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Comment by EamonnMR | Hacker News Reader

> Most people aren't particularly good drivers. Indeed the vast majority of lethal accidents (the statistics are quite brutal for this) are caused by people driving poorly and could be close to 100% preventable with a properly engineered FSD system

I'm gonna take issue with this. A properly engineered FSD system will refuse to proceed into a dangerous situation where a human driver will often push their luck. Would a full self driving car just... decline to drive you somewhere if the conditions were unsafe? Would this be acceptable to customers? Similar story for driving over the speed limit.

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This is something I've wondered about when it comes to no-steering-wheel type self driving cars...I'd hate to get caught in a snowstorm in the middle of nowhere and have my car just decide for me that it was too dangerous to proceed and pull over to wait it out.

I think it's very clear that we /could/ engineer an automotive system that is much safe, even without self-driving tech, by modeling it on the aviation system: much more rigorous licensing requirements, certifications based on vehicle type, third-party traffic control, filing "drive plans", obsessive focus on reliability and safety. It would look a lot different from the current system, and there is no political will to get there, but the thought experiment shows that we /could/ prevent most car accidents.

It's usually not black and white. Sometimes the safe way could simply be to reduce speed, change lanes pre-emptively, etc. And when an emergency situation does happen, reaction speed is key. Good judgment is doing things in a timely fashion and decisively. A distracted human would drop the ball on both fronts not realizing they are in danger and then doing the wrong thing or act too late or overreact.

That's how people get killed on roads. Early experience with self driving taxis seems to suggest that journeys are uneventful and passengers stop paying attention and leave the driving to the car. So, yes, they quickly accept that the car is driving the car just fine.

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