4 ms·

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

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.