Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars

Re:Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars by Retric on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @11:48AM (#13366230)

I don't want to defend driving while impaired in any way. Sadly, it's still really common to drive while impaired.

121 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year

Just remember, even if you are sober, driving home from a party at 3AM is still significantly more dangerous than average.

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Re:Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars by maxerickson on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @12:20PM (#13366623)

So 1/4 is just a seat of the pants estimate?

I sloppily implied causation above, but I didn't actually say 1/3 of crashes are attributable to alcohol, I said that a "big chunk" are attributable to poor decisions and separately pointed out the large percentage of fatal crashes involving alcohol.

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Re:Let’s Talk About Self-Driving Cars by Retric on Tuesday January 10, 2017 @12:39PM (#13366855)

Sure, this is a spin heavy subject which is why the term is related. People want to fix a major problem and IMO go overboard when the underlying problem needs no exaggeration.

Anyway, 1/4 is from someone with access to raw data who spent some time trying to get less biased numbers. So, wider error bars than NTSB estimates, but less biased assumptions.

Drunk driving is still a major issue, but there is a reason people are still spouting 20 year old data. When trying to make a point there is a tendency to cherry pick to the point of distortion.

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