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> * Driving very late at night > * Sleep deprived driving * Driving after having an emotional argument or any other serious emotional stress Those are all th

> * Driving very late at night > * Sleep deprived driving * Driving after having an emotional argument or any other serious emotional stress Those are all things that we're all probably going to do at the low points in our lives. We conveniently edit those out of our perception of ourselves, though, because we had excuses for them (possibly quite good ones, but in reality those all count towards how good or bad of a driver you are). > You want the car to be safer than you, rather than safer than the average. You probably aren't as good of a driver as you think you are. And half of you out there are just chronic tailgaters who incorrectly believe that you have to do that in order for traffic to flow faster, or just believe that people "cutting you off" will significantly increase the time it takes to get to your destination. If you don't keep about a semi-trailers worth of distance between you and the car in front of you, then an AI probably would be a safer driver. [ Or just the passive-aggressive shithead that wasn't going to slow down for me in the crosswalk the other night ]

lamontcg 3y ago
Replying to myself... There's a real "No True Scotsman" problem here. Or like the legal fiction of the "Rational Person". We have the "Average Safe Driver". After you've removed all these drivers: - young and stupid drivers - drugged/criminal/etc drivers - tired/emotional drivers - old/disabled drivers - meek/scared drivers - distracted drivers - aggressive drivers - tailgaters - speeders - road ragers - left lane drama queens of both persuasions Is anyone actually left?
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  It's or course true that if you exclude all dangerous human driver scenarios, you're left with something unrealistically safe. But it's not entirely an apples to apples comparison. People who want to drive recklessly will not switch on self driving. Self driving cars are pretty new simply because it's a new technology, how will they compare against a banged up 30 yo car when they are themselves 30 yo? They may in fact fare worse, because there is more reliance on fragile components like cameras or lidar. How will they deal with the things like dodgy brakes or the one gear that doesn't work? These are things humans can mostly adapt to. The other point, not raised by GP, is that often self driving only works on fairly safe roads anyway, whereas humans drive everywhere, skewing the stats. But I guess broadly I agree, it is possible that on average, self driving is already safer, simply because it eliminates the variance. Best driver is better than self driving, but average - not.

lamontcg 3y ago

Replying to myself... There's a real "No True Scotsman" problem here. Or like the legal fiction of the "Rational Person". We have the "Average Safe Driver". After you've removed all these drivers: - young and stupid drivers - drugged/criminal/etc drivers - tired/emotional drivers - old/disabled drivers - meek/scared drivers - distracted drivers - aggressive drivers - tailgaters - speeders - road ragers - left lane drama queens of both persuasions Is anyone actually left?

rich_sasha 3y ago
It's or course true that if you exclude all dangerous human driver scenarios, you're left with something unrealistically safe. But it's not entirely an apples to apples comparison. People who want to drive recklessly will not switch on self driving. Self driving cars are pretty new simply because it's a new technology, how will they compare against a banged up 30 yo car when they are themselves 30 yo? They may in fact fare worse, because there is more reliance on fragile components like cameras or lidar. How will they deal with the things like dodgy brakes or the one gear that doesn't work? These are things humans can mostly adapt to. The other point, not raised by GP, is that often self driving only works on fairly safe roads anyway, whereas humans drive everywhere, skewing the stats. But I guess broadly I agree, it is possible that on average, self driving is already safer, simply because it eliminates the variance. Best driver is better than self driving, but average - not.