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Comment by djanogo | Hacker News Reader

It can't be just any "average driver", they should be compared against "average driver" who just bought $40-50K NEW car.

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If you are speaking about the safety features in a new car, then I won't disagree. However, if you are implying that those with a nice new car are somehow better drivers, more attentive drivers, or care more about their car then I would highly disagree. As someone who purchased a new car last year, and does greatly care about it, I'm routinely shocked by people and their clear disregard for their own vehicle. Reckless driving, texting while not even attempting to look, and the way people park their cars so close to you that they can't even get out* have all shocked me now that I'm paying more attention.

* I have even stared at this guy struggling to get out of his fancy Jeep who opened his door into my car. I know this anecdotal, but all it takes is a few counter examples to show that car price etc does not have a super high correlation to how careful & considerate you are.

Look at the accident and fatality rates for drivers of luxury cars. They are much, much lower than the same rates for less expensive cars. In fact, if you break it down by vehicle model, there are several models with 0 fatalities at all.

I'd be curious to see where you are able to find good data for that. To be honest, I haven't found data that shows a clear difference between luxury and non-luxury cars

i.e. https://quotewizard.com/news/posts/most-accident-prone-cars lists some luxury brands as having high rates - "Luxury sport car brands Infiniti, Lexus and Acura are among most accident-prone cars on the road."

and if you look through this data from IIHS https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-... there are plenty of luxury cars with high death rates.

>> "average driver" who just bought $40-50K NEW car.

Driver and buyer/owner are different things. Few teenagers ever buy a Tesla, but they certainly drive them. A car cannot only be safe in the hands of the rich initial buyer who lives in a nice climate. It must be safe in all the other people who that owner may let drive. It must also be safe for subsequent second and third owners, people who might not be wealthy enough to stay home when it rains or when the autopilot thinks conditions are too rough. (It was -35c on my drive to work this morning. Dark. Ice fog then blowing snow.)

Uhm, I don't know what insanely rich middle eastern country you're from but in most of the world teenagers do not generally drive Teslas!!

Have you been to LA, SF, Vancouver or Denver? These are Teslas, not Ferraris. Lots of teenagers are driving their parent's tesla. Go look at any university parking lot and you will find plenty of 50,000$ cars.

Exactly right. The population has to be compared to people driving new Volvo S90 or M-B C300, cars that have IIHS fatality rates of zero.

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