Re:Are self-driving cars safer than human drivers?
by dagw on Monday June 14, 2021 @08:54AM
(#27501961)
Have you ever accelerated into the back of a fire truck, which was stationary on the freeway, with bright flashing lights on it, in dry conditions, with ideal visibility and lighting, while travelling at a mere 31 miles per hour?
At the same time self-driving cars have no doubt avoided many an accident that a human driver would have failed to avoid.
I think we have to accept that the failure modes between self driving and human driving will look very different. Humans will get into all kinds of accidents that a self-driving cars trivially will avoid. At the same time self-driving cars will probably continue to crash into things most humans would have avoided. We're going to have to look at safety records in aggregate to come to any meaningful conclusions.
And all that being said many a human has accidentally plowed their car into random stationary and highly visible objects for all kinds of stupid reasons, so it's not like machines are the only ones.
I mean, I acknowledge that some accidents will always be unavoidable. Urban driving where someone steps out from between vehicles. Challenging conditions like fog and dust clouds. Sensor malfunctions. A driver coming in the opposite direction swerving into your lane. I'm not saying a self-driving car should avoid 100% of accidents.
But avoiding large clearly visible stationary objects? I'd like to think most drivers on the road can manage that.
[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/HA...