The Menace and the Promise of Autonomous Vehicles
It would be much easier to countenance arguments that self driving cars will save us all if humans weren&#x27;t such good drivers.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.iihs.org&#x2F;iihs&#x2F;topics&#x2F;t&#x2F;general-statistics&#x2F;fatalityfacts&#x2F;state-by-state-overview" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.iihs.org&#x2F;iihs&#x2F;topics&#x2F;t&#x2F;general-statistics&#x2F;fatalit...</a><p>In Massachussetts, the number of deaths per 100 <i>million</i> miles driven is 0.66. Those are the massholes. By contrast, it was reported that Uber required human intervention once in thirteen miles while Waymo required human intervention once every 5000+. Those are not directly comparable to fatality statistics because the interventions are also for things like avoiding disturbing events like hard braking, but they are still illustrative.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;cars&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;leaked-data-suggests-uber-self-driving-car-program-years-behind-waymo&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;cars&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;leaked-data-suggests-ub...</a><p>Let those orders of magnitude sink in. The humans are driving in all weather conditions all over the country while self-driving cars are in (generally) sunny relatively controlled areas.<p>Personally, I have hope that we can eventually beat humans, but these kinds of statistics call for a careful, deliberative introduction of this technology.