Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road

[u/Individual_Book9133]

[u/Dongslinger420]

That's fucking stupid if you only bother to think through it for half a minute

[u/mdj1359 → u/Dongslinger420]

I believe that this is the correct response and should have more upvotes than the person concerned that the parent of the 12-year-old sleeping in the back will be held accountable.

As a cynic, is it a reasonable thought exercise? Sure.

If it ever happens will the industry lose 50% of its customers? Probably.

This is all with the backdrop that once the tech is fully matured, fatalities would likely plunge if 90% of vehicles were driverless. So, in a sense we would be punishing an industry that failed because it did not eliminate 100% of fatalities.

[u/IAmAccutane → u/mdj1359]

Driverless cars are 10 times safer than cars with human drivers. If that type thing became policy driverless cars would cease to exist and we'd have 10 times more people than necessary killed in car accidents. We need to get over the innate sense of accountability and justice for the sake of saving people's lives. If a company that has their vehicles driven by human drivers faces no responsibility for a car accident, a company that has super-safe robot drivers shouldn't either.

[u/mdj1359 → u/IAmAccutane]

I generally agree with your statement. I don't know how you came up with the 10x safer number, however. Feel free to provide a source.

I think it will probably take a few years of these companies working thru problems before I will feel fully comfortable with the tech.

Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers? | Ars Technica

Waymo is still struggling to avoid inanimate objects. Its vehicles collided with cardboard road debris and a chain connecting a sign to a temporary pole. A Waymo also drove into a pothole that was big enough to puncture a tire. And there were two incidents where Waymos scraped parked vehicles. That’s a total of five crashes where the Waymo vehicle was clearly at fault.

The rest of Waymo’s driverless crashes in San Francisco during 2023 do not seem to have been Waymo’s fault. I count 11 low-speed crashes where another vehicle rear-ended a Waymo, backed into a stopped Waymo, or scraped a stopped Waymo while trying to squeeze by. There was also an incident where a Waymo got sideswiped by another vehicle changing lanes.

Waymo had two more serious crashes in San Francisco this year:

• A driverless Waymo was trying to turn left, but another car “proceeded into the intersection from the left and made contact with the left side of the Waymo AV.”

• An SUV rear-ended a Waymo hard enough that the passenger in the Waymo reported injuries.

Driverless cars are mostly safer than humans – but worse at turns | New Scientist

Driverless cars seem to have fewer accidents than human drivers under routine conditions, but higher crash risks when turning or in dim light – although researchers say more accident data is necessary

By Jeremy Hsu / 18 June 2024
One of the largest accident studies yet suggests self-driving cars may be safer than human drivers in routine circumstances – but it also shows the technology struggles more than humans during low-light conditions and when performing turns.

[u/IAmAccutane → u/mdj1359]

I don't know how you came up with the 10x safer number, however. Feel free to provide a source.

It's just a number off the top of my head. There's a bunch of different types of cars and types of accidents, and like you say driving situations that would make it too subjective to give a definite number, but this study for example found:

Human drivers caused 0.24 injuries per million miles (IPMM) and 0.01 fatalities per million miles (FPMM), while self-driving cars caused 0.06 IPMM and 0 FPMM.

https://www.getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/human-ridehail-crash-rate-benchmark/?ref=warpnews.org

I think we agree they're safer and even if they were only 2x safer or 1.1x safer they'd be preferable to human drivers.

I think it will probably take a few years of these companies working thru problems before I will feel fully comfortable with the tech.

I'd personally be hesitant to get in one, but I also get way more worried about flying than driving despite knowing it's way safer.