I would call 600% improvement over average more than "marginal"

Imagine the following scenario: your hometown is encircled by forest fires, the only way out is a single road. That road sees some abnormal conditions, smoke, vehicles on the side, maybe burning debree on the road.

Would you trust a self driving vehicle to attempt to drive your family into safety?

If not, then you probably got some food for thought about averages.

Where did you get that number? Only from the limited test scope of SF taxis? Or is this fromba more comprehensive testing?

But for these types of analyses you have to take the average because autonomous driving will improve the safety of these “average” drivers quite a bit.

I get what you’re saying though. I’ve been driving for 20 years, have had a single accident (rear ended at a stop light, not really my fault), no moving violations, and have driven about ~300,000 miles total (sounds like a lot but I was a full time lyft driver for a bit).

I’m positive I’m an outlier but I’d also trust myself a lot more than some of the current autonomous vehicles. I’d still assume with AI assistance or partial autonomy, I’d be safer on average though.

If you’re not a reckless male under the age of 25 or a persistently-intoxicated driver, it’s perfectly reasonable to want an autonomous system to be compared to YOUR safe driving profile. Reckless young men and drunks are extreme outliers of safety and they bring the average safety level way down. Being safer than average means nothing. Needs to be safer than an adult driver with clean history and cheap insurance.

Of course it means something. If every reckless drunk <25 year old was replaced by autonomous driving YOUR driving experience would automatically become safer, do you see why?

But that's not the paradigm unfolding here. The reckless drivers will shun self driving because they want to show off and have fun. The drunk driver part could be reduced after sufficient rollout, but we'll have to see how that plays out - the people whonaleays use it would use it when drinking too, but you'll still have people going "I'm fine to drive" and not using it if it's not habit.

>But that's not the paradigm unfolding here.

Yes, that is the paradigm unfolding here. That is indeed one of the many critical attractions of self driving vehicles.

>The reckless drivers will shun self driving because they want to show off and have fun.

First, this is your unsourced head canon. People with drinking problems, cognitive impairment (both temporary and permanent), etc seem likely to be a far bigger percentage.

But it doesn't matter, because they won't get the choice, which again is one of the core aspects of self driving vehicles. Right now, human driving in America is a quasi-right because it's currently intrinsically tied to "personal arbitrary time/space mechanized transportation". I say "quasi-right" because while legally it's not formally a codified right or in the Constitution or something, as a practical matter if most of the population wasn't able to drive the country would fall apart. And that is recognized by government, both executive/legislative and judicial. Losing driving rights would be a major burden for tens of millions people and would disrupt their ability to get or retain jobs, in turn causing other societal expense. So traditionally government is quite hesitant to wield that stick and almost never preemptively.

Self-driving though would decouple human driving from someone having their own car and ability to have it take them where they want, when they want like right now. That in turn would completely change to political dynamics. Driving would truly become a privilege, and getting a license could become much more like class C licenses or professional emergency responder licenses or the like are. Much, much more serious training and testing, continuing ed requirements as with other professions, and much easier to lose. Because unlike right now, losing one's drivers license won't mean losing the ability to use a car. Anyone who acts recklessly at all, even if there is no damage of any kind, can just preemptively have their license rescinded until at a minimum remediation is completed. Because driving will just be a hobby.

Except that’s not the proposition for early adopters. It’s the wealthier, safer driver replacing their driving with a (clearly) unsafe, inferior autonomous system. And the 18 year old drag racers continuing to drive rusted out Civics, because that’s what they can afford. So it’s a net decrease in safety in the immediate term, with the safe drivers expected to be the primary Guinea pigs in the experiment, built on a hope and dream that the tech will actually deliver eventually.

I read this as kind of goalpost-movey. If we can, with self driving cars, clip some of those outliers, we will have outsize impact on the total safety picture. Average skill is what we deal with all the time (On average. ;) so better than that ought to be sufficient.

That long tail of outlier clipping works on an individual human basis, too. How many accidents happen because an individual careful driver is, momentaritly, inanttentive?

"If we can, with self driving cars, clip some of those outliers, we will have outsize impact on the total safety picture."

It depends. I doubt it because the distribution needs to be considered. Replacing average drivers either an average system yields no benefit. If it's applied to both tails equally, then you haven't moved the average either, juar made it more homogeneous. You'd have to target the highest risk groups to make the impact. Many in those groups can't afford or won't adopt the tech - the elderly, low income (or less educated depending on the study), or young males mostly.

The better ways to target only the problematic tail is stricter testing, better education, and possibly permemant interlock devices for DUI offenders.

"How many accidents happen because an individual careful driver is, momentaritly, inanttentive?"

My guess would be probably about as often as autonomous systems screw up in novel environments.