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> Passenger safety is the same myopic view that allows car companies to build vehicles that are increasingly dangerous-for-pedestrians. Car companies do this b

> Passenger safety is the same myopic view that allows car companies to build vehicles that are increasingly dangerous-for-pedestrians. Car companies do this by making bigger cars, so passenger safety and pedestrian safety are, to some degree, a zero sum game. Autonomous car safety doesn't seem to be the same. > It seems blindingly obvious to me that vehicular safety should include its effects on non-passengers. Seems fair. > What a disingenuous way to frame the issue. Driverless car companies should be bending over backwards to work with public safety departments, not this “move fast and break things” shit. This is only a disingenuous framing if you assume that increased passenger safety is coming at the expense of pedestrian safety, which seems like a stretch. It's just as easy to assume that, in the absence of a zero-sum element, increased passenger safety implies increased pedestrian safety. Is there any data that suggest otherwise? > Driverless car companies should be bending over backwards to work with public safety departments, not this “move fast and break things” shit. Postponing safer travel because of tiny edge cases might feel like the moral, cautious path, but it may well end up costing many, many lives.

lolinder 3y ago
> Car companies do this by making bigger cars, so passenger safety and pedestrian safety are, to some degree, a zero sum game. Nit: passenger safety and pedestrian safety aren't at odds with each other because in the event of a collision, no pedestrian is heavy enough to pose a risk to driver safety even in tiny 50s-era cars. What's actually happening is that there's a Red Queen's race between car manufacturers: if your car is heavier than your competitors' then your customers will be safer, so every generation of cars gets bigger than the last.
eesmith 3y ago
> This is only a disingenuous framing if you assume that increased passenger safety is coming at the expense of pedestrian safety, drewbug01's point was "vehicular safety should include its effects on non-passengers". Pedestrian safety is only one of many such effects, so your re-framing to consider only {passenger + pedestrian} safety seems to miss the point by quite a bit. We know pedestrian safety isn't the only other issue because we can read the list of incidents involving autonomous vehicles from the San Francisco Fire Department. If a car stops on the hose from a fire truck, so it can't be used to put out a fire, the issue isn't one of pedestrian safety. If it drives over the hose and causes thousands of dollars of damage, it still isn't an issue of pedestrian safety. If a car gets in the way of a fire truck with lights flashing, responding to an alarm, than that's not an issue of pedestrian safety. Nor is it an issue of pedestrian safety if it blocks a fire truck from being able to return to its station. > Is there any data that suggest otherwise? There is enough data to know the relevant issues are more than just passenger and pedestrian safety, yes. This article points to it.
trehalose 3y ago
A building fire is only a "tiny edge case" when the firefighters can start fighting it in a timely manner, before it rapidly grows into a much bigger edge case.
throwaway4220 3y ago
No stretch. Europe has pedestrian safety ratings for all cars.

lolinder 3y ago

> Car companies do this by making bigger cars, so passenger safety and pedestrian safety are, to some degree, a zero sum game. Nit: passenger safety and pedestrian safety aren't at odds with each other because in the event of a collision, no pedestrian is heavy enough to pose a risk to driver safety even in tiny 50s-era cars. What's actually happening is that there's a Red Queen's race between car manufacturers: if your car is heavier than your competitors' then your customers will be safer, so every generation of cars gets bigger than the last.

eesmith 3y ago

> This is only a disingenuous framing if you assume that increased passenger safety is coming at the expense of pedestrian safety, drewbug01's point was "vehicular safety should include its effects on non-passengers". Pedestrian safety is only one of many such effects, so your re-framing to consider only {passenger + pedestrian} safety seems to miss the point by quite a bit. We know pedestrian safety isn't the only other issue because we can read the list of incidents involving autonomous vehicles from the San Francisco Fire Department. If a car stops on the hose from a fire truck, so it can't be used to put out a fire, the issue isn't one of pedestrian safety. If it drives over the hose and causes thousands of dollars of damage, it still isn't an issue of pedestrian safety. If a car gets in the way of a fire truck with lights flashing, responding to an alarm, than that's not an issue of pedestrian safety. Nor is it an issue of pedestrian safety if it blocks a fire truck from being able to return to its station. > Is there any data that suggest otherwise? There is enough data to know the relevant issues are more than just passenger and pedestrian safety, yes. This article points to it.

trehalose 3y ago

A building fire is only a "tiny edge case" when the firefighters can start fighting it in a timely manner, before it rapidly grows into a much bigger edge case.

throwaway4220 3y ago

No stretch. Europe has pedestrian safety ratings for all cars.