10 ms·

Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be man

Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace. The numbers wouldn't look as impressive because rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person. Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either). Looks like the average is about 1.3 fatalities per 100 million miles, and about 1 per 100 million miles for CDLs. This doesn't seem that impressive. If we want adoption, we would need it be placed in individual vehicles and it should look at removing driver liability. People will use it when they are drunk if it means not going to jail and it's readily available.

dudiejdj484 7d ago
Worse human driving improves the number of lives autonomous driving saves
mbac32768 7d ago
These are great points. I would add that part of societal buy-in might involve driving the cost of hiring cars down by automating them, though I realize at the moment Waymo can charge a premium because people prefer to not have a human driver. Over the long term autocars should be cheaper than either Uber or owning a car yourself.
- giantg2 7d ago
  I was talking more about mandating or encouraging the tech in personal vehicles. I think there's plenty of buy-in for driverless taxis already. It's a perception thing - trust a stranger or trust an automated system. I think it's a much tougher sell to put it in person vehicles, especially due to cost.
1970-01-01 7d ago
>you also have to have societal buy-in. Isn't this, as all deadly decisions are, driven (pun intended) by your death rates? As more non-believers of autonomous cars are killed, the momentum of societal buy-in accelerates.
- giantg2 7d ago
  If fatality rates were higher, then maybe. But at 1.3 per 100 million miles, it seems like that would have low effect.
bshaughn 7d ago
A horrifying number of people flagrantly use their phones while driving. Im not talking about peaking at a text or google maps, but straight up scrolling tik tok while driving. At the end of the day there is going to be a lowest common denominator of selfish morons on the road, and the two practical solutions I see are 1) aggressive surveillance state grade distracted driving enforcement 2) self driving cars. I used to bike to work in Chicago and it was surreal being able to look right into someone's car and see hardly anyone is paying attention. I'll also never forget the first time getting hit by a car (car did left turn when I was biking straight through a green light) and right before impact seeing the driver's face illuminated by their phone while looking straight down driving into me.
- giantg2 7d ago
  It doesn't have to be a surveillance state for enforcement. Just preventing repeat offenders would practically remove that lowest denominator. For example, I knew a guy in high school who totaled 4 cars and had other minor accidents in 2 years. There's no reason for that person to be allowed to operate a vehicle. On the prevention side, we could require more training. If you tried to enforce self driving cars, you'd still need some level of surveillance too.
  - kay_o 7d ago
    > There's no reason for that person to be allowed to operate a vehicle Doesn't much of america outside of cities also have the secondary problem of you physically cannot feed yourself, get to appointments, or do anything without operating a vehicle?
    - fn-mote 7d ago
      At some point the cost has to be high enough to get the attention of the offender. I hope you wouldn’t be saying this if they had killed someone in one of their crashes. How about injured? They must have. Get some standards instead of saying everything is ok.
      - 7d ago
eklitzke 7d ago
AFAIK there isn't data about fatality rate for rideshare services (I'm sure Uber has this data but I don't think they make it public). Without this data I wouldn't automatically jump to the conclusion that rideshare services are safer than the average driver, anecdotally at least I don't see any reason to assume this. It's also extremely important to normalize this data per geo and driving type (urban vs freeway miles), which Waymo does do and you seem to ignore.
- fn-mote 7d ago
  > It's also extremely important to normalize this data per geo and driving type (urban vs freeway miles) Getting to be well beyond the range of “armchair HN statistician”. Sounds like something the government should do as part of public policy deliberations. In my dreams.
andai 7d ago
Does n=2 give any statistical significance? Or does that come from the miles?
- redox99 7d ago
  With the miles you can establish a confidence interval of the true fatality rate.
jodrellblank 7d ago
National Safety Council says passenger vehicles are 0.46 per 100M miles, trains are 0.01 and busses 0.009. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/deaths-by-transportation-mode/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...
- voxelghost 7d ago
  Per highway mile, now, I am not sure if overall is better or worse. But it seems to be a discrepancy to Waymo measurement. Also not sure if Waymo data includes pedestrian deaths? (NSC seems not to)
- dddddaviddddd 7d ago
  The best way to reduce driving fatalities is probably to reduce the amount of driving that people do. Excellent public transit, denser cities, better pedestrian / bike infrastructure, mixed-use zoning, etc.
  - zimpenfish 7d ago
    My (simple, naive, etc.) solution is to ban young males from driving until they're 25. Immediate drop in the accident rate plus a clamour for better public transport / bike infrastructure that even the dumbest government couldn't ignore. (Yes, I know this is completely unworkable, sadly.)
namesbc 7d ago
Good point. Waymo is not comparing apples to apples here "At-fault" Waymo crashes on 35mph city roads driven only in good weather vs. all crashes regardless of fault for on all roads including highways driven in all weather conditions
- jryle70 7d ago
  Do human drivers in the same "good weather" cities have fewer accidents than human in other places?
- tonygrue 7d ago
  (Ex-Waymo) Waymo tries really hard to compare apples to apple miles, considering a number of dimensions (weather, speed limits of the roads the miles are on, the specific cities, and more). This is one of the things that they feel distinguishes them in the space. The data on https://waymo.com/safety/ https://waymo.com/safety/ reflects these apples to apples comparison. They’ve also, when possible, done comparisons of the Waymo driver to an ideally attentive human driver. https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/ https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/ The biggest challenge is in sourcing the data. A lot of these datasets don't exist or have to be developed. (The article itself, mixes and matches stats which is a common thing in general media).
JumpCrisscross 7d ago
> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data You can't subsidise "better driver education" (to a meaningful sense, to my knowledge) or "banning alcohol." You literally can't do the latter. We tried, and I'll torch a supporter's house for fun with some high-proof something or other for fun if someone tries it again in 2026. You can use direct poicy action to save lives through AVs. So at the end of the day, we're deflecting from harm reduction to preserve a parochial mode of transport or not.
- tredre3 7d ago
  I took banning alcohol to mean lowering driving BAC to 0%, not banning alcohol society-wide. It would be a lot easier for drivers to have the following thought process: "I drank tonight, I can't drive home" rather than "I drank two beers over the period of 3 hours, am I good? Yeah, probably, let's gooo." > I'll torch a supporter's house for fun with some high-proof something or other for fun if someone tries it again in 2026. If you react that strongly and violently to the idea of alcohol being banned, you might want to look into your relationship with alcohol.
  - amanaplanacanal 7d ago
    I barely drink, but the previous attempt to ban it was terrible for society. I totally understand their thinking on this.
    - nostrebored 7d ago
      From what I’ve been able to read it seems like it was a net positive public health intervention that’s been horribly dramatized.
  - rpdillon 6d ago
    > If you react that strongly and violently to the idea of alcohol being banned, you might want to look into your relationship with alcohol. There are two reasons for a violent reaction like this, only one of which relates to your relationship with alcohol. Alcohol is indisputably an addictive poison and for many people a giant net-negative. It can be hard to admit this because everybody does it and it feels good at the time. For example, I've recently concluded that I shouldn't have alcohol. But that's a decision that I am making for myself. It's a very different thing to make that decision for everybody in a society, and I think it's the imposition of someone else's values on your your personal choices that can provoke a reaction like this. All that to say, I wouldn't assume that it's the person's relationship to alcohol that makes them feel like we shouldn't make laws like prohibition.
phoghed 7d ago
> It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. You already have it, people want this. > Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either). Looks like the average is about 1.3 fatalities per 100 million miles, and about 1 per 100 million miles for CDLs. This doesn't seem that impressive. And what do those numbers look up as the saturation of self driving cars increases?
- fn-mote 7d ago
  > And what do those numbers look up as the saturation of self driving cars increases? Keep in mind the lesson of seat belts. Which is that the highest-risk drivers are also the least likely to wear a seatbelt. Selective recruitment is a danger in this armchair analysis, too. I don’t think 18 year olds aren’t giving up the thrill of tearing down side streets at 60mph to use a self-driving car - they probably can’t even afford one. To be honest, I am just guessing at the profile of the biggest offenders but insurance rates seem to back me up.
- speedstyle 7d ago
  > people want this. Could you justify this? e.g. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2024.2325386 https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2024.2325386 (N=1890): "What first comes to mind when you hear the term self-driving vehicles?" (coded free-text) 17% positive, 34% neutral, 49% negative "How would you feel about riding in a self-driving vehicle instead of the existing ways you travel?" 28% comfortable, 15% neutral, 53% uncomfortable "How would you feel about using the roads alongside self-driving vehicles?" 29% comfortable, 20% neutral, 49% uncomfortable
  - amanaplanacanal 7d ago
    That was a few years ago. I wonder if feelings have changed as more people get experience with self driving vehicles.
  - phoghed 7d ago
    Looking at the companion reports it seems to me like boomers are bringing the numbers down. Once they die off we’re good to go.
johnfn 7d ago
As a biker, I've had human drivers intentionally try to drive me off the road or hit me. Neither driver education nor higher test standards will solve that problem.
- nxm 7d ago
  [flagged]
  - leviathant 7d ago
    Oh wow! Sounds dangerous. Do more cyclists kill drivers, or do more drivers kill cyclists?
    - coqadoodle 7d ago
      [flagged]
      - throw0101a 7d ago
        Fewer than drivers, given that drivers tend to ignore the rules of the road more per a Danish government study: * https://politiken.dk/danmark/art7185605/Rygterne-om-cyklister-som-lovløse-banditter-er-stærkt-overdrevne?shareToken=0AfdbgAACQSg https://politiken.dk/danmark/art7185605/Rygterne-om-cykliste... * Via: https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists-break-far-fewer-road-rules-than-motorists-finds-new-video-study/ https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/... And perhaps more drivers should take up some cycling as it would make them better drivers (per a UK insurance company) * https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2018/10/09/cyclists-are-better-drivers-than-motorists-finds-study/ https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/... Or using motorcycles or scooters: 2013 and 2015 UK insurance reports found riders better motorists than drivers, as did a 2014 UK police chiefs survey.
        socalgal2 7d ago
        Ridiculous and trivially provably false. (maybe Danish are different) Go to any intersection in SF or LA. Set up a camera. Count the number of cars and cyclists that break a traffic law. Cars will be 5-10% breaking the laws. Cyclists will be 95-97% breaking the laws.
hamdingers 7d ago
> rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person. Do you have evidence of this? It's certainly true for some kinds of professional drivers (i.e. truck and bus drivers) but I can't find any kind of crashes/100m mile numbers for rideshare drivers. Anecdotally as both a rider and road user I find rideshare drivers to be some of the worst. Aggressive, distracted, impatient, and overconfident. I would be very surprised to find out they are above average drivers.
- tempestn 7d ago
  Per mile driven I expect it's true, just given their greater experience than most drivers. Not that I disagree with you that many Uber drivers are not actually great at driving, but neither is the average driver in North America. I expect we just notice rideshare drivers' mistakes more, and get exposed to them at a greater rate.
  - dzhiurgis 7d ago
    There's probably some sort of bias here when you observe someone else driving - it's like that joke - if someone drives slower than you - just curl up and die already boomer, and if they are driving faster than you - what an absolute psychopath.
- rpdillon 7d ago
  Ride share companies use all kinds of techniques to off-board drivers that they deem unsafe. This can be as simple as tracking the driving record and accidents, but they also use the accelerometer in the driver app to assess the location of the car and what G-forces are being placed on it to figure out and predict high-risk (expensive) insurance. I don't know how aggressive this filtering is, but it is a way to save money on the insurance costs associated with the gap insurance in rideshare. This filter alone would probably put rideshare drivers above average, but that's speculation on my part.
  - tantalor 6d ago
    Selection bias and survivor bias
senordevnyc 7d ago
Aside from the fact that I don’t see how you can calculate a rate off two data points (without really wide error bars), I also don’t understand how fault doesn’t matter. If neither of these were Waymo’s fault, then Waymo has never caused a fatal accident, whereas we can assume that nearly all of the fatal accidents that make up the rate you’re comparing it with were caused by a human, right? Well, at least the ones that were someone’s fault as opposed to random chance or something.
- ted_dunning 7d ago
  The form of the data pretty much forces this kind of analysis because fault is not reliably recorded (or even known, to be fair).
bsder 7d ago
> The numbers wouldn't look as impressive because rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person. Citation definitely needed. The last couple of human rideshare drivers I have had were AWFUL. One was so awful that I gave them a one star with "Actively dangerous remove from road, please." I never give one star reviews.
socalgal2 7d ago
In my circle, everyone who's tried Waymo never wants to use Uber/Lyft with a human driver again. And, many of them wish they could own one or at least use one for much longer drives (100s of miles). I would visit my mom (2hrs by car) more often if that 2hrs (each way) wasn't so stressful and exhausting and I could just be chauffeured by a self driving car while I browse the net, play a game, watch a movie, or talk to friends.
- robner 7d ago
  In the Netherlands were I live we use trains for this
  - SEJeff 7d ago
    The US is ~263x larger than the Netherlands landmass wise. It would require a loooot more trains than we have or you have.
    - uv-depression 7d ago
      You put the trains where the people are, not in the middle of vast unpopulated stretches. Comparing land area is misleading and unhelpful.
      - win311fwg 7d ago
        Trouble is, when you need to get to the middle of nowhere is when you need transportation. If you stay within the densely populated areas where the people live you can walk. That's why people stopped living in rural areas after all; so that one didn't have to rely on transportation. Don't forget that rural areas had trains back before the urbanization movement! Passenger rail in the US died out because people moved closer together so that they didn't need mechanized travel. The Netherlands, while technically highly urbanized, has remained more like a bunch of small towns instead of a few highly populated cities like as is seen in the US, so it is much closer to the rural days of yore when the US was able to support a comprehensive, nation-wide passenger rail system.
jasondigitized 7d ago
Insurance underwriters may make societal buy-in easier when rates are vastly different but that may take quite a while to hit critical mass so both drivers are self driven
parl_match 7d ago
> Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either) fault absolutely matters. and with two fatal accidents, it should be trivial to find out if waymo is at fault. it is bad faith, otherwise.
- giantg2 7d ago
  Fault matters in general, but it's not captured in the stats so you can't make an accurate comparison.
  - parl_match 7d ago
    No, but we can know that there are zero at fault for Waymo. That's important context.
- AlotOfReading 7d ago
  You could have looked up the collisions instead of making vague accusations of bad faith. In one, a Tesla going 98MPH collided with a line of vehicles (including a Waymo) stopped at a light. In the other, a motorcyclist hit a Waymo from behind and fell off their bike, where they were struck and killed by another vehicle (that fled).
  - parl_match 7d ago
    I am not the one saying "fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either". And yes, I'm aware of the fault of the incidents.
yshklarov 7d ago
That observed fatality rate, 2, is too low to give a precise estimate of the mean. If we assume fatalities follow a Poisson process, then it's plausible (at 5% significance level) that the true expectation is only 0.36 deaths, not 2. So it's more useful to look at serious injury statistics as a proxy. For those, Waymo says that there is a significant reduction.
khazhoux 7d ago
> Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace. The numbers wouldn't look as impressive because rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person... Looks like the average is about 1.3 fatalities per 100 million miles, and about 1 per 100 million miles for CDLs. This doesn't seem that impressive. LOL, we have a machine that can now drive much more safely than average humans, and comparable to professional drivers. Yeah, this is not impressive at all. C'mon people, wake me up when we actually make some real technological progress, will ya?
alightsoul 7d ago
Banning drugs like alcohol imo is not a solution for any drug, people have their own reasons to consume them and the underlying cause should be resolved first
la64710 7d ago
If the most advanced ie FSD by Tesla still does not come with gurantee and the human has to babysit it ie stay alert at all time so they can take over in a moments notice or less , then shouldn’t the positive results be also attributable to the humans that drive those autonomous vehicles?
eighty8days 7d ago
So would reducing car dependency altogether...
lotsofpulp 7d ago
>It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. The lower auto liability and umbrella insurance premiums alone would drive buy-in. It’s literally the riskiest thing people do with the costliest consequences.
spiderice 7d ago
Waymo is better than it was last year. And next year it will be better than it is now. And every year after that it will continue to improve. Meanwhile, a thousand years from now humans will still be humans. I don't know why you come across as so antagonistic to self driving cars. But even if they're only as good as humans today, then you have completely and flat out lost the argument already.
alterom 7d ago
>Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace "Interesting" is doing so much heavy lifting here. Fully agreeing with your other points as well.
derac 7d ago
The CDL comparison seems misleading. Those are very large and safe vehicles that are mostly on the highway. Being close to that number is impressive to me.
Brystephor 7d ago
Sorry, why would the baseline be their rideshare drivers instead of the average population? That seems like an arbitrary segment given that when talking about safety baselines, the average driver is what someone would reference. And why would waymo want to publish their own ride share driver safety data, especially if it is presumably not supporting their point, and what would anyone gain from them doing that? If they did do that, the counter argument would quickly be "they published ride share driver data because they know it makes them look better, why not compare to the average driver?" (Its equivalent because we do not have stats on waymo drivers vs the average driver and both statements are built off assumptions)
- timster6442 7d ago
  I believe their argument is weak but, I think it is a fair assumption that the average ride share driver is safer than the average driver. That is to say the average driver is unsafe due to the fact the average driver is the set of all people which includes the set of drunk drivers whereas we can generally assume that set of rideshare drivers don't, especially while on the clock.
lynx97 7d ago
Don't forget the elderly. They are responsible for a crash in roughly $age% of the cases. So a 66 yo person is the reason for a crash in 2/3 of the cases... I hear Greece has a mandatory doctor visit after 65 of so every 2 years. Since that is hard to politically get through in other countries apparently, AVs might save some lives here if made mandatory of the elderly.
- IslandRebel 7d ago
  They make pensioners retake their driving tests here (UK) after a certain age and do basic health checks.
- soco 6d ago
  Switzerland does that over 65 years old - every 2 years you have to do the visit. But because it's with your own family doctor, everybody is basically passing the test. It still needs a workable solution...
jonas21 7d ago
> Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either) I suppose you can claim fault doesn't matter. But if you read the narratives of both fatal incidents, they are so clearly not the Waymo's fault that I don't see how you can hold it against them. In the first [1], the Waymo was stopped at a red light when the car behind it was rear-ended by an SUV traveling at high speed. Both that car and the SUV then struck the Waymo. The SUV hit a total of 6 cars and someone in one of the other cars died. According to the police, the SUV may also have been involved in "multiple hit-and-run accidents reported just minutes before" [2]. In the second [3], the Waymo was yielding to a pedestrian when a motorcyclist made contact with the left rear corner of the Waymo. The motorcyclist fell to the ground to the left side of the Waymo, then another car tried to pass the Waymo and struck the motorcyclist, killing them. That other driver fled the scene. If you drive on urban streets, no matter how good of a driver you are, there's a chance you're going to be involved in some sort of incident that's completely out of your control -- that seems to be what both of these are. [1] https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-9724 https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-9724 [2] https://archive.ph/5M05h https://archive.ph/5M05h [3] https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-11713 https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-11713
- ArnoVW 7d ago
  That second accident looks like it could be one on those typical cases of SDC causing accidents by behaving unexpectedly (like braking for a pedestrian where human drivers would have denied right of way) I havent read the doc and I am not arguing either way, just saying that you can cause an accident in other ways than by ploughing into someone.
  - Mawr 7d ago
    The situation in question: "yielding to a pedestrian crossing the driveway entrance to the parking lot on the right-hand sidewalk". Now, really? As far as backwards logic goes, this is up there. Better to break the law and endanger others because what, some can't drive for shit?
wahern 7d ago
Not sure if you meant to imply it, but you don't need to remove driver liability to incentivize the inebriated to use autonomous mode. That's a calculation even someone who's blackout drunk can easily make. Removing liability might incentivize more people to, e.g., drive their car to a bar. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Maybe great for bars and restaurants, or possibly quality of life, but removing liability probably has other unintended consequences. It's maybe too early tell whether criminal liability should be changed, or at least how it should be changed. If criminal liability had been removed when Tesla started making their extravagant self-driving claims, surely you'd agree it would have been too soon, and potentially resulted in more accidents. Few if any consumer autonomous driving modes are as reliable as Waymo Absent statutory changes, common law tort will probably evolve in some states to take into consideration new incentives and norms, and that might help point the way for changes in criminal law. Those policy changes are typically driven by courts wrestling with real world cases, whereas de novo legislative changes are often driven by imaginations and lobbying.
- ArnoVW 7d ago
  Criminal liability aside, if I am in a wheelchair all my life, requiring expensive medical care, someone will need to pay for that. So civil liability will need to be sonewhere.
  - wahern 7d ago
    The manufacturer would still be liable, same as if the brakes malfunctioned.
    - ArnoVW 7d ago
      Is that not precisely the point of the current discussion? Currently, the manufacturer is not liable. The liability can not be delegated by the driver.
      - wahern 7d ago
        The manufacturers of a self-driving car can be held and are held liable today, same as if the brakes were defective (strict product liability) or improperly marketed (negligence). That doesn't mean the driver might not also be liable. It all depends on why an accident occurred and a host of other factors. There's really nothing special about self-driving cars in this respect, except that litigation can be much more factually complicated. For failing breaks, it's relatively clear given X speed and Y distance, and assuming they were engaged, whether they worked. Then you work backwards from there. Negligent driving? Poor maintenance (driver or mechanic)? Defective design? But in driver assistance and automation systems there are many more questions about what was actually expected to happen, or what was reasonable to expect to happen.
pbkompasz 7d ago
And those CDL drivers go at speed limit because they have to cover as much distance as possible, meanwhile Waymo and similar driverless tech frequently go 10km/h below speed limit. I believe there would be much less incidents by humans if they too were to drive at those speeds.
buu700 7d ago
> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Superman: I want to get rid of guns. Mr. Terrific: For use around the world 24×7, you’d need to replicate the T-Spheres on a massive scale. Still, you could never get rid of all the guns. Superman: But most. You know we could. Mr. Terrific: Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. People would resent us. Superman: And they’d be alive to do that. Check. Mr. Terrific: Some would fight. Superman: Let them come then, with sticks. Think of the lives we’d save. Check. Mr. Terrific: Smoking. Superman: What? Mr. Terrific: Cigarettes kill far more. People keep smoking even though they know it’s killing them. Their families can only watch them die. Superman: And? Mr. Terrific: You want to save lives? Jail every smoker. Check. And imprison anyone who speeds. Traffic fatalities are huge. Check. Lock up everyone who leaves a dangerous dog unchained. Check. Finally, we kill anyone who doesn’t recycle. Checkmate. Superman: You’re not going to help me, are you? Mr. Terrific: No, sir, I am not.
- Levitz 6d ago
  This is ultimately silly but, I thought this dialogue was with the Flash? Isn't it this one? https://i.redd.it/vmmv2d3h2q181.jpg https://i.redd.it/vmmv2d3h2q181.jpg
  - buu700 6d ago
    Ah yeah, same scene but the movie apparently adapted it a little differently: https://youtube.com/shorts/wqmMHjz1c9Y https://youtube.com/shorts/wqmMHjz1c9Y.
TulliusCicero 7d ago
> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. The biggest thing would be safer road/street design, but Americans are kind of allergic to that. Talk about traffic calming or road diets and a lot of folks get absolutely furious.
- sofixa 7d ago
  And an even bigger thing would be providing viable alternatives to driving, which would reduce the amount of cars on the roads, and help with those driving unsafely (because they're tired, not good drivers, "had a couple of drinks", etc).
  - TulliusCicero 7d ago
    Correct, part of safer street and road design is supporting transit, biking, and walking. That said, it's essentially impossible to get rid of cars entirely, and you can see that just by looking at countries or even regions that have good transit and notice that they still have tons of cars. Even Singapore has lots of cars, and the entire country is a super-dense city-state! So it's definitely worthwhile to develop self-driving cars and trucks, even if you have fantastic transit and biking and walking available.
    - inglor_cz 6d ago
      Public transit would also benefit from self-driving, as bus drivers and their salaries are a major limiting factor to how many lines you can run. Bus drivers are a limited and very moveable workforce, and if you have huge economic differences in your common market, poorer cities won't find enough drivers to sustain their own systems. An example: there is helluva lot Bulgarian and Romanian drivers in Western Europe, and there is no way that Sofia or Bucharest, cities with half the GDP per capita, can afford to pay them competitive salaries.
dkdbejwi383 7d ago
Enforcement, too, including the little things that "don't really matter". Letting people get away with minor infringements like parking where it's forbidden, idling with the engine running, close passes etc means the window of what's acceptable driving behaviour shifts. We should return to the idea that driving is a privilege, not a right.
- deviance 7d ago
  [flagged]
  - dkdbejwi383 7d ago
    What a strange thing to say
Simon_O_Rourke 7d ago
> So would banning alcohol. As in a full on country wide prohibition? Whatever amount of road deaths that would prevent would be offset by idiots dying via drinking industrial spirits.
- stonogo 6d ago
  Last time we had a national alcohol ban, it sparked an entire car racing industry.
dgellow 7d ago
But there is lots of money to be made by requiring FSD. No money to be made by banning alcohol. We know what the current administration cares about
drob518 7d ago
> If we want adoption, we would need it be placed in individual vehicles and it should look at removing driver liability. Liability is the biggest issue holding back widespread adoption, IMO. The tech is pretty good already. Yet accidents are still going to happen. The question is m who pays when they do? The “driver”? The taxi operator? The car manufacturer? It’s all unclear at best right now.
- OroPla 6d ago
  Who pays when a natural occurring rock slide totals your car? There are already situations where no one can be held liable.
  - drob518 6d ago
    Yes, but those situations are irrelevant to this issue. The question is, who pays when your self-driving car injures or kills somebody? I assure you that the answer to that question is not “nobody.”
    - OroPla 6d ago
      What is the problem with having the answer be the same as when lightning strikes down and kills people or a flood happens? Sometimes damage happens without anyone being responsible.
      - drob518 6d ago
        Because a car killing somebody means there is someone (the owner, “driver,” manufacturer, etc.) for the victim’s family to sue. And while anyone can bring a lawsuit against anyone at any time, regardless of how frivolous, you can’t sue God for an act of God.
        OroPla 6d ago
        You can't sue a bus passenger or people a bus killed. And if there was no driver since the bus drove autonomously, you wouldn't have anyone to sue. I don't understand why this is a problem. Just treat it the same way you do flood damage or lightning.
mchinen 6d ago
Aren't the route restrictions that this data was collected on a large confounder? They are specifically placed to avoid difficult or dangerous areas. For example in the bay area only recently were they allowed to go on the freeway, and only in certain areas.
- phoghed 6d ago
  Freeways seems to be safer though https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2023/fi30.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2023/f...
Theodores 6d ago
What we have going on here is a false dichotomy, with one car-dependent tribe wanting one type of car whilst another car-dependent tribe wants another type of car. Across Europe they have 2030 targets to get half the journeys in urban areas made with 'active travel', which means walking or cycling. Even the UK has such absurd targets that are no longer so absurd. Europe is out of hydrocarbons and Hormuz is closed. The global south will experience the pain of this initially, however, there may come a time when people in Europe can no longer afford to run a car. It won't matter if that car is an EV that can drive itself and warm the seats for you, that future will be gone, for all but the higher status members of society. This will be a big club, but you know you won't be in it. The levels of active travel sought by the European authorities (including the UK), takes us back to 1930s levels of cycling, when very few owned a car in Europe. Of course, the USA was different, with an abundance of cars, which Europe only saw in the post-war years. Recently I saw a woman, somewhat large for her size, stuffing her face full of junk food, whilst she waited in her SUV in a supermarket car park to pick up her children from the nearby school. Her posture was not great and I did not think she had a 'good look'. This particular woman could adapt to a 'Buy and Large' self-driving vehicle, however, Hormuz is closed, with an expected financial challenge expected next year. She might not be able to adapt to 'active travel', to walk or cycle to the school, to escort them back the 'active way', with no heated steering wheel, no A/C, no vanity mirror, no cup holders, no Apple Car Play and pedals that have to be well and truly pushed. If she is able to make this transition, then she will become part of the community, able to say hello to neighbours because she won't be stuck in a tin box. Nature might return to her street without her there to run over anything that moves. For longer journeys she might have to get the train rather than sit in those foul sweaty seats in her SUV, that have never been cleaned. Once free from car dependency, much of the car-dependent world no longer makes sense. Drive-thru fast food is not for 'active travel', neither is the out-of-town retail park. A decent sit-down cafe in town centre or even a pub makes much more sense, as do the smaller shops in town centre, even if they cost more. Car dependency is up there with drug and alcohol dependency, or even breathing, the car dependent are not going to give up their cars, whatever tribe they are in. However, for one reason or another, much of the world's supply of hydrocarbons is being taken offline at the moment and only the asset owning class are going to be afford any type of car, FSD EV or not. The working man is going to have to get in shape for 'active travel'. America will be safe from this for a while, however, we will be going back to 1930s, with just the USA as a viable market for cars, FSD or otherwise. In time Hormuz will reopen and everyone will go back to their gas-guzzling ways, as per previous oil shocks, however, we need to open our eyes to the opportunity to escape car dependency, to create a new era of peace, prosperity and active travel.
Zigurd 6d ago
If you make the wrong decision about which car to buy, your insurance can cost hundreds of dollars a month. Cutting that substantially is as good as banning non-automated driving. Cars that aren't automated will plummet in value. The thing is, the automated cars can't afford to have obvious and readily understandable faults like being blinded by the sun.
sspiff 6d ago
I'd much rather have them ban alcohol and mandate stricter testing of drivers and vehicle safety than banning non-autonomous driving. Driving older cars is one of the simple things that bring me joy.
krupan 6d ago
Waymo (and rideshare) replace regular human drivers. No need to compare only against rideshare drivers.
VikingCoder 6d ago
I was very bullish on full self-driving. Now I think "guard rails" is the thing I'm hoping for. Your car actively tries to prevent accidents. Then, I think once that's seen as working really well, I think what's next is that it will become prohibitively expensive to insure your car without keeping the guard rails on all the time.
MithrilTuxedo 6d ago
>It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Insurance rates are based on data.
bradleybuda 6d ago
I agree. It's too easy to get a license and too hard to lose one. You should lobby your government for these things. I have; good luck. Meanwhile, profit-driven private industry is actually out there making things better.

dudiejdj484 7d ago

Worse human driving improves the number of lives autonomous driving saves

mbac32768 7d ago

These are great points. I would add that part of societal buy-in might involve driving the cost of hiring cars down by automating them, though I realize at the moment Waymo can charge a premium because people prefer to not have a human driver. Over the long term autocars should be cheaper than either Uber or owning a car yourself.

giantg2 7d ago
I was talking more about mandating or encouraging the tech in personal vehicles. I think there's plenty of buy-in for driverless taxis already. It's a perception thing - trust a stranger or trust an automated system. I think it's a much tougher sell to put it in person vehicles, especially due to cost.

1970-01-01 7d ago

>you also have to have societal buy-in. Isn't this, as all deadly decisions are, driven (pun intended) by your death rates? As more non-believers of autonomous cars are killed, the momentum of societal buy-in accelerates.

giantg2 7d ago
If fatality rates were higher, then maybe. But at 1.3 per 100 million miles, it seems like that would have low effect.

bshaughn 7d ago

A horrifying number of people flagrantly use their phones while driving. Im not talking about peaking at a text or google maps, but straight up scrolling tik tok while driving. At the end of the day there is going to be a lowest common denominator of selfish morons on the road, and the two practical solutions I see are 1) aggressive surveillance state grade distracted driving enforcement 2) self driving cars. I used to bike to work in Chicago and it was surreal being able to look right into someone's car and see hardly anyone is paying attention. I'll also never forget the first time getting hit by a car (car did left turn when I was biking straight through a green light) and right before impact seeing the driver's face illuminated by their phone while looking straight down driving into me.

giantg2 7d ago
It doesn't have to be a surveillance state for enforcement. Just preventing repeat offenders would practically remove that lowest denominator. For example, I knew a guy in high school who totaled 4 cars and had other minor accidents in 2 years. There's no reason for that person to be allowed to operate a vehicle. On the prevention side, we could require more training. If you tried to enforce self driving cars, you'd still need some level of surveillance too.
- kay_o 7d ago
  > There's no reason for that person to be allowed to operate a vehicle Doesn't much of america outside of cities also have the secondary problem of you physically cannot feed yourself, get to appointments, or do anything without operating a vehicle?
  - fn-mote 7d ago
    At some point the cost has to be high enough to get the attention of the offender. I hope you wouldn’t be saying this if they had killed someone in one of their crashes. How about injured? They must have. Get some standards instead of saying everything is ok.
    - 7d ago

eklitzke 7d ago

AFAIK there isn't data about fatality rate for rideshare services (I'm sure Uber has this data but I don't think they make it public). Without this data I wouldn't automatically jump to the conclusion that rideshare services are safer than the average driver, anecdotally at least I don't see any reason to assume this. It's also extremely important to normalize this data per geo and driving type (urban vs freeway miles), which Waymo does do and you seem to ignore.

fn-mote 7d ago
> It's also extremely important to normalize this data per geo and driving type (urban vs freeway miles) Getting to be well beyond the range of “armchair HN statistician”. Sounds like something the government should do as part of public policy deliberations. In my dreams.

andai 7d ago

Does n=2 give any statistical significance? Or does that come from the miles?

redox99 7d ago
With the miles you can establish a confidence interval of the true fatality rate.

jodrellblank 7d ago

National Safety Council says passenger vehicles are 0.46 per 100M miles, trains are 0.01 and busses 0.009. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/deaths-by-transportation-mode/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...

voxelghost 7d ago
Per highway mile, now, I am not sure if overall is better or worse. But it seems to be a discrepancy to Waymo measurement. Also not sure if Waymo data includes pedestrian deaths? (NSC seems not to)
dddddaviddddd 7d ago
The best way to reduce driving fatalities is probably to reduce the amount of driving that people do. Excellent public transit, denser cities, better pedestrian / bike infrastructure, mixed-use zoning, etc.
- zimpenfish 7d ago
  My (simple, naive, etc.) solution is to ban young males from driving until they're 25. Immediate drop in the accident rate plus a clamour for better public transport / bike infrastructure that even the dumbest government couldn't ignore. (Yes, I know this is completely unworkable, sadly.)

namesbc 7d ago

Good point. Waymo is not comparing apples to apples here "At-fault" Waymo crashes on 35mph city roads driven only in good weather vs. all crashes regardless of fault for on all roads including highways driven in all weather conditions

jryle70 7d ago
Do human drivers in the same "good weather" cities have fewer accidents than human in other places?
tonygrue 7d ago
(Ex-Waymo) Waymo tries really hard to compare apples to apple miles, considering a number of dimensions (weather, speed limits of the roads the miles are on, the specific cities, and more). This is one of the things that they feel distinguishes them in the space. The data on https://waymo.com/safety/ https://waymo.com/safety/ reflects these apples to apples comparison. They’ve also, when possible, done comparisons of the Waymo driver to an ideally attentive human driver. https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/ https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/ The biggest challenge is in sourcing the data. A lot of these datasets don't exist or have to be developed. (The article itself, mixes and matches stats which is a common thing in general media).

JumpCrisscross 7d ago

> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data You can't subsidise "better driver education" (to a meaningful sense, to my knowledge) or "banning alcohol." You literally can't do the latter. We tried, and I'll torch a supporter's house for fun with some high-proof something or other for fun if someone tries it again in 2026. You can use direct poicy action to save lives through AVs. So at the end of the day, we're deflecting from harm reduction to preserve a parochial mode of transport or not.

tredre3 7d ago
I took banning alcohol to mean lowering driving BAC to 0%, not banning alcohol society-wide. It would be a lot easier for drivers to have the following thought process: "I drank tonight, I can't drive home" rather than "I drank two beers over the period of 3 hours, am I good? Yeah, probably, let's gooo." > I'll torch a supporter's house for fun with some high-proof something or other for fun if someone tries it again in 2026. If you react that strongly and violently to the idea of alcohol being banned, you might want to look into your relationship with alcohol.
- amanaplanacanal 7d ago
  I barely drink, but the previous attempt to ban it was terrible for society. I totally understand their thinking on this.
  - nostrebored 7d ago
    From what I’ve been able to read it seems like it was a net positive public health intervention that’s been horribly dramatized.
- rpdillon 6d ago
  > If you react that strongly and violently to the idea of alcohol being banned, you might want to look into your relationship with alcohol. There are two reasons for a violent reaction like this, only one of which relates to your relationship with alcohol. Alcohol is indisputably an addictive poison and for many people a giant net-negative. It can be hard to admit this because everybody does it and it feels good at the time. For example, I've recently concluded that I shouldn't have alcohol. But that's a decision that I am making for myself. It's a very different thing to make that decision for everybody in a society, and I think it's the imposition of someone else's values on your your personal choices that can provoke a reaction like this. All that to say, I wouldn't assume that it's the person's relationship to alcohol that makes them feel like we shouldn't make laws like prohibition.

phoghed 7d ago

> It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. You already have it, people want this. > Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either). Looks like the average is about 1.3 fatalities per 100 million miles, and about 1 per 100 million miles for CDLs. This doesn't seem that impressive. And what do those numbers look up as the saturation of self driving cars increases?

fn-mote 7d ago
> And what do those numbers look up as the saturation of self driving cars increases? Keep in mind the lesson of seat belts. Which is that the highest-risk drivers are also the least likely to wear a seatbelt. Selective recruitment is a danger in this armchair analysis, too. I don’t think 18 year olds aren’t giving up the thrill of tearing down side streets at 60mph to use a self-driving car - they probably can’t even afford one. To be honest, I am just guessing at the profile of the biggest offenders but insurance rates seem to back me up.
speedstyle 7d ago
> people want this. Could you justify this? e.g. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2024.2325386 https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2024.2325386 (N=1890): "What first comes to mind when you hear the term self-driving vehicles?" (coded free-text) 17% positive, 34% neutral, 49% negative "How would you feel about riding in a self-driving vehicle instead of the existing ways you travel?" 28% comfortable, 15% neutral, 53% uncomfortable "How would you feel about using the roads alongside self-driving vehicles?" 29% comfortable, 20% neutral, 49% uncomfortable
- amanaplanacanal 7d ago
  That was a few years ago. I wonder if feelings have changed as more people get experience with self driving vehicles.
- phoghed 7d ago
  Looking at the companion reports it seems to me like boomers are bringing the numbers down. Once they die off we’re good to go.

johnfn 7d ago

As a biker, I've had human drivers intentionally try to drive me off the road or hit me. Neither driver education nor higher test standards will solve that problem.

nxm 7d ago
[flagged]
- leviathant 7d ago
  Oh wow! Sounds dangerous. Do more cyclists kill drivers, or do more drivers kill cyclists?
  - coqadoodle 7d ago
    [flagged]
    - throw0101a 7d ago
      Fewer than drivers, given that drivers tend to ignore the rules of the road more per a Danish government study: * https://politiken.dk/danmark/art7185605/Rygterne-om-cyklister-som-lovløse-banditter-er-stærkt-overdrevne?shareToken=0AfdbgAACQSg https://politiken.dk/danmark/art7185605/Rygterne-om-cykliste... * Via: https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/05/10/cyclists-break-far-fewer-road-rules-than-motorists-finds-new-video-study/ https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/... And perhaps more drivers should take up some cycling as it would make them better drivers (per a UK insurance company) * https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2018/10/09/cyclists-are-better-drivers-than-motorists-finds-study/ https://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/... Or using motorcycles or scooters: 2013 and 2015 UK insurance reports found riders better motorists than drivers, as did a 2014 UK police chiefs survey.
      - socalgal2 7d ago
        Ridiculous and trivially provably false. (maybe Danish are different) Go to any intersection in SF or LA. Set up a camera. Count the number of cars and cyclists that break a traffic law. Cars will be 5-10% breaking the laws. Cyclists will be 95-97% breaking the laws.

hamdingers 7d ago

> rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person. Do you have evidence of this? It's certainly true for some kinds of professional drivers (i.e. truck and bus drivers) but I can't find any kind of crashes/100m mile numbers for rideshare drivers. Anecdotally as both a rider and road user I find rideshare drivers to be some of the worst. Aggressive, distracted, impatient, and overconfident. I would be very surprised to find out they are above average drivers.

tempestn 7d ago
Per mile driven I expect it's true, just given their greater experience than most drivers. Not that I disagree with you that many Uber drivers are not actually great at driving, but neither is the average driver in North America. I expect we just notice rideshare drivers' mistakes more, and get exposed to them at a greater rate.
- dzhiurgis 7d ago
  There's probably some sort of bias here when you observe someone else driving - it's like that joke - if someone drives slower than you - just curl up and die already boomer, and if they are driving faster than you - what an absolute psychopath.
rpdillon 7d ago
Ride share companies use all kinds of techniques to off-board drivers that they deem unsafe. This can be as simple as tracking the driving record and accidents, but they also use the accelerometer in the driver app to assess the location of the car and what G-forces are being placed on it to figure out and predict high-risk (expensive) insurance. I don't know how aggressive this filtering is, but it is a way to save money on the insurance costs associated with the gap insurance in rideshare. This filter alone would probably put rideshare drivers above average, but that's speculation on my part.
- tantalor 6d ago
  Selection bias and survivor bias

senordevnyc 7d ago

Aside from the fact that I don’t see how you can calculate a rate off two data points (without really wide error bars), I also don’t understand how fault doesn’t matter. If neither of these were Waymo’s fault, then Waymo has never caused a fatal accident, whereas we can assume that nearly all of the fatal accidents that make up the rate you’re comparing it with were caused by a human, right? Well, at least the ones that were someone’s fault as opposed to random chance or something.

ted_dunning 7d ago
The form of the data pretty much forces this kind of analysis because fault is not reliably recorded (or even known, to be fair).

bsder 7d ago

> The numbers wouldn't look as impressive because rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person. Citation definitely needed. The last couple of human rideshare drivers I have had were AWFUL. One was so awful that I gave them a one star with "Actively dangerous remove from road, please." I never give one star reviews.

socalgal2 7d ago

In my circle, everyone who's tried Waymo never wants to use Uber/Lyft with a human driver again. And, many of them wish they could own one or at least use one for much longer drives (100s of miles). I would visit my mom (2hrs by car) more often if that 2hrs (each way) wasn't so stressful and exhausting and I could just be chauffeured by a self driving car while I browse the net, play a game, watch a movie, or talk to friends.

robner 7d ago
In the Netherlands were I live we use trains for this
- SEJeff 7d ago
  The US is ~263x larger than the Netherlands landmass wise. It would require a loooot more trains than we have or you have.
  - uv-depression 7d ago
    You put the trains where the people are, not in the middle of vast unpopulated stretches. Comparing land area is misleading and unhelpful.
    - win311fwg 7d ago
      Trouble is, when you need to get to the middle of nowhere is when you need transportation. If you stay within the densely populated areas where the people live you can walk. That's why people stopped living in rural areas after all; so that one didn't have to rely on transportation. Don't forget that rural areas had trains back before the urbanization movement! Passenger rail in the US died out because people moved closer together so that they didn't need mechanized travel. The Netherlands, while technically highly urbanized, has remained more like a bunch of small towns instead of a few highly populated cities like as is seen in the US, so it is much closer to the rural days of yore when the US was able to support a comprehensive, nation-wide passenger rail system.

jasondigitized 7d ago

Insurance underwriters may make societal buy-in easier when rates are vastly different but that may take quite a while to hit critical mass so both drivers are self driven

parl_match 7d ago

> Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either) fault absolutely matters. and with two fatal accidents, it should be trivial to find out if waymo is at fault. it is bad faith, otherwise.

giantg2 7d ago
Fault matters in general, but it's not captured in the stats so you can't make an accurate comparison.
- parl_match 7d ago
  No, but we can know that there are zero at fault for Waymo. That's important context.
AlotOfReading 7d ago
You could have looked up the collisions instead of making vague accusations of bad faith. In one, a Tesla going 98MPH collided with a line of vehicles (including a Waymo) stopped at a light. In the other, a motorcyclist hit a Waymo from behind and fell off their bike, where they were struck and killed by another vehicle (that fled).
- parl_match 7d ago
  I am not the one saying "fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either". And yes, I'm aware of the fault of the incidents.

yshklarov 7d ago

That observed fatality rate, 2, is too low to give a precise estimate of the mean. If we assume fatalities follow a Poisson process, then it's plausible (at 5% significance level) that the true expectation is only 0.36 deaths, not 2. So it's more useful to look at serious injury statistics as a proxy. For those, Waymo says that there is a significant reduction.

khazhoux 7d ago

> Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace. The numbers wouldn't look as impressive because rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person... Looks like the average is about 1.3 fatalities per 100 million miles, and about 1 per 100 million miles for CDLs. This doesn't seem that impressive. LOL, we have a machine that can now drive much more safely than average humans, and comparable to professional drivers. Yeah, this is not impressive at all. C'mon people, wake me up when we actually make some real technological progress, will ya?

alightsoul 7d ago

Banning drugs like alcohol imo is not a solution for any drug, people have their own reasons to consume them and the underlying cause should be resolved first

la64710 7d ago

If the most advanced ie FSD by Tesla still does not come with gurantee and the human has to babysit it ie stay alert at all time so they can take over in a moments notice or less , then shouldn’t the positive results be also attributable to the humans that drive those autonomous vehicles?

eighty8days 7d ago

So would reducing car dependency altogether...

lotsofpulp 7d ago

>It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. The lower auto liability and umbrella insurance premiums alone would drive buy-in. It’s literally the riskiest thing people do with the costliest consequences.

spiderice 7d ago

Waymo is better than it was last year. And next year it will be better than it is now. And every year after that it will continue to improve. Meanwhile, a thousand years from now humans will still be humans. I don't know why you come across as so antagonistic to self driving cars. But even if they're only as good as humans today, then you have completely and flat out lost the argument already.

alterom 7d ago

>Interesting that Waymo chooses to compare accident rates with the average driver vs the rideshare drivers their cars replace "Interesting" is doing so much heavy lifting here. Fully agreeing with your other points as well.

derac 7d ago

The CDL comparison seems misleading. Those are very large and safe vehicles that are mostly on the highway. Being close to that number is impressive to me.

Brystephor 7d ago

Sorry, why would the baseline be their rideshare drivers instead of the average population? That seems like an arbitrary segment given that when talking about safety baselines, the average driver is what someone would reference. And why would waymo want to publish their own ride share driver safety data, especially if it is presumably not supporting their point, and what would anyone gain from them doing that? If they did do that, the counter argument would quickly be "they published ride share driver data because they know it makes them look better, why not compare to the average driver?" (Its equivalent because we do not have stats on waymo drivers vs the average driver and both statements are built off assumptions)

timster6442 7d ago
I believe their argument is weak but, I think it is a fair assumption that the average ride share driver is safer than the average driver. That is to say the average driver is unsafe due to the fact the average driver is the set of all people which includes the set of drunk drivers whereas we can generally assume that set of rideshare drivers don't, especially while on the clock.

lynx97 7d ago

Don't forget the elderly. They are responsible for a crash in roughly $age% of the cases. So a 66 yo person is the reason for a crash in 2/3 of the cases... I hear Greece has a mandatory doctor visit after 65 of so every 2 years. Since that is hard to politically get through in other countries apparently, AVs might save some lives here if made mandatory of the elderly.

IslandRebel 7d ago
They make pensioners retake their driving tests here (UK) after a certain age and do basic health checks.
soco 6d ago
Switzerland does that over 65 years old - every 2 years you have to do the visit. But because it's with your own family doctor, everybody is basically passing the test. It still needs a workable solution...

jonas21 7d ago

> Waymo says it has 170 million miles and I found 2 fatal accidents it was involved in (fault doesn't matter as fault is not included in the other stat either) I suppose you can claim fault doesn't matter. But if you read the narratives of both fatal incidents, they are so clearly not the Waymo's fault that I don't see how you can hold it against them. In the first [1], the Waymo was stopped at a red light when the car behind it was rear-ended by an SUV traveling at high speed. Both that car and the SUV then struck the Waymo. The SUV hit a total of 6 cars and someone in one of the other cars died. According to the police, the SUV may also have been involved in "multiple hit-and-run accidents reported just minutes before" [2]. In the second [3], the Waymo was yielding to a pedestrian when a motorcyclist made contact with the left rear corner of the Waymo. The motorcyclist fell to the ground to the left side of the Waymo, then another car tried to pass the Waymo and struck the motorcyclist, killing them. That other driver fled the scene. If you drive on urban streets, no matter how good of a driver you are, there's a chance you're going to be involved in some sort of incident that's completely out of your control -- that seems to be what both of these are. [1] https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-9724 https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-9724 [2] https://archive.ph/5M05h https://archive.ph/5M05h [3] https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-11713 https://www.autopilotwatch.com/incidents/30270-11713

ArnoVW 7d ago
That second accident looks like it could be one on those typical cases of SDC causing accidents by behaving unexpectedly (like braking for a pedestrian where human drivers would have denied right of way) I havent read the doc and I am not arguing either way, just saying that you can cause an accident in other ways than by ploughing into someone.
- Mawr 7d ago
  The situation in question: "yielding to a pedestrian crossing the driveway entrance to the parking lot on the right-hand sidewalk". Now, really? As far as backwards logic goes, this is up there. Better to break the law and endanger others because what, some can't drive for shit?

wahern 7d ago

Not sure if you meant to imply it, but you don't need to remove driver liability to incentivize the inebriated to use autonomous mode. That's a calculation even someone who's blackout drunk can easily make. Removing liability might incentivize more people to, e.g., drive their car to a bar. I'm not sure that's a good thing. Maybe great for bars and restaurants, or possibly quality of life, but removing liability probably has other unintended consequences. It's maybe too early tell whether criminal liability should be changed, or at least how it should be changed. If criminal liability had been removed when Tesla started making their extravagant self-driving claims, surely you'd agree it would have been too soon, and potentially resulted in more accidents. Few if any consumer autonomous driving modes are as reliable as Waymo Absent statutory changes, common law tort will probably evolve in some states to take into consideration new incentives and norms, and that might help point the way for changes in criminal law. Those policy changes are typically driven by courts wrestling with real world cases, whereas de novo legislative changes are often driven by imaginations and lobbying.

ArnoVW 7d ago
Criminal liability aside, if I am in a wheelchair all my life, requiring expensive medical care, someone will need to pay for that. So civil liability will need to be sonewhere.
- wahern 7d ago
  The manufacturer would still be liable, same as if the brakes malfunctioned.
  - ArnoVW 7d ago
    Is that not precisely the point of the current discussion? Currently, the manufacturer is not liable. The liability can not be delegated by the driver.
    - wahern 7d ago
      The manufacturers of a self-driving car can be held and are held liable today, same as if the brakes were defective (strict product liability) or improperly marketed (negligence). That doesn't mean the driver might not also be liable. It all depends on why an accident occurred and a host of other factors. There's really nothing special about self-driving cars in this respect, except that litigation can be much more factually complicated. For failing breaks, it's relatively clear given X speed and Y distance, and assuming they were engaged, whether they worked. Then you work backwards from there. Negligent driving? Poor maintenance (driver or mechanic)? Defective design? But in driver assistance and automation systems there are many more questions about what was actually expected to happen, or what was reasonable to expect to happen.

pbkompasz 7d ago

And those CDL drivers go at speed limit because they have to cover as much distance as possible, meanwhile Waymo and similar driverless tech frequently go 10km/h below speed limit. I believe there would be much less incidents by humans if they too were to drive at those speeds.

buu700 7d ago

> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. None of these solutions, including automated cars, will be mandated any time soon. It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Superman: I want to get rid of guns. Mr. Terrific: For use around the world 24×7, you’d need to replicate the T-Spheres on a massive scale. Still, you could never get rid of all the guns. Superman: But most. You know we could. Mr. Terrific: Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. People would resent us. Superman: And they’d be alive to do that. Check. Mr. Terrific: Some would fight. Superman: Let them come then, with sticks. Think of the lives we’d save. Check. Mr. Terrific: Smoking. Superman: What? Mr. Terrific: Cigarettes kill far more. People keep smoking even though they know it’s killing them. Their families can only watch them die. Superman: And? Mr. Terrific: You want to save lives? Jail every smoker. Check. And imprison anyone who speeds. Traffic fatalities are huge. Check. Lock up everyone who leaves a dangerous dog unchained. Check. Finally, we kill anyone who doesn’t recycle. Checkmate. Superman: You’re not going to help me, are you? Mr. Terrific: No, sir, I am not.

Levitz 6d ago
This is ultimately silly but, I thought this dialogue was with the Flash? Isn't it this one? https://i.redd.it/vmmv2d3h2q181.jpg https://i.redd.it/vmmv2d3h2q181.jpg
- buu700 6d ago
  Ah yeah, same scene but the movie apparently adapted it a little differently: https://youtube.com/shorts/wqmMHjz1c9Y https://youtube.com/shorts/wqmMHjz1c9Y.

TulliusCicero 7d ago

> Better driver education and higher test standards would save lives too. So would banning alcohol. The biggest thing would be safer road/street design, but Americans are kind of allergic to that. Talk about traffic calming or road diets and a lot of folks get absolutely furious.

sofixa 7d ago
And an even bigger thing would be providing viable alternatives to driving, which would reduce the amount of cars on the roads, and help with those driving unsafely (because they're tired, not good drivers, "had a couple of drinks", etc).
- TulliusCicero 7d ago
  Correct, part of safer street and road design is supporting transit, biking, and walking. That said, it's essentially impossible to get rid of cars entirely, and you can see that just by looking at countries or even regions that have good transit and notice that they still have tons of cars. Even Singapore has lots of cars, and the entire country is a super-dense city-state! So it's definitely worthwhile to develop self-driving cars and trucks, even if you have fantastic transit and biking and walking available.
  - inglor_cz 6d ago
    Public transit would also benefit from self-driving, as bus drivers and their salaries are a major limiting factor to how many lines you can run. Bus drivers are a limited and very moveable workforce, and if you have huge economic differences in your common market, poorer cities won't find enough drivers to sustain their own systems. An example: there is helluva lot Bulgarian and Romanian drivers in Western Europe, and there is no way that Sofia or Bucharest, cities with half the GDP per capita, can afford to pay them competitive salaries.

dkdbejwi383 7d ago

Enforcement, too, including the little things that "don't really matter". Letting people get away with minor infringements like parking where it's forbidden, idling with the engine running, close passes etc means the window of what's acceptable driving behaviour shifts. We should return to the idea that driving is a privilege, not a right.

deviance 7d ago
[flagged]
- dkdbejwi383 7d ago
  What a strange thing to say

Simon_O_Rourke 7d ago

> So would banning alcohol. As in a full on country wide prohibition? Whatever amount of road deaths that would prevent would be offset by idiots dying via drinking industrial spirits.

stonogo 6d ago
Last time we had a national alcohol ban, it sparked an entire car racing industry.

dgellow 7d ago

But there is lots of money to be made by requiring FSD. No money to be made by banning alcohol. We know what the current administration cares about

drob518 7d ago

> If we want adoption, we would need it be placed in individual vehicles and it should look at removing driver liability. Liability is the biggest issue holding back widespread adoption, IMO. The tech is pretty good already. Yet accidents are still going to happen. The question is m who pays when they do? The “driver”? The taxi operator? The car manufacturer? It’s all unclear at best right now.

OroPla 6d ago
Who pays when a natural occurring rock slide totals your car? There are already situations where no one can be held liable.
- drob518 6d ago
  Yes, but those situations are irrelevant to this issue. The question is, who pays when your self-driving car injures or kills somebody? I assure you that the answer to that question is not “nobody.”
  - OroPla 6d ago
    What is the problem with having the answer be the same as when lightning strikes down and kills people or a flood happens? Sometimes damage happens without anyone being responsible.
    - drob518 6d ago
      Because a car killing somebody means there is someone (the owner, “driver,” manufacturer, etc.) for the victim’s family to sue. And while anyone can bring a lawsuit against anyone at any time, regardless of how frivolous, you can’t sue God for an act of God.
      - OroPla 6d ago
        You can't sue a bus passenger or people a bus killed. And if there was no driver since the bus drove autonomously, you wouldn't have anyone to sue. I don't understand why this is a problem. Just treat it the same way you do flood damage or lightning.

mchinen 6d ago

Aren't the route restrictions that this data was collected on a large confounder? They are specifically placed to avoid difficult or dangerous areas. For example in the bay area only recently were they allowed to go on the freeway, and only in certain areas.

phoghed 6d ago
Freeways seems to be safer though https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2023/fi30.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2023/f...

Theodores 6d ago

What we have going on here is a false dichotomy, with one car-dependent tribe wanting one type of car whilst another car-dependent tribe wants another type of car. Across Europe they have 2030 targets to get half the journeys in urban areas made with 'active travel', which means walking or cycling. Even the UK has such absurd targets that are no longer so absurd. Europe is out of hydrocarbons and Hormuz is closed. The global south will experience the pain of this initially, however, there may come a time when people in Europe can no longer afford to run a car. It won't matter if that car is an EV that can drive itself and warm the seats for you, that future will be gone, for all but the higher status members of society. This will be a big club, but you know you won't be in it. The levels of active travel sought by the European authorities (including the UK), takes us back to 1930s levels of cycling, when very few owned a car in Europe. Of course, the USA was different, with an abundance of cars, which Europe only saw in the post-war years. Recently I saw a woman, somewhat large for her size, stuffing her face full of junk food, whilst she waited in her SUV in a supermarket car park to pick up her children from the nearby school. Her posture was not great and I did not think she had a 'good look'. This particular woman could adapt to a 'Buy and Large' self-driving vehicle, however, Hormuz is closed, with an expected financial challenge expected next year. She might not be able to adapt to 'active travel', to walk or cycle to the school, to escort them back the 'active way', with no heated steering wheel, no A/C, no vanity mirror, no cup holders, no Apple Car Play and pedals that have to be well and truly pushed. If she is able to make this transition, then she will become part of the community, able to say hello to neighbours because she won't be stuck in a tin box. Nature might return to her street without her there to run over anything that moves. For longer journeys she might have to get the train rather than sit in those foul sweaty seats in her SUV, that have never been cleaned. Once free from car dependency, much of the car-dependent world no longer makes sense. Drive-thru fast food is not for 'active travel', neither is the out-of-town retail park. A decent sit-down cafe in town centre or even a pub makes much more sense, as do the smaller shops in town centre, even if they cost more. Car dependency is up there with drug and alcohol dependency, or even breathing, the car dependent are not going to give up their cars, whatever tribe they are in. However, for one reason or another, much of the world's supply of hydrocarbons is being taken offline at the moment and only the asset owning class are going to be afford any type of car, FSD EV or not. The working man is going to have to get in shape for 'active travel'. America will be safe from this for a while, however, we will be going back to 1930s, with just the USA as a viable market for cars, FSD or otherwise. In time Hormuz will reopen and everyone will go back to their gas-guzzling ways, as per previous oil shocks, however, we need to open our eyes to the opportunity to escape car dependency, to create a new era of peace, prosperity and active travel.

Zigurd 6d ago

If you make the wrong decision about which car to buy, your insurance can cost hundreds of dollars a month. Cutting that substantially is as good as banning non-automated driving. Cars that aren't automated will plummet in value. The thing is, the automated cars can't afford to have obvious and readily understandable faults like being blinded by the sun.

sspiff 6d ago

I'd much rather have them ban alcohol and mandate stricter testing of drivers and vehicle safety than banning non-autonomous driving. Driving older cars is one of the simple things that bring me joy.

krupan 6d ago

Waymo (and rideshare) replace regular human drivers. No need to compare only against rideshare drivers.

VikingCoder 6d ago

I was very bullish on full self-driving. Now I think "guard rails" is the thing I'm hoping for. Your car actively tries to prevent accidents. Then, I think once that's seen as working really well, I think what's next is that it will become prohibitively expensive to insure your car without keeping the guard rails on all the time.

MithrilTuxedo 6d ago

>It's not enough to have data, you also have to have societal buy-in. Insurance rates are based on data.

bradleybuda 6d ago

I agree. It's too easy to get a license and too hard to lose one. You should lobby your government for these things. I have; good luck. Meanwhile, profit-driven private industry is actually out there making things better.