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Comment by jakelarkin | Hacker News Reader

human drivers routinely do things that are not justifiable by vehicle physics (e.g. stopping distances) because they have a comparatively sophisticated and unconscious understanding of our physical world, how changes may develop and how other human drivers or pedestrians might react. self-driving is a much harder and unlikely problem than the perpetual hype-cycle is willing to admit.

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Agree with minor nitpick

>human drivers routinely do things that are not justifiable by vehicle physics (e.g. stopping distances) because they have a comparatively sophisticated and unconscious understanding of our physical world, how changes may develop and how other human drivers or pedestrians might react

Whatever "we" do is justifiable by implication because what is and isn't justifiable is set by consensus. Traveling 85mph with 1.5sec following distances might not leave much room for error but it's still "justifiable" because what's "justifiable" is a function of what everyone considers ok to do.

Self driving systems don't need to kill less people, they need to kill less people in edge cases that are so trivially avoidable to humans that the only people who have similiar kinds of accidents are incapacitated.

Mostly because they use the heuristic of "see, nothing happened last time" and do it again but with a little less safety margin.

It's partly that, but also a matter of human drivers trusting each other to some extent. In congested areas if you leave the recommended safe stopping distance then another driver will always cut in front of you. So people adapt by closing up the gaps and hoping the drive in front doesn't do anything stupid.

I find this one interesting. I rarely drive in the city, so when I do the distance in queues seems pretty crazy. But at some point I stopped caring that people cut in in front. The active cruise control keeps my distance now (apart from when we're stopped) and often people will use that gap. But... so what? Let them and keep your distance again. It really improves the experience.

If you try to account for it, it's not much time at all. And you're improving traffic flow by providing a means to change lanes (a bit more) safely. Most people "cutting in front" are actually just in search for a spot.

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