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Comment by jjulius | Hacker News Reader

I don't disagree with your broader statement about autopilot's safety relative to other drivers, but...

>The "average driver" involved in an accident includes drunk drivers, road ragers, habitual speeders, teenagers, people driving in bad conditions (rain, snow), people driving without sleep and several other risky groups that most people buying Teslas aren't part of.

... what? Tesla owners absolutely can be habitual speeders, people who drive without sleep, road ragers, and drunk drivers. Can you please explain your thought process behind this claim? I really don't understand why anyone would assume that Tesla owners are less likely to have those traits than non-Tesla owners.

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Because they are buying an expensive, new car, meaning higher income, meaning that those things are less likely : https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/46/6/721/129644

In my person experience, the "drunk drivers", "road ragers", "habitual speeders" groups seems to be over-represented in expensive cars rather than cheaper cars. Poor people cannot afford to crash their car while rich people can.

Data released by the DOL and insurance companies does not match with your personal experience. There's a reason 18 year olds driving shitty cars pay through their nose for liability coverage.

I do not think a car crash is normally the result of a decision people make based on whether they can afford it or not.

Keep in mind that this study could just mean that people in expensive cars with higher incomes are less likely to be arrested/stopped by police.

Hmm.. The underlying studies (Baum, 2000; Eensoo et al., 2005) that found links between socioeconomic status and DUI/DWI did so by comparing those arrested against a control group – which I believe should deal with that concern?

I read it that way at first too but I think the reasoning is actually correct. The population of Tesla drivers will of course resemble the overall population of drivers but most drivers are not sleepy/raging/drunks and by extension “most people buying Teslas aren't part of” that group either.

To use an analogy: the average person has 1.9 legs but a product which results in its user having 1.95 legs is not an improvement for most people.

Wow. Excellent analogy.

Great analogy, thank you, ive been struggling to put this across

> Tesla owners absolutely can be habitual speeders, people who drive without sleep, road ragers, and drunk drivers.

The average Tesla owner may well be those things. But I know that *I* am not those things.

I know my own driving record well. I know my own accident history well.

So you don't have to convince me that Tesla is better than the average driver. You don't have to convince me that Tesla is better than the average Tesla owner. You have to convince me that Tesla is better than *me*.

Now, apply that same analysis to the 88% of drivers that think they are above the median [1] in terms of driving safety. It doesn't matter if I am _right_, it matters what I think about my relative driving safety.

[1] https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/1981-svenson.pdf

For your specific question, actuarial tables for car accidents/deaths are available publicly, and the profile for the typical Tesla owner (middle aged, high income, driving expensive sedan/SUV) is considered much safer than average.

Moreover it is true in general that most people driving aren't drunk or high, aren't reckless etc., and so most Tesla drivers aren't either. The number of accidents isn't uniformly distributed among the public.

More broadly though, I never said that zero Tesla owners (or any other specific car drivers) do any of these things, but that using autopilot with an above average safety record can still mean that the personal safety of an individual or group of individuals goes down. For the system to be a net benefit it has to be pushed to the below average drivers.

For an individual person to be willing to adopt autopilot on safety grounds, autopilot has to be safer than that individual person's driving, not just safer than the average person's driving.

If your driving skill is above the mean (because you're never a road rager, speeder, etc.), then you're worse off using Autopilot, even if Autopilot is as safe as the average driver.

Since most people probably consider themselves above average drivers (and in fact most people may be above the mean if the bad drivers are outliers), this limits the number of people who will believe that Autopilot makes them safer.

>I really don't understand why anyone would assume that Tesla owners are less likely to have those traits than non-Tesla owners.

I think it was a comparison to Autopilot rather than Tesla owners. Robot drives can't be drunk, don't need sleep etc.

Yeah, seems like a typo a GPT-3 would do.

The claim seems to be that Teslas do not drink before driving, not Tesla owners, right?

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