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Comment by thatwasunusual | Hacker News Reader

> humans generally have a crash, whether they are at fault or not, every 700,000 miles. Tesla has 7 in probably ~300,000 miles

This is the important part.

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Human drivers that are at fault face repercussions that affect the rest of their lives. Robot drivers that are at fault face repercussions of a minuscule fine and a "sorry... again" press release.

In practice drivers don't face repercussions proportional to the real impact because all of police, prosecutors and a potential jury see themselves in the driver as they too are likely drivers.

If you do something dumb and it kills another person, there's an excellent chance you get tried for manslaughter and a decent chance you go to jail. Unless it was in a car, then it's just a "car accident" and most likely you won't even be arrested because well, you were driving a car, sometimes killing people just happens right?

Exactly. I can accept those cars not being perfect, but I can’t accept them performing worse than human drivers.

But humans are operating under the conditions not feasible for those cars. There is winter start in Germany with rain turning to snow and blizzard with poor visibility plus ice on the road. Humans still drive, vision only system will fail in first minute.

And that changes what I said in what way? If cars aren't as safe as people (including in those conditions), they shouldn't drive. But once they match us, waiting for them to be perfect is a waste of time.

That means, that accidents of humans happen anytime and everywhere. While robotaxis cause accidents in less harsh conditions making statistics not really comparable. On the other hand statistics say that most accidents happen in summer: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/crashes-b... My bad.

I guess I can't accept them not being perfect. Lacking accountability, they have a much higher bar in my mind to replace human drivers.

The human number seems iffy. 700,000 miles is about what the typical driver does in a lifetime and they tend to have more than one crash. Maybe for professional drivers working? I've had several crashes and still usually qualify for the cheapest insurance group. Some of the minor ones aren't worth reporting - it's cheaper to just fix the car or ignore the dent.

And that is with professional safety drivers. Give humans a professional safety co-pilot and compare numbers with that...

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