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Comparing autonomous vehicles to the average driver is always going to be misleading. It’s not fair to compare it to drunk drivers, or to the small portion of

Comparing autonomous vehicles to the average driver is always going to be misleading. It’s not fair to compare it to drunk drivers, or to the small portion of people (likely causing an oversized portion of accidents) who shouldn’t have a license. I’d like to see these comparisons made against a typical good driver, who never drivers impaired and obeys the law.

kranke155 3y ago
What? How would you get that data? Look Waymo vs top 10% of drivers?
- olooney 3y ago
  Benchmark against Taxi/Uber drivers?
- skepticATX 3y ago
  Taking the top 10% of drivers would also be unfair, this time against AVs. I’m simply saying that factors unrelated to driving skill should be excluded. Things like being inebriated, purposely breaking driving laws, looking at a cell phone. The problem is that studies like these are used to imply that AVs are more skilled than humans at driving, but it’s not a conclusion that can be drawn, because the AVs are operating optimally and some percentage of humans are operating suboptimally. What results like this actually show are that replacing all human drivers with AVs would likely result in less accidents (because by definition you’re excluding people who are malicious), which is not the same thing as saying that AVs are more skilled at driving.
  - ctoth 3y ago
    > I’m simply saying that factors unrelated to driving skill should be excluded. Things like being inebriated, purposely breaking driving laws, looking at a cell phone. What is driving skill if not knowing not to do these things?
  - kranke155 3y ago
    I don’t think that would be a fair comparison because the whole idea behind these things is that humans operate suboptimally a LOT. Removing the mistakes from the human data makes the whole exercise futile. The whole idea is people fuck up. A lot.
tczMUFlmoNk 3y ago
This is an interesting point, but I'm not sure that I agree. If humans sometimes drive impaired and Waymo never does, then that is a real safety point in favor of Waymo. Try as we might, we haven't been able to eliminate drunk driving by humans. If Waymo vehicles just don't have that failure mode, that's a meaningful improvement. Consider this: suppose that Waymo drives more safely than "US drivers overall" but slightly less safely than "US drivers who never drive impaired". Then… replacing a uniform slice of US drivers with Waymo vehicles still improves safety! It would only be problematic if you somehow adverse-selected by replacing "the safest" human drivers with Waymo but letting the most dangerous ones continue to drive by themselves. Which is interesting to consider, but I don't see why it would be the case.
- minwcnt5 3y ago
  In fact, it could likely be that we end up with the opposite of your adversarial selection case. Studies have shown that dense cities with good public transit (or walkability) have lower DUI arrest rates. That could potentially extend to everywhere that Waymo is widely available and convenient.
- skepticATX 3y ago
  > Try as we might, we haven't been able to eliminate drunk driving by humans I'm not sure that we've actually tried very hard. We could, say, mandate an ignition interlock device in every vehicle. Pretty draconian, sure, but outlawing human drivers would also be. Point being, if the problem with human drivers lies outside of some fundamental flaw, there are lots of solutions that can be explored beyond just self driving cars. For what it's worth, it's obvious that AVs will exceed human skill at some point. I just don't think we're there yet, and none of the data I've seen has swayed me.

kranke155 3y ago

What? How would you get that data? Look Waymo vs top 10% of drivers?

olooney 3y ago
Benchmark against Taxi/Uber drivers?
skepticATX 3y ago
Taking the top 10% of drivers would also be unfair, this time against AVs. I’m simply saying that factors unrelated to driving skill should be excluded. Things like being inebriated, purposely breaking driving laws, looking at a cell phone. The problem is that studies like these are used to imply that AVs are more skilled than humans at driving, but it’s not a conclusion that can be drawn, because the AVs are operating optimally and some percentage of humans are operating suboptimally. What results like this actually show are that replacing all human drivers with AVs would likely result in less accidents (because by definition you’re excluding people who are malicious), which is not the same thing as saying that AVs are more skilled at driving.
- ctoth 3y ago
  > I’m simply saying that factors unrelated to driving skill should be excluded. Things like being inebriated, purposely breaking driving laws, looking at a cell phone. What is driving skill if not knowing not to do these things?
- kranke155 3y ago
  I don’t think that would be a fair comparison because the whole idea behind these things is that humans operate suboptimally a LOT. Removing the mistakes from the human data makes the whole exercise futile. The whole idea is people fuck up. A lot.

tczMUFlmoNk 3y ago

This is an interesting point, but I'm not sure that I agree. If humans sometimes drive impaired and Waymo never does, then that is a real safety point in favor of Waymo. Try as we might, we haven't been able to eliminate drunk driving by humans. If Waymo vehicles just don't have that failure mode, that's a meaningful improvement. Consider this: suppose that Waymo drives more safely than "US drivers overall" but slightly less safely than "US drivers who never drive impaired". Then… replacing a uniform slice of US drivers with Waymo vehicles still improves safety! It would only be problematic if you somehow adverse-selected by replacing "the safest" human drivers with Waymo but letting the most dangerous ones continue to drive by themselves. Which is interesting to consider, but I don't see why it would be the case.

minwcnt5 3y ago
In fact, it could likely be that we end up with the opposite of your adversarial selection case. Studies have shown that dense cities with good public transit (or walkability) have lower DUI arrest rates. That could potentially extend to everywhere that Waymo is widely available and convenient.
skepticATX 3y ago
> Try as we might, we haven't been able to eliminate drunk driving by humans I'm not sure that we've actually tried very hard. We could, say, mandate an ignition interlock device in every vehicle. Pretty draconian, sure, but outlawing human drivers would also be. Point being, if the problem with human drivers lies outside of some fundamental flaw, there are lots of solutions that can be explored beyond just self driving cars. For what it's worth, it's obvious that AVs will exceed human skill at some point. I just don't think we're there yet, and none of the data I've seen has swayed me.