I vaguely remember the headlines when one of Google’s mapmakers caused an accident. Lots of people were in an uproar about it. Then the statistics came out. That car had logged 600,000 miles before its first accident. That was also the first accident for the entire fleet of Google maps cars. The average human driver will drive about 14,000 miles per year and they can fairly expect an accident about once every 18 years. That’s about 250,000 miles per accident, on average. So even if 77% of self driving cars were involved in accidents (that’s the same percentage of human drivers that report having auto accidents), then the automated vehicles are 240% safer than human drivers. To be clear, 77% of self driving cars are not involved in accidents. So their efficiency and safety stats are MUCH higher than humans’. But we all know that there are plenty of people who think that requiring self driving cars is a violation of their rights. So tell us the following. Do you think self driving cars are the way to go? If so, do you think that they should be required, for safety and efficiency? If you’re against self driving cars, why?
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4 mo
I have an opinion but it’s not very concrete. I am curious to see if your answers help me to solidify my position or change it.
Self driving cars only make sense to me if all cars are self driving because the reaction time compared to humans may differ when you have humans vs machines on the same road
That being said im totally against the idea. One its expensive to maintain. A lot of programming goes into it so will mark up the car market. Also what happens with the AI system fails during motion. Humans have certain experiences of road conditions that the ai system may not detect right away such as pot holes and obstacles. Travel time may differ as car will probably be set to a limit and if your in a heavy area like a highway its nice when people drive to the flow of traffic as compared to being limited and congesting traffic even more. If you love driving you lose out on that. Driving is also a skill to help with reaction times and awareness. Skills like parking is reduced with rear cameras in place so humans are losing that skill that people can learn from driving. Also the fear of unpredictable. When your driving you can handle certain situations. You are in control but if your in a vehicle and have no control how does that make you feel. On like trains or subways that are on a track fixed in a particular route cars are not as it can turn as it pleases. Lastly is jobs. Many people drive for a living. If self cars take over many will be out of work as humans will not be required to operate anymore
You make a lot of arguments that suggest that you think humans are superior drivers, but the statistics simply don’t support that. The machines are verifiably better at driving than humans, and it’s not even close. Please refer to the body of text included with this question. I expected someone to suggest travel time. Certainly autobots that prioritize safety and efficiency will be limited to posted speed limits. So people who habitually leave later than they should for a given commute will have that problem. On the other hand, autobots are more efficient. There will be fewer accidents and backups caused by bad drivers. Traffic will be smoother and travel times more predictable. Then it’s just a matter of discipline to get on the road on time. Also, computer reaction times being superior to humans’, if autobots were mandatory, speed limits could be increased. They could drive twice as fast as people, still with fewer accidents and backups.
I won't argue which is currently safer because I don't know. But comparing accidents per miles driven by Google cars isn't a fair comparison. They are driven under very different conditions. First, the Google cars are probably driving a much higher percentage of their miles in residential areas. Second, the google cars don't drive at night. It's also possible they avoid heavy traffic times. Of course Google cars also don't get drunk and fuck around with their phone while driving.
I don't know if I'd personally like a self driving car. Twenty or thirty years ago I would have said absolutely no. But I'm not into driving like I used to be. It's a chore for me now and I'm content with riding with someone else.
As a side note, I've worked on the design of vision systems. One of the engineers I worked with had worked on vision systems for cars back in the early 90s. We talked about it more than once and the systems we worked on had a lot in common, even though the application was completely different.
The example he gave is how do you digitally tell the difference between a tree laying across the road, and a shadow of a tree across the road. In both case you have a wide "line" across the road that's darker than the road itself. So how do you know the difference? I know at least part of the answer, but it's still an interesting question that shows what you are up against.
They are so unsafe that they are not allowed almost anywhere in the world. And the few places where they are there have been some major accidents. I'm not talking about a 1 hour drive in a motorway where they just need to switch some lanes and keep speed and distance. I'm talking about properly driving in cities and country roads with complex traffic situations. Let them drive in some old European towns with 1000 year old narrow streets and they won't get far without human intervention.
Oh. I’m in the US and the statistics universally suggest that self driving vehicles are more than twice as safe as human drivers. Then there’s this article from European research:
I'm not saying that they won't be the future or that they won't be safer, just that they still need quite a few years to be there.
Even in the US... Would you be willing to let's say do a road trip from San Francisco to San Diego with the car self driving while you're sleeping and no one else keeping an eye on the road? I doubt it. All it needs is some badly labelled construction work or bad viewing conditions and the card house will collapse. And if you take it to other countries with different rules, roads, languages... It's just getting worse.
I'm not saying we're not getting there, but even plannes which are 5 steps ahead in this regard after not flying without a pilot monitoring.
At some point we will get there, but that won't be today or tomorrow.
Self-driving vehicles have gotten pretty good, and I think they're okay to be on the road, but there still needs to be a driver in control, able to manually takeover when the need arises.
Consider it similar to airplanes. Pilots enter data into a computer and then the plane flies the route with no manual intervention. But the pilots are there in case something goes wrong or unexpected.
That’s primarily for passenger safety. The military uses unmanned drones routinely and have been for decades. Trust that the military and government cares a great deal more about the millions those drones cost than any number of citizens on passenger airliners. Given their current safety record compared to human operators, i’m not even all that mad about it.
I don’t want any software between me and the inputs/drive train of a vehicle. There’s just too much that can go wrong… all in the name of “safety” too right? Strongly disagree!
I had a rental car recently that actively tried to stop me from making a legal U-turn on a busy highway… THAT is more of a safety hazard, if you ask me, than a safety “feature”. Like you’re trying to time a gap in traffic and the car is actively trying to prevent you from a legal maneuver? Horrible idea!
There really needs to be a more common sense approach to automotive regulations in my opinion. Costs are too high, the technology is largely unnecessary, there’s a middle ground in there somewhere that desperately needs to be found, for the future of the automotive industry in my opinion. I think it’s getting THAT dire…
Not in my opinion I got hit by a model s Tesla back in November 14 2025 was raining it sandwich another car between me. It's insurance still hasn't payed me. I was extra close of being in a worse crash with another Tesla again 3 weeks later. I will never get an electric car or advice anyone to get one.
You actually enjoy driving, or you just prefer to be the driver because you have control issues? Cuz i’m the latter. Also, just because you like it doesn’t mean you’re good at it. Have you ever had an accident?
I have loved cars since they were only girls cars and beer to entertain Young men. I have drag raced, done circle track racing and also raced in the SCCA. I've owned classic cars, race cars and sports cars. I admit that at my age, my clock is running down. But I still have a V8 powered luxury car. Even today, I love cars almost as much as I love women. If I was rich, I would have a garage like Jay leno.
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