a harder task. But it's the latter that is the bar we have to pass if self-driving cars are ever to become mainstream.
      - jjoonathan 4y ago
        Deaths = N*average, not N*median.
        rootusrootus 4y ago
        I was not trying to claim otherwise. But unless you are intending to make self-driving cars mandatory, N*average is meaningless. The median driver is who you actually need to convince, and they are not going to choose a self-driving car that is less safe than they are.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    It was only intended as an argument as a direct response to the post by tsimionescu. Tesla could focus on making FSD beta satisfy the driver test given to teenagers. It could perform the test as well as any 16-year-old and we'd all agree that it wouldn't really prove anything about the safety of FSD or the human teenager. Which is my point — the road is full of hideously bad/dangerously inexperienced human drivers holding driver licenses. Given this, it's hard for me to interpret the pearl-clutching around humans co-driving with FSD beta as anything other than confected paranoia.
- kaba0 4y ago
  Many (most?) accidents are due to a clearly in the wrong driver (drunk-driving, texting, etc), and the other parties have no way of avoiding that. How exactly would a few self-driving cars help here? They can’t prevent a collision when the other party goes over a red light at some insane speed. They could start breaking sooner, which is great, but that doesn’t need self driving, it is a feature of plenty of cars already. Of course if every car would be self driving we wouldn’t have crazy drivers, and accidents would diminish, but so would if we simply didn’t have crazy drivers. Neither is feasible in the near future, and in the short term, humans are much better at handling tricky situations (like.. not emergency braking at the sight of a plastic bag in the air)
hnburnsy 4y ago
I'd bet that Tesla FSD could pass most DMV driving tests in the US.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
  That'd be really interesting to see how well it does. I wonder why there's no modified version of driving tests for AVs that each software iteration takes.