"Svenson (1981) surveyed 161 students in [...] the United States, asking them to compare their driving skills and safety to other people. For driving skills, 93% of the U.S. sample [...] put themselves in the top 50%; for safety, 88% of the U.S. [...] put themselves in the top 50%."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority#Driving_ab...

I remember a conversation with a co-worker who was arguing for two classes of driver's licenses. One, for people like him of course, would allow the holder to ignore certain road restrictions, go over the speed limit, etc. The other would be for "normal" people who were less talented behind the wheel. He was serious. What a tool...

"Welcome to your Advanced Driving Test. Please get into the driving simulator. Fasten your safety harness. Beginning Phase 1, Ventura Freeway at rush hour... Phase 2, Lower Manhattan... Phase 3, Appalachian highway during blizzard... Phase 4, Orlando, FL during thunderstorm... Phase 5, rural Texas road at night..."

"Test complete. Phase 1: sideswiped car at on-ramp. Phase 2: Hit bike messenger. Phase 3: Ran off cliff. Phase 4: Rear-ended car. Phase 5: Hit deer. Test failed. Please unfasten your harness and exit the simulator".

It should be self-evident that some driver training programs (e.g. Finland) are much more rigorous than others (e.g. "ABC Driving" in middle of nowhere USA). Places with unlimited speed roads tend to have much stricter vehicle safety inspections as well.

So why not try to bring the more stringent driver training and vehicle inspection requirements to the US, sold initially to those who care about driving?

Your coworker would then have to prove he's a better driver.

Aside: I think it's offensive to call someone who strives for excellence in some activity a "tool". Would you say the same thing about a med student who thought she should be able to perform additional procedures after going through additional certification?

I was once a student in the United States, back then I was young, cocky and arrogant. I wrongly thought that I was great at driving so long ago.

The citation that follows your quote doesn't offer any implications as to age or experience.

But the results of the citation following _that_ are ridiculous. I have heard people say that they are better drunk drivers than most people, too.

Survey results like these probably shed some light on why people here are such bad drivers. They simply don't realize that they are bad.

I'm a lot older now and have a lot more experience. At least, the insurance companies and police agree with my self-assessment now :)

My driver's license (I'm German) cost me about 2000€ ($2181.75). As a teenager unless you live in a city like Berlin, one of your primary financial concerns is getting enough money together to pay for your driver's license and a car (keep in mind Germany has more regulations there as well).

From my impression of US politics and culture I don't see anyone seriously pushing for that.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the process of getting a driver's license also usually takes several weeks at least.

I think the regime that you're under would be quite an improvement to here, which is chaos. Crashes were not common, the situation on the road was orderly, almost everyone followed the rules perfectly.

Are your insurance costs high?

Well, but are you human? Then you are not qualified to operate a car safely.

It's obvious that humans can't drive, and while the majority of car accidents are perfectly avoidable if humans would at least not be reckless, that doesn't mean we can raise the bar to a point where it will be safe.

> the majority of car accidents are perfectly avoidable if humans would at least not be reckless

I agree with this statement, and wish that people would behave, but I think _accident_ is a bad word, they are crashes.

I tried to think about unavoidable crashes, and maybe some weather situations approach this. What does the Google car do when it encounters a sudden lack of visibility on a highway?

What we should all do: slow the fuck down! Seriously, there is no visibility level so low that there is no safe possible speed. However, humans are incapable of driving 3mph. I'm sure robocars could do that.

Imagine that you're driving in the San Joaquin valley in the winter, it's a clear night, that stars are visible because a recent storm washed all the crap in the air that floated down from the Bay Area. You're doing 70 or so, with scattered traffic, and a car in your lane about 10-15 car lengths ahead. Suddenly his lights disappear, and 1 second later your roll into a fog bank with 15-20 feet of visibility.

The driver ahead, followed your advice and slammed on his brakes. But because the fog is so thick, you can't see his brake lights, but that's ok right? You're already applying pressure to the brake pedal when you slam into the back of him. Then you're slammed into by the car behind you. Then a semi rolls in, and kills the lot of you.

It happens every freaking year.

I don't see that scenario happening with driveless cars, where each and every one of them are programmed to react to the same stimulus in the same fashion, and are perfectly aware of how the other cars would react.

I wonder if, with time, some kind of secondary radar system for cars will arise. If everyone was forced to have one in the car (as happens with planes), the mixing of driveless cars with regular ones would be greatly eased.

70 mph is clearly too fast in that situation. You're missing the point, however. The conversation was about how robocars will be safer than human drivers, because they're not stupid. It isn't a contradiction, to point out another scenario in which many human drivers are stupid.