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> When humans make this mistake, they stop the car themselves. When this car made this mistake, someone else (Elon) had to stop it. For me this is the importan

> When humans make this mistake, they stop the car themselves. When this car made this mistake, someone else (Elon) had to stop it. For me this is the important part. Too many people already drive far too distracted. Imagine giving many of those same distracted drivers a great reason to ignore what they're doing even more. Very frequently when I'm stopped at a traffic light I'll see the person next to me on their phone waiting for the light. Would we trust that someone doing that would lookup when their car starts driving into the intersection? I really do want self driving cars to be a thing but I wish we were going about it a bit differently and I wish other people who wanted it didn't play things down as much as they do.

andsoitis 3y ago
> For me this is the important part. Too many people already drive far too distracted. Imagine giving many of those same distracted drivers a great reason to ignore what they're doing even more. Very frequently when I'm stopped at a traffic light I'll see the person next to me on their phone waiting for the light. Would we trust that someone doing that would lookup when their car starts driving into the intersection? Isn't this precisely why self-driving (even if it isn't perfect) could actually make the roads safer. People, as you say, are already super distracted (partly because driving is boring).
- dopamean 3y ago
  I am one of the believers that self driving cars will one day make roads safer. I just think that the technology we have now that keeps getting called "self driving" is not there yet. If it requires the driver's full attention to keep things safe but also makes individual drivers feel like they can be a little less attentive then we don't really have a very safe situation on our hands. When I say that the technology makes people feel like they can be less attentive I really do mean it. There was the SF tech worker who was playing candy crush or something when his Tesla smashed into a barrier on the highway. I have friends who own Teslas and talk frequently about how they like taking them on road trips because they can relax a bit more and pay less attention to the flow of traffic (it'll brake for you!!! they say). In a world where these cars have to share the road with human drivers and drive on roads that are under construction or in poor weather conditions I just don't see how we can say this is safe.
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    Defeat device detection: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/zv5xp9/a_warni https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/zv5xp9/a_warni... How attention-monitoring strikes work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otknSUQ4ICY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otknSUQ4ICY Top comment: "The cabin camera really does feel super solid at detecting when I’m distracted. Even if I’m just like searching a song on the infotainment it will get onto me which is annoying but I completely understand and am glad that it works so well ..."
- friendzis 3y ago
  Most probably no. First, let's assume that perfect law-abiding, self-driving cars exist. One one hand they would eliminate incidents caused by inattentive driving, on the other hand they would in fact create incidents where attentive driver in the right of way would yield for an inattentive driver. Change in total incidents would depend on proportion of these events. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but in my own experience number of incidents I have avoided simply yielding when having right of way is much higher then the number of incidents I have gotten into due to my own mistake. Second, actual "self driving" cars are far from that, especially in their interaction with other drivers. Third, there second order effects. E.g. a car quickly, unexpectedly maneuvering could cause other car to break sharp, which could end up in an accident where the original car is not even involved. With an increase of cars behaving differently than the local custom such accidents are bound to happen. Most probably we are going to see an increase in the number of accidents with proliferation of semi-autonomous vehicles before that number starts to dwindle.
jjoonathan 3y ago
> giving many of those same distracted drivers a great reason to ignore the attentiveness monitoring and strike system? If they ignore it, they will quickly exhaust their strikes and get locked out for bad behavior until they learn to take it seriously.

andsoitis 3y ago

> For me this is the important part. Too many people already drive far too distracted. Imagine giving many of those same distracted drivers a great reason to ignore what they're doing even more. Very frequently when I'm stopped at a traffic light I'll see the person next to me on their phone waiting for the light. Would we trust that someone doing that would lookup when their car starts driving into the intersection? Isn't this precisely why self-driving (even if it isn't perfect) could actually make the roads safer. People, as you say, are already super distracted (partly because driving is boring).

dopamean 3y ago
I am one of the believers that self driving cars will one day make roads safer. I just think that the technology we have now that keeps getting called "self driving" is not there yet. If it requires the driver's full attention to keep things safe but also makes individual drivers feel like they can be a little less attentive then we don't really have a very safe situation on our hands. When I say that the technology makes people feel like they can be less attentive I really do mean it. There was the SF tech worker who was playing candy crush or something when his Tesla smashed into a barrier on the highway. I have friends who own Teslas and talk frequently about how they like taking them on road trips because they can relax a bit more and pay less attention to the flow of traffic (it'll brake for you!!! they say). In a world where these cars have to share the road with human drivers and drive on roads that are under construction or in poor weather conditions I just don't see how we can say this is safe.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  Defeat device detection: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/zv5xp9/a_warni https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/zv5xp9/a_warni... How attention-monitoring strikes work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otknSUQ4ICY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otknSUQ4ICY Top comment: "The cabin camera really does feel super solid at detecting when I’m distracted. Even if I’m just like searching a song on the infotainment it will get onto me which is annoying but I completely understand and am glad that it works so well ..."
friendzis 3y ago
Most probably no. First, let's assume that perfect law-abiding, self-driving cars exist. One one hand they would eliminate incidents caused by inattentive driving, on the other hand they would in fact create incidents where attentive driver in the right of way would yield for an inattentive driver. Change in total incidents would depend on proportion of these events. Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but in my own experience number of incidents I have avoided simply yielding when having right of way is much higher then the number of incidents I have gotten into due to my own mistake. Second, actual "self driving" cars are far from that, especially in their interaction with other drivers. Third, there second order effects. E.g. a car quickly, unexpectedly maneuvering could cause other car to break sharp, which could end up in an accident where the original car is not even involved. With an increase of cars behaving differently than the local custom such accidents are bound to happen. Most probably we are going to see an increase in the number of accidents with proliferation of semi-autonomous vehicles before that number starts to dwindle.

jjoonathan 3y ago

> giving many of those same distracted drivers a great reason to ignore the attentiveness monitoring and strike system? If they ignore it, they will quickly exhaust their strikes and get locked out for bad behavior until they learn to take it seriously.