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In February they hit 1,000,000 miles cumulative for all previous years. Last week they hit 3,000,000 miles. Cars kill about as many Americans as the Vietnam Wa

In February they hit 1,000,000 miles cumulative for all previous years. Last week they hit 3,000,000 miles. Cars kill about as many Americans as the Vietnam War, but every year. Aside from guns, I can't think of anything else so deadly that we give to our children as they enter adulthood. It is common, it is not part of the news cycle. We care more about the unlikely terrorist. People are bad with numbers. Personally, I think it would a huge ethics violation to not be running tests of autonomous cars (not talking Telsa toy driving stuff).

AlbertCory 3y ago
Anyone quoting "miles driven" is being disingenuous. How many of those miles were in the Bay Area plus Arizona?
- pushedx 3y ago
  How does the location have anything to do with the total number of miles driven?
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    Because the weather is so much more favorable in those two areas. States with extreme weather, especially snow & ice, are vastly more challenging. It's like saying you tested your multi-platform app for 10,000 hours, but 9,800 of those hours were on Windows.
  - II2II 3y ago
    Driving condition matter since they vary from place to place. It matters for people, and it most likely matters for autonomous vehicles (either due to training data sets or direct programming of traffic regulations). To choose a mundane example, that is admittedly more likely to affect people, consider how many people try to make a left turn into a (North American) roundabout or who park in a bike lane. (Sometimes it is deliberate, but sometimes it is an out of town person who has never dealt with it before.) That said, I would expect a San Fransisco decision to be based upon San Francisco data.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      True. They ought to have driven every block of every SF street by now. But of course, things change.
II2II 3y ago
A cumulative 3,000,000 miles is nothing. The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimates there are over 3,000,000,000,000 miles of vehicle traffic per year.[1] The estimated number of fatalities is around 50,000. There is no way to assess whether there will be fewer or more traffic fatalities with current AV technology given the limited amount of data. As for the unlikely terrorist bit, just in case you weren't around when 911 happened: even mathematically inclined people were shocked. Not only was it the most lethal attack on American soil (nearly 3,000 dead), it was a foreign attack. People genuinely didn't know what was going to happen and were living in fear for a while. Unfortunately, some people still carry those fears to this day. Even though the numbers don't back them up, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss their emotions and I certainly wouldn't attack them for the all too human mistake of misattributing risk. [1] https://www.bts.gov/content/us-vehicle-miles https://www.bts.gov/content/us-vehicle-miles
Veserv 3y ago
Humans average 60,000,000 miles between fatalitys [1]. It is a average of 1.25 million miles between injurys. 3 million miles is not a statistically significant amount of data to make a valid estimate, not even close. That is not to say that safe testing can not proceed or that they are being unsafe in their testing or validation process, but people are bad with numbers, so it is important to realize the actual magnitude of the status quo and what we are comparing against. [1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813435 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... PDF Page 7
- sagarm 3y ago
  Anecdotally, I feel much safer around AVs as a pedestrian or cyclist than human driven vehicles. Way more predictable, especially post pandemic when it seems like half of drivers have some behavioral issue.
rcpt 3y ago
> Aside from guns, I can't think of anything else so deadly that we give to our children as they enter adulthood Alcohol

AlbertCory 3y ago

Anyone quoting "miles driven" is being disingenuous. How many of those miles were in the Bay Area plus Arizona?

pushedx 3y ago
How does the location have anything to do with the total number of miles driven?
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Because the weather is so much more favorable in those two areas. States with extreme weather, especially snow & ice, are vastly more challenging. It's like saying you tested your multi-platform app for 10,000 hours, but 9,800 of those hours were on Windows.
- II2II 3y ago
  Driving condition matter since they vary from place to place. It matters for people, and it most likely matters for autonomous vehicles (either due to training data sets or direct programming of traffic regulations). To choose a mundane example, that is admittedly more likely to affect people, consider how many people try to make a left turn into a (North American) roundabout or who park in a bike lane. (Sometimes it is deliberate, but sometimes it is an out of town person who has never dealt with it before.) That said, I would expect a San Fransisco decision to be based upon San Francisco data.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    True. They ought to have driven every block of every SF street by now. But of course, things change.

II2II 3y ago

A cumulative 3,000,000 miles is nothing. The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimates there are over 3,000,000,000,000 miles of vehicle traffic per year.[1] The estimated number of fatalities is around 50,000. There is no way to assess whether there will be fewer or more traffic fatalities with current AV technology given the limited amount of data. As for the unlikely terrorist bit, just in case you weren't around when 911 happened: even mathematically inclined people were shocked. Not only was it the most lethal attack on American soil (nearly 3,000 dead), it was a foreign attack. People genuinely didn't know what was going to happen and were living in fear for a while. Unfortunately, some people still carry those fears to this day. Even though the numbers don't back them up, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss their emotions and I certainly wouldn't attack them for the all too human mistake of misattributing risk. [1] https://www.bts.gov/content/us-vehicle-miles https://www.bts.gov/content/us-vehicle-miles

Veserv 3y ago

Humans average 60,000,000 miles between fatalitys [1]. It is a average of 1.25 million miles between injurys. 3 million miles is not a statistically significant amount of data to make a valid estimate, not even close. That is not to say that safe testing can not proceed or that they are being unsafe in their testing or validation process, but people are bad with numbers, so it is important to realize the actual magnitude of the status quo and what we are comparing against. [1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813435 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... PDF Page 7

sagarm 3y ago
Anecdotally, I feel much safer around AVs as a pedestrian or cyclist than human driven vehicles. Way more predictable, especially post pandemic when it seems like half of drivers have some behavioral issue.

rcpt 3y ago

> Aside from guns, I can't think of anything else so deadly that we give to our children as they enter adulthood Alcohol