Autonomous vehicles are great at driving straight
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
You have to read the whole thing to understand that the implication is false.
SAE Level 4 self-driving vehicles (those capable of full self-driving without a human at the wheel) performed especially well by several metrics. They were roughly 36 percent less likely to be involved in moderate injury accidents and 90 percent less likely to be involved in a fatal accident. Compared to human-driven vehicles, the risk of rear-end collision was roughly halved, and the risk of a broadside collision was roughly one-fifth. Level 4 AVs were close to one-fifthtieth as likely to run off the road.
So if you ignore all the horrific accounts of Tesla FSD casualties because Tesla is Level 2, not Level 4, then AVs are already saving lives.
Level 4 AVs are worse at dusk and dawn, better in rain and fog, worse when making turns, better at staying alert with no fatigue, better at staying on the road.
For a convincing comparison, remove all those human accidents caused by intentional violations / reclessness, looking at their phones, and known but ignored medical conditions. And compare again.
On average we might be safer with all-AV traffic. But we might be even safer by removing the most dangerous drivers and allowing the rest to continue to drive manually. That's the capability of automation to aim for, not the average human.
As with most systems involving human error, improving the humans has a limit if their livelihoods do not depend on strict adherence to the rules (and even then, you get violations!) The most complete way to remove human error is to remove humans.
On top of that, jail time is minimal and people with suspended licenses obviously still drive because you need to in order to live.
Of course? While I can get behind mixed development attitudes that integrate walking and biking systems with publix transit, cars will always be necessary. It's foolish to think cars are a scam on the earth - not every errand or trip can be walkable or covered by public transit or even affordable for a family.
But unless you only go out at dusk and dawn, you should be glad that these particular level 4 systems are controlling cars.
In the scenario given, your risk is lower. What do you not like?
If you think the numbers are wrong, that's reasonable. But this thread of conversation was based on taking the numbers at face value.
What the article shows is the obvious: overall machines perform better. As you would expect from something that doesn't suffer from tunnel vision, fatigue, distractions, alcohol abuse, etc and has really good reflexes and responsiveness. Of course self driving cars aren't perfect. But neither is their human competition. And the cars are pretty good already and getting better over time. These numbers are not exactly set in stone.
Also the circumstances where accidents are more likely to happen are also where people struggle. And of course getting cars to do better under those circumstances might be solved with technology. Better sensors, more cautious routines that adapt to visibility, etc. Or simply deciding to not drive based on the risks. That's a decision that humans are very bad at. Human drivers taking unnecessary risks is why people get stuck in winter storms and other bad weather. Going on the road when authorities are broadcasting warnings not to is exactly the kind of moronic behavior that gets people killed.
As for FSD, it gets a lot of the press but there are quite a few self driving taxi programs now operating in a growing number of countries and cities. That's all level 4 autonomy of course but mostly rollouts are going fine. People that have taken Waymo rides seem to mostly enjoy it. I think restricting the driving areas for these things has more to do with liability than technical risk at this point. But the more cities manage to deploy this stuff fine, the less of an argument there is to block it elsewhere.
The article—and the repository for the dataset—are also pretty vague on just what the conditions were for the autonomous vehicles being measured. Were they being kept in areas that their manufacturers know is safe and within their capability to drive well? Were they being taken out on arbitrary roads? Back roads? Dirt roads?
The article doesn't mention snow. Were they being driven in the snow at all? When the lines on the road—and even the whole road itself—are covered with a uniform sheet of white, barely any markers to indicate where there's road and where there isn't?
Were they being driven in construction zones, where you're explicitly asked to drive across and outside of the lines?
I'm very well aware that once self-driving cars are able to handle arbitrary conditions like this even as well as an average human, they'll be amazing and save many people from serious injury and death. I'm genuinely looking forward to a future where I can get in the car and tell it where I want to go, then relax the whole way—not least because I know that one day, I'll very likely be frail enough not to be able to safely drive myself anymore.
However, I'm deeply skeptical that so-called level 4 autonomous vehicles are truly capable of all this without a human driver at this point in time.
It's also worth noting that AV companies have done snow testing. Waymo specifically tests in Tahoe. None of that data is publicly available for us to even discuss, though.
Simple: because I live in an area where these conditions are common, so self-driving cars will be 100% useless to me until they can solve it.
I am glad that they are starting to be feasible in areas without as many different road conditions, but until they can handle the conditions in my area, I can only benefit from them extremely indirectly.
...And furthermore, because it is frustrating to see people talk about "self-driving cars working in normal driving conditions and being ubiquitous" (which hasn't happened in this thread that I've seen, but I've seen it a bunch in the past) when what they really mean is "self-driving cars working in SF and a few other limited areas in the US Southwest". It just reeks of a lack of concern for anything outside Silicon Valley—which is a depressingly common problem on this site.
There have been various testing and public deployments across the southern half of the US, not only California and the Southwest. Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida all come to mind, plus Pennsylvania due to CMU. The deployments in California and Arizona are the most mature, but they're not the exclusive focus.
I'm not going to get into the bits about silicon valley, because frankly that's not a terribly interesting conversation to have.
If it's not SF or NYC, it barely matters to most HNers, which is rather annoying to see. It very much obviously causes a heavy bias and arrogance since there's no realy balance to the areas outside those two metros.
Those companies dont give a flying f** about you or your snow.
They want to create autonomous taxi for a city and monopolize the public transport.
They might be producing PR materials about private self driving cars. But they don't want that, its silly. They want to own all cars and rent them to as many people as possible.
To me the whole argument is a pointless.
I’m a bit skeptical that there is enough data for a meaningful comparison at this point. Humans can and do drive in significantly more exciting situations than Waymo, and that’s probably going to remain true for a good while yet.
I know it won't drive on the highway, and I've also heard it avoids unprotected lefts.
(Many other hard problems of course but unprotected lefts are something that drivers face multiple times a day in often ambiguous situations.)
Personally, I don't consider it remotely similar to a trolley. Aside from the obvious, there's not many differences between a Waymo and a good Uber within the service areas. You call a taxi and it shows up to drive you, unprotected lefts and all.
Math is the only thing that is like what you’re describing.
They are good at: going straight, not killing people, staying on the road, entering lanes, rain
They are bad at: dawn/dusk, turns