Re:GM self-driving tech unit Cruise laying off about 8% of s...
by ashtonkem on Friday May 15, 2020 @04:57AM
(#23190211)
Yes, people do get crushed under the wheels of slow moving cars. But the statistics are extremely clear about what your relative chances of survival are based on vehicle speed. To a first order approximation your chance of being killed by a 5mph car is 0%.
Should we add tech to prevent these accidents? Of course. But let’s not kid ourselves about the actual numbers of where and why cars kill people.
As a means of comparison; back up cameras are mandatory to prevent children from being backed over at slow speed. This is an obvious improvement, but numerically quite small, with estimates being that it saves about 50-70 lives nationally per year. This is far less than the number of pedestrians and cyclists struck and killed in Los Angeles per year alone.
It is not just the energy involved from 5mph - not every accident is a cut and dry collision. A car doing 0.5mph still going to crush your skull when you go under the wheels.
People are killed frequently in London (and I am sure other places) when they are crushed by slow moving vehicles turning left or right and the driver just did not see the person there and they are either slowly run-over and pinned between the vehicle and something else and crushed.