Self-Driving Car Accidents Will Make Us All Safer

[Vlad Rose]

The thing that everyone talks about is that the company would get sued if the auto pilot got into an accident. I'm sure at the time of the accident, it would be determined if the accident was even avoidable; machine or person driving it.

I've had a deer before jump out from a ditch and right in front of my car to where there was no chance for a reaction time. It totaled the car since I was in a 55 mph zone. An automated car would not have been able to avoid it either; without breaking the laws of physics. A child could possibly do the same thing the deer did. No matter how efficient or safe of a system you build to avoid an accident, the element of nature will find a way around it. Factors like these I'm sure will be taken into consideration when determining how 'safe' an autopilot is.

 

[coolitic]

I think autonomous driving will turn out to be great in about a decade, but making manual driving illegal would be stupid since there are too many scenarios where it is necessary to have manual as a backup.

 

[none12345]

There are all kinds of senerios where a automated car would out drive a human. You cant see in front of you, behind you, to the both sides, and 200 yards or so in every direction at all times. A computer can. You cant make a calculation to know if you should speed up or slow down to avoid a crash in 1/10th of a second, a computer can. Maybe you couldn't see that deer that was about to jump in front of you and avoid the accident, maybe the computer can maybe it cant. If the area is flat it probably can. However even if your car cant see the deer, maybe the car in front of you did, and that car told your car that there is a deer in the vicinity so watch out, which could save you the accident.

Lets face it, no system is perfect. Will people die? Of course, automated vehicles will cause injuries and they will cause fatalities.

But we don't need a perfect system. Humans kill about 30,000 people per year in cars. If Self driving cars drop that number to 10,000 id call it a massive success.

On the same note if it raises fatalities to 40,000 per year then its a complete failure. But i think its far more likely to reduce the total number.

 

[old foggy]

do the math,figure out your distance you travel,find out the price of the self driving car,
Then check out uber to see if the self driving car is worth it--I like driving the last thing I would buy is a self driving car

 

[Vlad Rose]

do the math,figure out your distance you travel,find out the price of the self driving car,
Then check out uber to see if the self driving car is worth it--I like driving the last thing I would buy is a self driving car

I like driving as well, depending on the situation. Driving to work, every day, becomes tedious and most drivers around that time are idiots. If all the vehicles were self driving, I wouldn't have to worry about getting rear ended or cutoff every morning.

Going on a road trip for the fun of it is great. In that case, a self driving car would be bad.

However, going on a long distance trip to some place; the journey itself can be fun, but I'd rather use that time for sleep or whatever so that I can maximize the enjoyment of where I'm going to.

A perfect example is Cedar Point (amusement park) is about 5-5:30 hours from where I live. My choices right now are either stay overnight someplace there, or stay up for over 24 hours straight. If I had an automated car, I can sleep on my way there, enjoy my trip, and sleep on the way back; without having to pay for a hotel. Heck I could go during the middle of the week, miss most of the crowds, and only need to take one day off of work instead of 2 to 3.

 

[ddpruitt]

At some point an autonomous car is going to have to make a morale decision, a child runs into the road, it can’t possibly stop in time, does it?;
A) Hit the child
B) Plough you into the oncoming traffic
C) Go the other way into the people waiting at the bus stop.

It will have to decide who dies……..

Except that 9 times out of ten a human being will panic, hit the kid and then plow into oncoming traffic. Turning this into a moral debate misses the greater issue. Humans suck at driving and put themselves in dangerous situations, then make the worst possible decisions in an emergency, an autonomous car can drive safely ahead of time leaving itself an escape route at all times meaning if it does have to make a decision it can make one that saves everyone.

 

[Vlad Rose]

At some point an autonomous car is going to have to make a morale decision, a child runs into the road, it can’t possibly stop in time, does it?;
A) Hit the child
B) Plough you into the oncoming traffic
C) Go the other way into the people waiting at the bus stop.

It will have to decide who dies……..

Except that 9 times out of ten a human being will panic, hit the kid and then plow into oncoming traffic. Turning this into a moral debate misses the greater issue. Humans suck at driving and put themselves in dangerous situations, then make the worst possible decisions in an emergency, an autonomous car can drive safely ahead of time leaving itself an escape route at all times meaning if it does have to make a decision it can make one that saves everyone.

There isn't always an option to where all 3 can be avoided. And the car will look at probability of what to miss, not whether the object is flesh or flesh behind metal (oncoming traffic). I, Robot covered that pretty well. The human, even though panicking, will most times be able to make that decision and plow into the traffic.

But yeah, you're right, most drivers are horrid. It's funny that they make mirrors mandatory on a car, but no one ever seems to use them; around me at least. Same with turn signals. And 90% of the time I end up seeing someone driving with their cell phone in one hand and coffee in another on their way to work; obviously not paying attention to anything outside literally what's in front of them.

 

[Pailin]

Excuse me, but this line sounds far more scary than the accidents people have:

"autonomous cars will be contending with cars driven by humans for many years."

I personally love driving, have never had a speeding fine or an accident that was my fault on the road in 24 years.
That includes most of that time also riding super sports bikes, working up from my 1st Suzuki GSX-R750.

For some of us driving and riding are some of life's greatest pleasures. I happily put my life on the life with those more careless and accident prone than myself - it is an important freedom of life.

Stopping people driving is a step closer to one of those Sci-Fi nightmares where people are forced to live out their lives in protective little boxes with zero freedom to do almost Anything fun or interesting - for the sake of saving a life.

- I bet a world like that would have the Highest suicide rates and feel like life as it should be was at an end :s