4 ms·

Hmmm, perhaps a more-valuable representation would be how the average Waymo vehicle would place as a percentile ranking among human drivers, in accidents-per-m

• chii 2y ago
  the nature of the accidents also makes a difference tho. A small fender bender is common in human drivers. A catastrophic crash (like t-boning into a bus) is rare (it'd make the news for example). Autodriving, on the other hand, almost never makes fender benders. But they do t-bone into busses in rare occasions - which also makes the news.
  • Terr_ 2y ago
    If only it were easier to get the stats in the form of "damage in property/lives in the form of dollars per mile driven", that would let us kinda-combine both big tragic events with fender-benders. (Yeah, I know it means putting an actuarial cost on a human life, but statistics means mathing things up.)
    • Panzer04 2y ago
      You could just keep life and money separate, it's technically possible for the ratios to be different.
    • tsimionescu 2y ago
      Perhaps the best way to address this would be to look at property damage for car-car or cat-object collisions, and a separate stat for car-pedestrian accidents. In collisions that don't involve pedestrians, the damage to the car/object is generally proportional to the chance that someone was badly injured or killed in those cases - the only thing you get by adding human life costs is to take into account the quality of the safety features of the cars being driven, which should be irrelevant for nay comparison with automated driving. In collisions that do involve pedestrians, this breaks down, since you can easily kill someone with almost 0 damage to the car. So having these two stats per mile driven to compare would probably give you the best chance of a less biased comparison.
    • zdragnar 2y ago
      It is easy, if you run an insurance company. Knowing that data is literally how they price auto insurance policies. Sadly for the rest of us, it's not exactly easy to get that data from the insurance company.
      • Eavolution 2y ago
        I think my car insurance policy actually does detail what they believe every part of your body + your life to be worth, it might be my old policy though. From memory an arm was £2,000 [Edit]: found the policy: death: £2,500 arm or leg: £2,000 blindness in one or both eyes: £2,000
        • elromulous 2y ago
          Wow. Is that a typo for death? Not only do they not value human life much at all, losing multiple limbs is more than dying?
          • Fricken 2y ago
            It costs more than dying.
          • LandR 2y ago
            I mean, I'd probably rather be dead than lose multiple limbs.
            • ethbr1 2y ago
              As my father quipped to me when I was younger: 'You know the best thing about a three-legged dog? It's not sad about the limb it's missing: it's happy for the three it still has.'
          • looofooo0 2y ago
            Death is cheaper in our legal system than taking care of some one disabled for many years.
• seizethecheese 2y ago
  With a distribution like this, percentile would be misleading, though
  • david-gpu 2y ago
    How?
  • conorjh 2y ago
    isnt it a bit odd they always seem to be at the scene of a crash but somehow always a victim?
    • Retric 2y ago
      No? If they cause less accidents then people will hit them more often than they hit other people. My car has been involved in more fender benders while parked in perfectly legal spaces than when I was driving it.
      • danaris 2y ago
        However, such a pattern can also occur if the Waymo cars are stopping more abruptly or frequently than a human driver would be expected to. In such a case, they might not be considered legally at fault, but they would still be, in practical terms, a significant cause of the crash.
        • trainsarebetter 2y ago
          This.
        • saalweachter 2y ago
          No, tailgating would be a significant cause of the crash. A driver -- legally, logically, practically -- should always maintain a safe following distance from the vehicle in front of them so that they can stop safely. It doesn't matter if the vehicle in front of them suddenly slams on the brakes because a child or plastic bag jumped in front of them, because they suddenly realized they need to make a left turn, or mixed up the pedals.
• asielen 2y ago
  It may be more fair to compare them to Uber drivers and taxis and at least on that comparison haven't ridden in thousands of Uber and taxis and a couple dozen waymos, it is better than 100%. Anecdotal of course but within my circle people are becoming Waymo first over other options almost entirely because of the better experience and perceived better driving. And parents in my circle also trust that a waymo won't mow them down in a crosswalk. Which is more than you can say for many drivers in SF.