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A comment on 7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good. Parent comment

Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by bumby on Thursday December 21, 2023 @12:40PM (#38723740)
I'm just trying to understand exactly what they are advocating, because so many people seem to be making a dichotomous safety choice. It's not a simple model and my point is there are tradeoffs.

>Two car lengths is the general advice.

No. It's speed, roadway, and car dependent. Two car lengths isn't even sufficient at 25mph let alone at 70mph.[1] Which all goes to show how poorly people tend to think about these things and quickly resort to overly simplified mental models.

[1] https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/Safety1nNum3ers/august2015/S1N_A...

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Re:7.1M miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo's safety data looks good by mikestew on Thursday December 21, 2023 @01:25PM (#38724467)
No. It's speed, roadway, and car dependent.

Moreso that my post has a mistake: two second following distance, not car lengths. Brain fart on my part; apologies for causing you to have to find a URL. But as general rules go, that increases the distance as speed goes up. No, it doesn’t account for everything, but good enough for most circumstances.

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