So I am super excited about any substantial progress in self-driving cars deployment.
Stay safe out there.
- A decent proportion of accidents are on unregistered bikes or riding while drinking.
- Speeding, as always
- A big risk factor is older people returning to motorbike riding as they remember their old skills but dont have them any more.
- Having ABS is something like a 30% accident reduction.
There's still a bunch of risk on a bike but for someone sensible you can improve your odds a fair way. Though I guess you could argue that personality would likely have well reduced odd than average in a car too so its still a relative increase...
There's no way to make motorcycling as safe as driving, but last time I did the math I found you can recover almost an entire order of magnitude just by obeying the law and wearing a full face helmet. And there's plenty more you can do from there -- take an MSF course, avoid congested areas during your first year on two wheels, and get a modern bike with ABS. Statistically speaking, the benefits of all these things are compounding.
Nothing made me feel safer on my new motorcycle than learning that stat. Don’t do dumb shit and your personal danger per mile can be quite okay.
Also you’re most likely to die in your first and your third year. Then the probability drops off a cliff.
Most common way to die is running off the road when going too fast into a corner. Followed by being too aggressive in intersections and failing to avoid other people making mistakes or not seeing you.
If a car forces right of way and you could’ve stopped but didn’t, it’s your fault. Even tho legally it’s their fault but you’re the one with less crumple zones so you gotta drive defensively.
Stage 1: unskilled, unaware => die
Stage 2: unskilled, aware => not die
Stage 3: unskilled, confident => die
Stage 4: skilled => live
Difference is that certificated flight instructors won't let you solo until you're well into Stage 2. But any noob squid with a credit card can ride off a lot with a liter-class bike, no questions asked.
PS: 72.34 deaths per 100,000 per year means the average lifetime motorcycle rider has a ~4% chance of a fatal accident. Which is approximately the same death risk of a first time suicide attempt. Regular riders are even worse off.
I suspect that in the US, the lack of caution in bike culture is exacerbated by how relaxed our laws and regulations are (I've looked for data on this, but I haven't found great cross-country comparisons). We just don't impose on bikers in the same way we do on drivers. For example, we mandated ABS on all new cars nearly two decades ago, but we still don't require it on new bikes.
In fact, even in the US, I suspect riders have European laws to thank for the safety features on their bikes. It can't be a coincidence that, for example, Zero Motorcycles began installing ABS with their model year 2015 bikes -- just in time for the EU law that went into effect in 2016.
You personally can decrease the risks, but not enough to adjust for the 35x per mile risk and make them safe to daily drive.
Anything (accident) happens you fall and hit something - ground or otherwise, or are run over at times, again because you are exposed. You lost balance? Same. You just got on sand at even half the normal speed? You might still fall and hit. Wet surface, mud, speak breaks, same same. You hit another bike? Same (might be for both). You hit car? Same for you, but not for the car driver.
When the bike falls you are the one who takes the hit. Most of this doesn't happen in a car. Just my observations as a biker. Yes, riding at sane speeds reduces these risks a lot.
I rode motorcycle for 8 years as my only mode of transportation and can clearly remember how little alcohol or marijuana was needed to notice a significant performance degradation (much more noticeable effects from small amount of substance use than when driving a car).
* Wear a goddamn helmet
* Don't drink and ride
* Don't speed
* Get a bike with ABS
Which mile is matters, as is who is riding the bike.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tombarlow/2011/05/10/the-odds-o...
The danger are other cars on the road. I've been thinking about creating computer vision tech to spot inattentive drivers, it's something I think motorcyclists could really benefit from (myself included)
I imagine a system in which 'poor driver' tags would decay with time. Data is shared.
Would be neat for self driving cars to update this data in real time, so you could see a data overlay of their decisions and intentions. A long green arrow would show their intended path, icons show you if they have seen you, timers counting down e.g. I'm pulling away in 3, 2, 1 ... now
AR is going to be fun.
Both my accidents were with HGVs[1], the reality is the danger is everywhere
[1] Only one was their fault, the other entirely mine
And potholes, debris, slick spots, ... the kinds of things that might inconvenience or damage a 4-wheeled vehicle can be deadly to a 2-wheeled vehicle at 60+ mph. Losing control of a car, you might skid, spin, or flip. Rolling a car can be deadly. Losing control of a motorcycle at high speed will almost certainly cause serious injury or death.
You're probably not as good a driver as you think you are. After all, we can't all be above average.
When you know that how dangerous is careless driving, you drive more carefully
According to recent US numbers (Uber's Elevate study), it's about 38x (per pax mile).
https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf
EDIT to add: table on page 17.
Not sure if I will ride again. I love it but despite my gear, practice, having taken advanced riding courses, it really creeps me out that I got into a situation where I could only minimize my injuries.
Ah, the infamous SMIDSY. "Sorry, mate, I didn't see you!" has claimed many of our peers.
fatality. broke the rules. NOTABUG.
I expect a pivot (>10y) to wetware if people really do* demand to give up their dv/dt. Rat neurons were flying F-22 sims a decade ago.
*(bad idea, I don't think we will)
We have radar and lidar, tried and tested technologies being used for decades. Unlike the wetware you speak of, this system doesn't get tired or distracted.
Yes motorcycles are smaller than cars, but that won't be a problem for radar/lidar, and with proper sensor placement, there won't be any blind spots.
Not sure how you can say that, given recent accidents (crash into pedestrian pushing a bike across a street, crash into a stationary lane divider). Possibly other challenges are even harder, but describing a task that real world driverless cars repeatedly fail in as "the easiest" strikes me as overly cheery/Pollyannaish.
It boils down to execution and application of the technology. The key elements, radar and lidar make it really easy to detect objects around the vehicle in real time and react quickly. Now how an autonomous vehicle company decides to use these technologies matters in the overall effectiveness. For example, Tesla doesn't use the lidar at all for cost savings. Tesla relies on radar and machine vision for localization which to someone like me is scary. On the other hand, waymo uses lidar. Look at their accident rates, very impressive indeed.
1. Uber crash, Tempe, Arizona, 2018-03-18
2. Tesla crash, Mountain View, 2018-03-23
> Autopilot may not detect stationary vehicles at highway speeds and it cannot detect some objects.
To be more precise, then: I agree with you that might be "very easy" to detect objects and then, say, stop. But apparently, self-driving cars would then stop all the time needlessly, which is why they're not programmed that way.
So, what is hard, then, it appears, is to avoid crashing into people or objects, but still keep driving when safe.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Mountain_View,...
I'm sure you'll learn the ever changing patterns ok.
have any self-driving cars been shown to work in motorcycle lane-splitting areas like what happens in california in the h.o.v. lane or anywhere else in the world besides the other u.s. states?