Based on tesla's safety report [1] it's already less dangerous than letting humans drive (alone). The error rate of human drivers tends to be downplayed, while the perceived risks of automated driving is exaggerated, distorting the picture.
Yes, it's a hard problem, yes we are not nearly there and there is a lot of development/research to do. Yes, accidents will happen during the process. But humans suck at driving and kill themselves and other people daily. It's the least safe form of transportation we have.
The gross human fatal accident rate is ~7 accidents per billion miles in the US, including fatalities caused by incompetent or irresponsible drivers, and substantially lower in Europe. But humans drive a lot of miles
Based on Tesla's safety report, 'more than 1 billion' miles have been driven using autopilot. Given the small data sample and the fatalities already attributed to autopilot, I think we're some way from proving it's safer than letting drivers drive alone, never mind close to being a driver substitute.
>> After accounting for freeways (18%) and intersections and junctions (20%), we’re still left with more than 60% of drivers killed in automotive accidents left accounted for.
>> It turns out that drivers killed on rural roads with 2 lanes (i.e., one lane in each direction divided by a double yellow line) accounts for a staggering 38% of total mortality. This number would actually be higher, except to keep the three categories we have mutually exclusive, we backed out any intersection-related driver deaths on these roads and any killed on 2-lane rural roads that were classified as “freeway.”
>> In drivers killed on 2-lane rural roads, 50% involved a driver not wearing a seat belt. Close to 40% have alcohol in their system and nearly 90% of these drivers were over the legal limit of 0.08 g/dL.
I don't think people give enough attention to whether broad statistics actually apply to cases of interest. That's about 40% of all driver fatalities occurring on rural non-freeway roads, of which 35% (~14% overall) were legally driving drunk.
People compare various fatality rates associated with riding an airplane vs driving a car all the time, but I've never seen anyone point out that an incredibly simple mitigation you're probably already doing -- not driving on non-freeway rural roads -- lowers your risk of dying in a car accident by more than a third. And it gets even better if you're not driving drunk!
If you measure driving quality in terms of fatality rate, it is actually the case that almost everyone is better than average. A lot better than average. But public discussion completely misses this, because we prefer to aggregate unlike with unlike.
You’re committing a logical fallacy here. Avoiding driving on those roads is only a mitigation if the accident rate is highly disproportional to their usage.
If half of all driving occurs on highways and half doesn’t, and half of all accidents are on highways, then avoiding highways will have absolutely no effect on your accident rate.
It’s possible that driving on these roads leads to a disproportionate accident rate, but you haven’t actually said that.
True. I think there's plenty of non-statistical reason to believe you can reduce your risk of death by not being one of the 50% of drivers involved in accidents on those roads who weren't wearing a seat belt or ~35% who are over the drink drive limit though.
> You’re committing a logical fallacy here. Avoiding driving on those roads is only a mitigation if the accident rate is highly disproportional to their usage.
You're right in spirit. I actually addressed this in passing in the comment "an incredibly simple mitigation you're probably already doing". Rural roads carry less traffic than non-rural roads for the very obvious reason that most people don't live in rural areas. The disparity is documented: https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/traffic-safety-...
We can also note that freeway vehicle-miles (excluded from this rural roads statistic) are going to be an inflated share of driven miles precisely because the purpose of the freeway is to cover long distances.
But as to the specific number I provided ("more than a third"), you're on target in accusing me of a fallacy.
That report is comparing humans driving in all conditions vs autopilot driving in only the best conditions. Humans are deciding when it is safe enough to turn autopilot on. So no, it is not less dangerous.
That's not what the report is comparing at all. The report is comparing all vehicles driving in all conditions vs Teslas driving in all conditions (separate for with and without autopilot).
The numbers show that Teslas experience a lower crash rate than other vehicles. Granted, this can be to a number of reasons including the hypothesis that humans deciding to buy Teslas drive more carefully to begin with. And the numbers show that turning on autopilot further reduces crash rates.
This at least tells us that letting the vehicles with the automated driving and safety features on the road doesn't increase the risk for the driver and others, which was the original premise I responded to.
There's a million hidden variables here that could explain the difference:
- The mechanical state of the car (Teslas with autopilot tend to be new/newish vehicles, and thus in excellent mechanical shape)
- The age and competence of the driver - I'm guessing people who make enough to buy a Tesla are usually not senile 80 years olds or irresponsile 18 year olds
- Other security gizmos in Teslas that cheaper cars may lack
Overall, it would be more fair to compare against cars of similar age and at similar price point.
I think the tricky part is that at some level you want to be comparing counterfactuals. That is, accident rates of Teslas on autopilot with a driver of Tesla-driver abilities, in road conditions where the accidents occur, and so forth.
It kinda seems self evident that a car that drives you into a wall randomly is less safe than one that doesn't.
I grant that Teslas might be safer than eg a drunk driver, and so we might be better off replacing all cars with Teslas in some sense, but we'd also be better off if we replaced drunk drivers with sober ones. But would safe, competent drivers be safer, and would that be ethical? At that point are you penalizing safe competent drivers?
Drunk drivers in Teslas are actually interesting for me to think about, because I suspect they'd inappropriately disengage autopilot at nontrivial rates. I'm not sure what that says but it seems significant to me in thinking about issues. To me it maybe suggests autopilot should be used as a feature of last resort, like "turn this on if you're unable to drive safely and comply with driving laws." But then shouldn't you just not be behind the wheel, and find someone who can?
Beware of the No True Scotsman fallacy. A human who drove into a wall could not possibly have been a Safe, Competent Driver, could they? A True Safe, Competent Driver would never drive into a wall.
Unless you're serious about bringing the bar way up for getting a driver's license, I think it's fair to compare self-driving technology with real humans, including the unsafe and incompetent. In most of the world, even those caught red-handed driving drunk are eventually allowed to drive again.
Is there any chance that tesla is lying with statistics?
A fun example, someone was selling some meat, he said it is 50% rabbit and 50% horse because he used 1 rabbit and 1 horse. The conclusion is when you read some statistics you want to find the actual data and find if statistics are used correctly, most of the time as in this case the people doing the statistics are manipulating you.
There was an article about a city in Norway with 0 deaths in 2019, if I would limit my statistics to that city only, to that year only I will get the number of 0 people killed by human drivers.
Yes, it's a hard problem, yes we are not nearly there and there is a lot of development/research to do. Yes, accidents will happen during the process. But humans suck at driving and kill themselves and other people daily. It's the least safe form of transportation we have.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport?redirect=no