5 ms·

Driverless cars may already be safer than human drivers

38 points by ra7 3y ago

lacrimacida 3y ago
They may by safer but as long as there are still humans driving I believe they are not capable of managing perplexing states that humans have no problems dealing with. I’d not rush the transition to autonomous vehicles. I know there are vested interests to hasten this transition but that’s because it’s all at our cost…
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  What if what you believe is true, but that driverless cars are still safer?
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  > as there are still humans driving I believe they are not capable of managing perplexing states that humans have no problems dealing with I don't understand how you can believe that if you watch a few videos of self-driving cars navigating complex situations. Here's a good one: https://twitter.com/kvogt/status/1641123102858919953 https://twitter.com/kvogt/status/1641123102858919953 They can't do this everywhere or under all conditions, and they still make plenty of mistakes. Still, if a Cruise car can navigate through a crowd of drunks who walking in the street, they're certainly capable of managing complex situations.
  - biggc 3y ago
    About halfway through that video the cruise decides that a left turning car is double parked. It goes around the car in the oncoming lane and forces an oncoming car to stop
    - hnben 3y ago
      good catch. The "double parked" car was even using the indicator. still impressive how the car handled the overall situation. I don't think I would have done much better. (except for maybe that single situation you pointed out)
- gochi 3y ago
  I agree, but not with the second half of your statement regarding perplexing states that humans have no problems dealing with. Humans have a lot of problems dealing with those states! It's why they're so difficult; funny enough a big reason why car insurance is a must but health insurance isn't. It's also why I believe we should aggressively push for driverless ecosystems, as fewer humans actually making decisions on the road = fewer potential problems due to the perplex human states. Of course we are still a long ways from that goal, but it's hard to imagine a future where human drivers are still a thing. Makes more sense for the transportation network to be exclusively driverless and all following the same exact ruleset precisely. Again, thinking long term here not the next 20 years.
ceejayoz 3y ago
> Both Waymo and Cruise have their driverless cars avoid freeways, which tend to have fewer crashes per mile of driving. But probably deadlier. Avoiding highways keeps crash severity down quite a bit.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- alkibiades 3y ago
  actually most deaths are in city intersections not highways.. reason being you can’t really get t-boned on the driver side on a highway
  - SapporoChris 3y ago
    State Patrol Capt. Bryan Niewind said both the pick-up and the semi were southbound on Highway 281 just after 6:00 p.m. when the pick-up slowed to take a left turn at the junction with 75th St. SE. The semi, which was traveling behind the pick-up, pulled into the northbound lane to pass the the pick-up and hit the drivers side of the pick-up as it turned. https://kfgo.com/2023/08/29/one-injured-in-cattle-semipick-up-t-bone-crash-near-edgeley/ https://kfgo.com/2023/08/29/one-injured-in-cattle-semipick-u... Just two days ago.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      There is no such thing as a left turn on a limited access freeway/motorway. You're describing an older state road or US Highway that has intersections, which has all the risks that come with intersections amplified by higher speed limits.
      - SapporoChris 3y ago
        I didn't describe anything, I was merely refuting the claim "reason being you can’t really get t-boned on the driver side on a highway". I quoted a news article that specifically described a highway where a vehicle was t-boned on the driver side and exactly how it occurred. You can add additional parameters such as "new highways" to narrow the original claim and refute my argument, I really can't defend against that. I really shouldn't need to.
ilikehurdles 3y ago
Until they're driving everywhere humans drive, I don't see how it's possible to make any such comparison. Is Waymo taking skiers on I-70 in Colorado on a powder day? Heck, how about we get central Boston[1]? It's rather telling that the only areas of Boston were tiny slices of the very spacious, well-marked, and recently developed expansions of the city. It's been 10 years, and the real driverless car scene has been unchanged in that time. The Silicon Valley Season 1 jokes about them have yet to age out out of relevance. Until then we're extrapolating safety by comparing the car equivalent of train tracks to, well, people driving cars. 1. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/29/business/san-francisco-vs-boston-self-driving-cars/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/29/business/san-francisc...
- tjmc 3y ago
  Exactly right. Try driving past a mob of kangaroos at the side of the road. There's a definite pace that works and they'll often break straight in front of you with little warning. Until self driving cars have been deployed internationally in a huge range of driving environments I'll take my chances behind the wheel.
- zuminator 3y ago
  > Until they're driving everywhere humans drive, I don't see how it's possible to make any such comparison. You raise a good point but surely it's at least possible to compare the safety records of driverless cars vs. human operated cars within the domain that driverless cars typically operate. One way to do that would be to only examine all trips, human and driverless, that occur entirely within a bounded area that driverless cars are known to operate. Another option would be to look at the total safety record of a city like SF in the years prior to widespread driverless car usage and in the years after common adoption and see if there is a broad reduction in accidents generally. Apropos of this, the other day I was thinking about the adoption of mobile devices. Originally the unadorned word "phone" referred to a wired home/office telephone, and if you needed to refer to a mobile device, you'd say, call me on my mobile/cellphone. Over the course of a generation it's now that if you say "phone," the assumption is that you are talking about a mobile device, and the exceptions become either landline or office phone. It makes me wonder how long, if ever, it will be until "car" almost universally refers to driverless vehicles, and you'll need to say "manual car," "meatmobile," or something similar to those to refer to a human-driven vehicle.
DANmode 3y ago
Make them all do 15mph, easy win.
m0llusk 3y ago
That is a really low bar.
kstrauser 3y ago
I'm certain the best self-driving cars are better than the worst human drivers. I've personally been in the car with older relatives who terrified me. I doubt they're better than the best humans today, and that's OK. The cars are getting better with time. My uncle isn't. We could improve road safety right now by swapping his keys for a Waymo.
SeanAnderson 3y ago
Just got accepted into the Waymo One program today after being waitlisted forever :D I'm excited to be able to offer a first-hand opinion on the quality of the ride here soon.
graeme 3y ago
Has anyone seen an analysis of driving safety statistics if you avoid: * Drunk driving * Drugged driving * Driving very late at night * Sleep deprived driving * Driving with a vehicle with known safety issues or no safety inspection * Driving without a license * Driving while young, dumb and reckless * Drag racing or other similar behaviour * Motorbiking * Driving while holding a cellphone In other words, if you're not doing stupid things, what are your odds of death, an accident etc. Because it would actually an important question for an individual choosing whether to use a self driving car rather than a manual car. You want the car to be safer than you, rather than safer than the average.
- rootw0rm 3y ago
  [flagged]
- msandford 3y ago
  I don't just want it to be safer than me, I want it to be shockingly safer. If self driving cars are safer than an average driver that's great. But the cars need to be 10x as good as an average driver and 2x as good as a 99th percentile driver before the objections start to fade.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Safety isn’t the only consideration. Fully autonomous vehicles that let you close your eyes and not pay attention are worth a slight decrease in safety, just as most people consider driving faster than the posted speed limit to be worthwhile.
- grecy 3y ago
  Avoiding all of those things makes you a safer driver, but you have to remember the most important thing on the road, you will be hit by some other driver, and they could easily be doing any or all of those things.
- jojobas 3y ago
  > * Motorbiking Which itself can be drilled down to drunk motorbiking, first timers on 200hp bikes, idiots without helmets etc. An average motorcyclist dies 14x as often per km driven as car drivers, however it seems to just attract idiots. That said, if drunk/distracted/too old drivers switch to self-driving cars that could be a positive change for everyone earlier than general population.
black_13 3y ago
[dead]
shagie 3y ago
I'm still waiting for one that advertises that it can drive a rural road in the Midwest after sunset in the winter with poor cell reception as it goes through valleys. All of the demonstrations I've seen so far have been restricted to well mapped city roads where there's no snow or climate originated navigational hazards worse than fog. While getting it working for Seattle to San Diego, Phoenix, Texas and maybe New York City... I want to see it in December in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Denver. The existing 80% solution of the major metro areas in favorable climates may be good, but the flip side of Pareto is that the remaining 20% of time takes up the next 80% of the allocated budget.
- nunez 3y ago
  I've actually driven FSD Beta on rural roads (though not at night, since they are generally unsafe at night IMO) and it performs well, with a few hiccups. It dodges cars, slows as it approaches hill crests, and halts when it can't see terrain.
  - shagie 3y ago
    The commute home for me in December is "at night". Sunset on December 1st will be at 4:25 pm. For that matter, I'd also be leaving for work before sunrise. Driverless cars need to be able to operate at all hours, in all seasons, and in all climates and conditions. If it is considered to be "not safe to operate at night" then the article's title of "Driverless cars may already be safer than human drivers" is working out of cherrypicked conditions in cherrypicked locales. San Francisco and Phoenix (the places cited in the article) are not representative of the conditions for a significant part of the United States. Would you rather take a human taxi from Minneapolis airport to Lake City at 6pm on December 1st or a driverless one?
    - kstenerud 3y ago
      SF and Phoenix are representative of areas that contain markets for this. And that's enough of a start. You don't need to begin by solving the universe.
    - 3y ago
more_corn 3y ago
Didn’t feel safe when I rode in it. Had trouble holding the lane for no discernible reason.
patothon 3y ago
self driving cars are only good for city built around cars. I was in Marseille - France - last week and a driverless car would not drive more than 100 yards there before being stuck
lifthrasiir 3y ago
I do believe the same but don't think the comparison has any meaning. Any car in the traffic has to second-guess how other cars would behave, no matter whether the car has a human driver or not. If the overall traffic is actually overspeeding and trying not to be detected (can often happen when the speed limit is substantually lower), it is indeed safer to overspeed as well even though it would be illegal. Human drivers can---and will gladly---take that risk; driverless cars have less freedom to do so. If driverless cars have learned so much that it can simulate the human behavior, you can't really expect that they would be much safer. So driverless cars have to behave differently from other cars for the safety reason, and that behavior would affect human drivers. Humans will eventually adapt, but not until a substantial portion of road traffic is driverless, and meanwhile human drivers will be more vulnerable. I think roads with no human drivers will be eventually needed for safety much earlier than the driverless driving becomes a norm.
wly_cdgr 3y ago
Driverless cars will NEVER ever be safer than human drivers in the big picture. But it doesn't matter because safety is just the sales pitch, the real goal is of course control.
ericyd 3y ago
I live in Austin TX. Cruise cars circle our neighborhood ever night in fleets at low speeds, repeating the same basic traffic patterns over and over and over. Statistics about distance and time traveled are flawed, because the vast majority of autonomous driving time is spent in essentially closed-course conditions. This is my anecdotal take.
JEDI-HACKER 3y ago
[dead]
mewse 3y ago
Zaphod: It’s a carbon copy of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal - or I’m a Vogon’s Grandmother! Arthur: The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal? Is it safe? Ford: Oh Yes! It’s perfectly safe - it’s just us who are in trouble. - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit the Sixth
jsbisviewtiful 3y ago
Only if you're a white adult... https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/08/driverless-cars-are-worse-at-spotting-kids-and-dark-skinned-people-study-says/ https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/08/driverless-cars-are-worse-at-...
rstuart4133 3y ago
I read the article, and it seemed like the driverless car companies were reporting every accident no matter how minor (as they should). I don't know what it's like in the USA but where I live in Australia I know people don't report accidents that need only low costs repairs. It's just not worth the excess insurance payment + the increased insurance premiums. I have no idea what that ratio of unreported accidents are, but my wild guess is it would be over 50%. I can't remember when my wife last had an insurance claim, but the number of chunks has in the side walls of her tyres (and the gouges on the rims) tell their own story. When I was younger, I recall boy racing and hitting some gravel. The car ended up in the bush but miraculously avoided hitting anything too solid. If indeed the driver less cars are reporting every incident and they are using insurance claims or worse police reports to measure human diving performance, it ain't a fair comparison.

38 points by ra7 3y ago

They may by safer but as long as there are still humans driving I believe they are not capable of managing perplexing states that humans have no problems dealing with. I’d not rush the transition to autonomous vehicles. I know there are vested interests to hasten this transition but that’s because it’s all at our cost…

mensetmanusman 3y ago
What if what you believe is true, but that driverless cars are still safer?
idopmstuff 3y ago
> as there are still humans driving I believe they are not capable of managing perplexing states that humans have no problems dealing with I don't understand how you can believe that if you watch a few videos of self-driving cars navigating complex situations. Here's a good one: https://twitter.com/kvogt/status/1641123102858919953 https://twitter.com/kvogt/status/1641123102858919953 They can't do this everywhere or under all conditions, and they still make plenty of mistakes. Still, if a Cruise car can navigate through a crowd of drunks who walking in the street, they're certainly capable of managing complex situations.
- biggc 3y ago
  About halfway through that video the cruise decides that a left turning car is double parked. It goes around the car in the oncoming lane and forces an oncoming car to stop
  - hnben 3y ago
    good catch. The "double parked" car was even using the indicator. still impressive how the car handled the overall situation. I don't think I would have done much better. (except for maybe that single situation you pointed out)
gochi 3y ago
I agree, but not with the second half of your statement regarding perplexing states that humans have no problems dealing with. Humans have a lot of problems dealing with those states! It's why they're so difficult; funny enough a big reason why car insurance is a must but health insurance isn't. It's also why I believe we should aggressively push for driverless ecosystems, as fewer humans actually making decisions on the road = fewer potential problems due to the perplex human states. Of course we are still a long ways from that goal, but it's hard to imagine a future where human drivers are still a thing. Makes more sense for the transportation network to be exclusively driverless and all following the same exact ruleset precisely. Again, thinking long term here not the next 20 years.

ceejayoz 3y ago

> Both Waymo and Cruise have their driverless cars avoid freeways, which tend to have fewer crashes per mile of driving. But probably deadlier. Avoiding highways keeps crash severity down quite a bit.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
alkibiades 3y ago
actually most deaths are in city intersections not highways.. reason being you can’t really get t-boned on the driver side on a highway
- SapporoChris 3y ago
  State Patrol Capt. Bryan Niewind said both the pick-up and the semi were southbound on Highway 281 just after 6:00 p.m. when the pick-up slowed to take a left turn at the junction with 75th St. SE. The semi, which was traveling behind the pick-up, pulled into the northbound lane to pass the the pick-up and hit the drivers side of the pick-up as it turned. https://kfgo.com/2023/08/29/one-injured-in-cattle-semipick-up-t-bone-crash-near-edgeley/ https://kfgo.com/2023/08/29/one-injured-in-cattle-semipick-u... Just two days ago.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    There is no such thing as a left turn on a limited access freeway/motorway. You're describing an older state road or US Highway that has intersections, which has all the risks that come with intersections amplified by higher speed limits.
    - SapporoChris 3y ago
      I didn't describe anything, I was merely refuting the claim "reason being you can’t really get t-boned on the driver side on a highway". I quoted a news article that specifically described a highway where a vehicle was t-boned on the driver side and exactly how it occurred. You can add additional parameters such as "new highways" to narrow the original claim and refute my argument, I really can't defend against that. I really shouldn't need to.

ilikehurdles 3y ago

Until they're driving everywhere humans drive, I don't see how it's possible to make any such comparison. Is Waymo taking skiers on I-70 in Colorado on a powder day? Heck, how about we get central Boston[1]? It's rather telling that the only areas of Boston were tiny slices of the very spacious, well-marked, and recently developed expansions of the city. It's been 10 years, and the real driverless car scene has been unchanged in that time. The Silicon Valley Season 1 jokes about them have yet to age out out of relevance. Until then we're extrapolating safety by comparing the car equivalent of train tracks to, well, people driving cars. 1. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/29/business/san-francisco-vs-boston-self-driving-cars/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/29/business/san-francisc...

tjmc 3y ago
Exactly right. Try driving past a mob of kangaroos at the side of the road. There's a definite pace that works and they'll often break straight in front of you with little warning. Until self driving cars have been deployed internationally in a huge range of driving environments I'll take my chances behind the wheel.
zuminator 3y ago
> Until they're driving everywhere humans drive, I don't see how it's possible to make any such comparison. You raise a good point but surely it's at least possible to compare the safety records of driverless cars vs. human operated cars within the domain that driverless cars typically operate. One way to do that would be to only examine all trips, human and driverless, that occur entirely within a bounded area that driverless cars are known to operate. Another option would be to look at the total safety record of a city like SF in the years prior to widespread driverless car usage and in the years after common adoption and see if there is a broad reduction in accidents generally. Apropos of this, the other day I was thinking about the adoption of mobile devices. Originally the unadorned word "phone" referred to a wired home/office telephone, and if you needed to refer to a mobile device, you'd say, call me on my mobile/cellphone. Over the course of a generation it's now that if you say "phone," the assumption is that you are talking about a mobile device, and the exceptions become either landline or office phone. It makes me wonder how long, if ever, it will be until "car" almost universally refers to driverless vehicles, and you'll need to say "manual car," "meatmobile," or something similar to those to refer to a human-driven vehicle.

DANmode 3y ago

Make them all do 15mph, easy win.

m0llusk 3y ago

That is a really low bar.

kstrauser 3y ago

I'm certain the best self-driving cars are better than the worst human drivers. I've personally been in the car with older relatives who terrified me. I doubt they're better than the best humans today, and that's OK. The cars are getting better with time. My uncle isn't. We could improve road safety right now by swapping his keys for a Waymo.

SeanAnderson 3y ago

Just got accepted into the Waymo One program today after being waitlisted forever :D I'm excited to be able to offer a first-hand opinion on the quality of the ride here soon.

graeme 3y ago

Has anyone seen an analysis of driving safety statistics if you avoid: * Drunk driving * Drugged driving * Driving very late at night * Sleep deprived driving * Driving with a vehicle with known safety issues or no safety inspection * Driving without a license * Driving while young, dumb and reckless * Drag racing or other similar behaviour * Motorbiking * Driving while holding a cellphone In other words, if you're not doing stupid things, what are your odds of death, an accident etc. Because it would actually an important question for an individual choosing whether to use a self driving car rather than a manual car. You want the car to be safer than you, rather than safer than the average.

rootw0rm 3y ago
[flagged]
msandford 3y ago
I don't just want it to be safer than me, I want it to be shockingly safer. If self driving cars are safer than an average driver that's great. But the cars need to be 10x as good as an average driver and 2x as good as a 99th percentile driver before the objections start to fade.
- Retric 3y ago
  Safety isn’t the only consideration. Fully autonomous vehicles that let you close your eyes and not pay attention are worth a slight decrease in safety, just as most people consider driving faster than the posted speed limit to be worthwhile.
grecy 3y ago
Avoiding all of those things makes you a safer driver, but you have to remember the most important thing on the road, you will be hit by some other driver, and they could easily be doing any or all of those things.
jojobas 3y ago
> * Motorbiking Which itself can be drilled down to drunk motorbiking, first timers on 200hp bikes, idiots without helmets etc. An average motorcyclist dies 14x as often per km driven as car drivers, however it seems to just attract idiots. That said, if drunk/distracted/too old drivers switch to self-driving cars that could be a positive change for everyone earlier than general population.

black_13 3y ago

[dead]

shagie 3y ago

I'm still waiting for one that advertises that it can drive a rural road in the Midwest after sunset in the winter with poor cell reception as it goes through valleys. All of the demonstrations I've seen so far have been restricted to well mapped city roads where there's no snow or climate originated navigational hazards worse than fog. While getting it working for Seattle to San Diego, Phoenix, Texas and maybe New York City... I want to see it in December in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Denver. The existing 80% solution of the major metro areas in favorable climates may be good, but the flip side of Pareto is that the remaining 20% of time takes up the next 80% of the allocated budget.

nunez 3y ago
I've actually driven FSD Beta on rural roads (though not at night, since they are generally unsafe at night IMO) and it performs well, with a few hiccups. It dodges cars, slows as it approaches hill crests, and halts when it can't see terrain.
- shagie 3y ago
  The commute home for me in December is "at night". Sunset on December 1st will be at 4:25 pm. For that matter, I'd also be leaving for work before sunrise. Driverless cars need to be able to operate at all hours, in all seasons, and in all climates and conditions. If it is considered to be "not safe to operate at night" then the article's title of "Driverless cars may already be safer than human drivers" is working out of cherrypicked conditions in cherrypicked locales. San Francisco and Phoenix (the places cited in the article) are not representative of the conditions for a significant part of the United States. Would you rather take a human taxi from Minneapolis airport to Lake City at 6pm on December 1st or a driverless one?
  - kstenerud 3y ago
    SF and Phoenix are representative of areas that contain markets for this. And that's enough of a start. You don't need to begin by solving the universe.
  - 3y ago

more_corn 3y ago

Didn’t feel safe when I rode in it. Had trouble holding the lane for no discernible reason.

patothon 3y ago

self driving cars are only good for city built around cars. I was in Marseille - France - last week and a driverless car would not drive more than 100 yards there before being stuck

lifthrasiir 3y ago

I do believe the same but don't think the comparison has any meaning. Any car in the traffic has to second-guess how other cars would behave, no matter whether the car has a human driver or not. If the overall traffic is actually overspeeding and trying not to be detected (can often happen when the speed limit is substantually lower), it is indeed safer to overspeed as well even though it would be illegal. Human drivers can---and will gladly---take that risk; driverless cars have less freedom to do so. If driverless cars have learned so much that it can simulate the human behavior, you can't really expect that they would be much safer. So driverless cars have to behave differently from other cars for the safety reason, and that behavior would affect human drivers. Humans will eventually adapt, but not until a substantial portion of road traffic is driverless, and meanwhile human drivers will be more vulnerable. I think roads with no human drivers will be eventually needed for safety much earlier than the driverless driving becomes a norm.

wly_cdgr 3y ago

Driverless cars will NEVER ever be safer than human drivers in the big picture. But it doesn't matter because safety is just the sales pitch, the real goal is of course control.

ericyd 3y ago

I live in Austin TX. Cruise cars circle our neighborhood ever night in fleets at low speeds, repeating the same basic traffic patterns over and over and over. Statistics about distance and time traveled are flawed, because the vast majority of autonomous driving time is spent in essentially closed-course conditions. This is my anecdotal take.

JEDI-HACKER 3y ago

[dead]

mewse 3y ago

Zaphod: It’s a carbon copy of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal - or I’m a Vogon’s Grandmother! Arthur: The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal? Is it safe? Ford: Oh Yes! It’s perfectly safe - it’s just us who are in trouble. - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit the Sixth

jsbisviewtiful 3y ago

Only if you're a white adult... https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/08/driverless-cars-are-worse-at-spotting-kids-and-dark-skinned-people-study-says/ https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/08/driverless-cars-are-worse-at-...

rstuart4133 3y ago

I read the article, and it seemed like the driverless car companies were reporting every accident no matter how minor (as they should). I don't know what it's like in the USA but where I live in Australia I know people don't report accidents that need only low costs repairs. It's just not worth the excess insurance payment + the increased insurance premiums. I have no idea what that ratio of unreported accidents are, but my wild guess is it would be over 50%. I can't remember when my wife last had an insurance claim, but the number of chunks has in the side walls of her tyres (and the gouges on the rims) tell their own story. When I was younger, I recall boy racing and hitting some gravel. The car ended up in the bush but miraculously avoided hitting anything too solid. If indeed the driver less cars are reporting every incident and they are using insurance claims or worse police reports to measure human diving performance, it ain't a fair comparison.