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These companies always say these taxis are safer on average than the human drivers. Yes, but I don't drink and drive, which accounts for a huge amount of drive

These companies always say these taxis are safer on average than the human drivers. Yes, but I don't drink and drive, which accounts for a huge amount of driver deaths (plus others of course). I don't speed at crazy speeds. I don't aggressively try to pass. I don't use my cell phone to text. The average deaths stats for a person who does none of the above are VASTLY different than the theoretical average of deaths per 1M miles.

skeaker 3y ago
I wish this were true, but other drivers that do make those mistakes and can crash into you and kill you at no fault of your own.
- chongli 3y ago
  Those drivers can also crash into and kill you if you’re a passenger in a self-driving car. The question is: what is my excess death rate if I convert from being a normal, non-impaired driver to a passenger in a self-driving car, assuming all else is equal?
  - jpambrun 3y ago
    The obvious long term goal for society is not to have any human drivers anymore. We won't get the full benefits until that point.
    - chongli 3y ago
      If we're going to do that, why not invest in mass transit for cities (and between cities)? Leave the self-driving stuff for trips out into the countryside.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      > The obvious long term goal for society is not to have any human drivers anymore. There's another obvious long-term goal: to eliminate personal vehicle ownership. This is why ride-sharing apps are breaking into the taxi market: because the more people who enjoy not driving their own car, will think twice when contemplating the purchase of a personal vehicle, especially because it's going to become increasingly bothersome to buy and maintain these things. Mark my words: someday it will be prohibitive for the 99% to own a vehicle; eventually it may even be prohibited.
RandallBrown 3y ago
I'd love to see those numbers. I'm not worried about my driving, I'm worried about the other people who are drunk, fast, aggressive, and/or texting.
jjulius 3y ago
>... I... Good for you. You are not everyone, and you are not immune from the consequences of the choices that others make when they are on the road.
- toast0 3y ago
  Which is why all the other fine people on the road should be replaced by robots, but not me!
elromulous 3y ago
But what about the _other_ people on the road who drink and drive.
larnik 3y ago
You might be right. Or you might be in the majority of people who overestimate their driving skills.
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  I made zero mention of my driving skill. Assume I have normal driving skill, but don't drink, don't go over 80mph, don't pass aggressively, and don't text and drive. A Tesla is currently safer than people that do that, and they want me to believe that system is safe enough to get into. But it's not as safe as a sane responsible driver.
jlund-molfese 3y ago
Most people think they're a better driver than average [1], and I bet if you asked 100 people with a history of drunk driving, 90 would say it was a one-time thing, deny it, or argue that it wasn't really that dangerous because they were just going around the block. The autonomous car doesn't get drunk. It doesn't get tired. It doesn't get road rage. It isn't in a hurry, and it doesn't need to text its girlfriend while going 80 mph. Whatever its flaws will be, they will be consistent. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3835346/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3835346/
- micromacrofoot 3y ago
  yeah the self driving car gets bugs written by some overworked grad named kevin who was hung over at work that day
- ClassyJacket 3y ago
  Your last sentence reminded me of "That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
  - lowbloodsugar 3y ago
    I just posted the same quote, but hey I see people are downvoting you, so maybe I'll delete mine. Thanks for taking one for the team. +1
  - Anthony-G 3y ago
    Likewise, I figured the author was using that particular sentence cadence as a subtle reference to the Terminator (as a more advanced artificially intelligent autonomous creation).
- fragmede 3y ago
  But sensors get dirty and the ML model that's being used gets updated to a suboptimal but later model. Or reverted to a worse model because the newer one has a bug. I took a Cruise home late last night and it failed to take a right turn that it took successfully when it picked me up. It mistook the space for the bicycle lane to be for the car, because there was no car parked in the other side of the intersection late at night. Riding in them it's definitely like living in the future, but it's clear that the technology still needs time to mature. I'll keep riding them and provide bug reports while they're in beta, but I'm not uninstalling Uber/Lyft any time soon, especially because their service area is limited to the city, nothing in the East Bay or down the Peninsula yet. The cars are small and cramped, but clean. No one is allowed in the front seats so it really only seats two people. Three if they're all small and friendly. I definitely trust it more than a drunk driver at 2 AM if that's the question though. The meat of it is this: city driving is harder because of all the chaos, but it's actually easier to be safe, because no one's really moving all that fast. If you floor it, you're not going to get going all that fast before the next light. On the freeway, a bad model could lead to doing over 100 mph and then making a hard turn, causing the vehicle to flip over and crash.
mlyle 3y ago
Just about everyone believes themselves to be an above average driver with a lower than average risk profile. And besides, it's not like we're just talking about replacing only the safest drivers' miles with AVs. We don't really know how safe Waymo is yet, because there's not enough data. It's pretty safe: it's more patient and cautious than most humans are willing to be and also has perfect vigilance; on the flip-side there's more situations it just doesn't understand. Waymo's goal is to be a more vigilant version of the safest human drivers. They're probably not quite there yet.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Just about everyone believes themselves to be an above average driver with a lower than average risk profile. If by “average” one means “mean annual liability cost”, this is entirely plausible. Doesn't seem likely that that’s normally distributed.
genmud 3y ago
Me and my wife constantly have this debate... she worked in insurance and insists that self driving cars will be safer than human drivers. One example she brings up is the time a car in an airport hit a parked plane. My response is there is a non zero chance that guy got fired from the airport and picked up developing software for self driving cars. We still disagree on that topic.
twelve40 3y ago
To make this go from a useless dataset of one remark to something insightful, you'd have to back up your "VASTLY" claim with, say, the number of people who suffer/die in road accidents through no fault of their own.
minwcnt5 3y ago
FWIW, Waymo benchmarks their safety against a model of an always attentive driver, so they claim they're not just safer than an average driver, but safer than a very good driver. They mentioned this in their blog post today.
creativitree 3y ago
Good point
jagtstronaut 3y ago
Although I understand it is quite contentious, I disagree with this sentiment. I think we have proven even before motor vehicles that humans are pretty poor at operating a moving vehicle and when it is capable of easily killing another human being it doesnt bode well. I am not advocating for blind trust in corporations, but I certainly do advocate for pushing the boundaries a bit. Either that or invest heavily in public transport but I dont think that is going to happen in most of the US.

skeaker 3y ago

I wish this were true, but other drivers that do make those mistakes and can crash into you and kill you at no fault of your own.

chongli 3y ago
Those drivers can also crash into and kill you if you’re a passenger in a self-driving car. The question is: what is my excess death rate if I convert from being a normal, non-impaired driver to a passenger in a self-driving car, assuming all else is equal?
- jpambrun 3y ago
  The obvious long term goal for society is not to have any human drivers anymore. We won't get the full benefits until that point.
  - chongli 3y ago
    If we're going to do that, why not invest in mass transit for cities (and between cities)? Leave the self-driving stuff for trips out into the countryside.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    > The obvious long term goal for society is not to have any human drivers anymore. There's another obvious long-term goal: to eliminate personal vehicle ownership. This is why ride-sharing apps are breaking into the taxi market: because the more people who enjoy not driving their own car, will think twice when contemplating the purchase of a personal vehicle, especially because it's going to become increasingly bothersome to buy and maintain these things. Mark my words: someday it will be prohibitive for the 99% to own a vehicle; eventually it may even be prohibited.

RandallBrown 3y ago

I'd love to see those numbers. I'm not worried about my driving, I'm worried about the other people who are drunk, fast, aggressive, and/or texting.

jjulius 3y ago

>... I... Good for you. You are not everyone, and you are not immune from the consequences of the choices that others make when they are on the road.

toast0 3y ago
Which is why all the other fine people on the road should be replaced by robots, but not me!

elromulous 3y ago

But what about the _other_ people on the road who drink and drive.

larnik 3y ago

You might be right. Or you might be in the majority of people who overestimate their driving skills.

talldatethrow 3y ago
I made zero mention of my driving skill. Assume I have normal driving skill, but don't drink, don't go over 80mph, don't pass aggressively, and don't text and drive. A Tesla is currently safer than people that do that, and they want me to believe that system is safe enough to get into. But it's not as safe as a sane responsible driver.

jlund-molfese 3y ago

Most people think they're a better driver than average [1], and I bet if you asked 100 people with a history of drunk driving, 90 would say it was a one-time thing, deny it, or argue that it wasn't really that dangerous because they were just going around the block. The autonomous car doesn't get drunk. It doesn't get tired. It doesn't get road rage. It isn't in a hurry, and it doesn't need to text its girlfriend while going 80 mph. Whatever its flaws will be, they will be consistent. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3835346/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3835346/

micromacrofoot 3y ago
yeah the self driving car gets bugs written by some overworked grad named kevin who was hung over at work that day
ClassyJacket 3y ago
Your last sentence reminded me of "That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
- lowbloodsugar 3y ago
  I just posted the same quote, but hey I see people are downvoting you, so maybe I'll delete mine. Thanks for taking one for the team. +1
- Anthony-G 3y ago
  Likewise, I figured the author was using that particular sentence cadence as a subtle reference to the Terminator (as a more advanced artificially intelligent autonomous creation).
fragmede 3y ago
But sensors get dirty and the ML model that's being used gets updated to a suboptimal but later model. Or reverted to a worse model because the newer one has a bug. I took a Cruise home late last night and it failed to take a right turn that it took successfully when it picked me up. It mistook the space for the bicycle lane to be for the car, because there was no car parked in the other side of the intersection late at night. Riding in them it's definitely like living in the future, but it's clear that the technology still needs time to mature. I'll keep riding them and provide bug reports while they're in beta, but I'm not uninstalling Uber/Lyft any time soon, especially because their service area is limited to the city, nothing in the East Bay or down the Peninsula yet. The cars are small and cramped, but clean. No one is allowed in the front seats so it really only seats two people. Three if they're all small and friendly. I definitely trust it more than a drunk driver at 2 AM if that's the question though. The meat of it is this: city driving is harder because of all the chaos, but it's actually easier to be safe, because no one's really moving all that fast. If you floor it, you're not going to get going all that fast before the next light. On the freeway, a bad model could lead to doing over 100 mph and then making a hard turn, causing the vehicle to flip over and crash.

mlyle 3y ago

Just about everyone believes themselves to be an above average driver with a lower than average risk profile. And besides, it's not like we're just talking about replacing only the safest drivers' miles with AVs. We don't really know how safe Waymo is yet, because there's not enough data. It's pretty safe: it's more patient and cautious than most humans are willing to be and also has perfect vigilance; on the flip-side there's more situations it just doesn't understand. Waymo's goal is to be a more vigilant version of the safest human drivers. They're probably not quite there yet.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> Just about everyone believes themselves to be an above average driver with a lower than average risk profile. If by “average” one means “mean annual liability cost”, this is entirely plausible. Doesn't seem likely that that’s normally distributed.

genmud 3y ago

Me and my wife constantly have this debate... she worked in insurance and insists that self driving cars will be safer than human drivers. One example she brings up is the time a car in an airport hit a parked plane. My response is there is a non zero chance that guy got fired from the airport and picked up developing software for self driving cars. We still disagree on that topic.

twelve40 3y ago

To make this go from a useless dataset of one remark to something insightful, you'd have to back up your "VASTLY" claim with, say, the number of people who suffer/die in road accidents through no fault of their own.

minwcnt5 3y ago

FWIW, Waymo benchmarks their safety against a model of an always attentive driver, so they claim they're not just safer than an average driver, but safer than a very good driver. They mentioned this in their blog post today.

creativitree 3y ago

Good point

jagtstronaut 3y ago

Although I understand it is quite contentious, I disagree with this sentiment. I think we have proven even before motor vehicles that humans are pretty poor at operating a moving vehicle and when it is capable of easily killing another human being it doesnt bode well. I am not advocating for blind trust in corporations, but I certainly do advocate for pushing the boundaries a bit. Either that or invest heavily in public transport but I dont think that is going to happen in most of the US.