Slashdot Mirror

I am actually amenable to this idea in a twisted philosophical way, but the complexities surrounding autonomous vehicles are multi-faceted. In my original post, I basically lambast those who ignore the current status of AI development (replacing it with their imagination of what it could be in the future) and those who presume that driving is "easy" because so many people do it.

Beyond that is the actual financial issue. Let's say we can make a software system that could make decisions on the road at least as well as a 16 y/o driver with 3 months of driving experience. That hypothetical person is legally allowed to drive, right? So why wouldn't a similarly skilled AI? Let's also assume that this AI has similar observational skills (but using LIDAR, RADAR, video, sound, etc.), and has a similar reaction speed.

16 y/o drivers are still fairly dangerous drivers. Take a look here: https://aaafoundation.org/rate...

So, our "16y/o" AI still gets in crashes. Some people still die. But it's WAY BETTER than drunk drivers. Problem solved, right?

Not really. Because now, all of those liability from that property damage and bodily harm is centralized to a few very deep pockets. Right now, if a loved one is killed by an indigent drunk driver, you could TRY to sue him/her for damages, loss of wages, pain and suffering, etc., but you're unlikely to get anything out of the person. But if Waymo/Google/Alphabet are named as defendants in the case, you best believe that that every death will cost millions.

That alone is why companies don't actually expect to release and produce AVs in the mass market until they're not just "better than most humans" (which they're actually relenting as really, really difficult). What they know now is that they can't be released until they're nearly perfect or it just won't be worth the financial risk to the company.

Maybe on the interstate, but it's rarely a problem on the kinds of streets where you might encounter pedestrians.

Let's not forgot:

Results show that the average risk of severe injury for a pedestrian struck by a vehicle reaches 10% at an impact speed of 16 mph, 25% at 23 mph, 50% at 31 mph, 75% at 39 mph, and 90% at 46 mph. The average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph. Risks vary significantly by age. For example, the average risk of severe injury or death for a 70âyearâold pedestrian struck by a car travelling at 25 mph is similar to the risk for a 30âyearâold pedestrian struck at 35 mph.

Per: https://www.aaafoundation.org/...

So, 1.8% of an unlikely thing involves stalled cars

You didn't read the link did you? 1.8% of highway accidents are stalled vehicle which more often result in fatality. Where I travel there's an average 5 accidents per day. That would mean every 11 days there's an accident involving a stalled car. If you told me it's inconvenient to address the As someone who drives on the interstate, I frequently see cars on the side long enough to be tagged for impound with no evidence of being hit.

Maybe you travel a stretch that is less dangerous. City stretches tend to be more chaotic and law usually forces vehicles to accept the first tow.

The police routinely pull people over to the side of the interstate

Yes, and they follow a protocol to stay safe. They need to do this because highways are dangerous places to stop.

Even marked vehicles are in danger. 4-5 years ago 3 police officers with vehicles parked 2 feet from the line (on the shoulder) with their lights on got hit. This stretch of highway wasn't even chaotic and you could see for miles ahead.

More links to show you highway stopping dangers aren't a myth:
http://www.allenandallen.com/b...
https://www.aaafoundation.org/...

I know everyone is all over Uber and and the other one because the cars are "nicer" and the service "better" than cabs. But [...]

Um... isn't that enough?

Firstly, you're wrong about the liability.

Secondly, you are confusing the possibility of injury with its probability.

If the probability of injury is small and the cost of injury is also appreciably small, the expected cost of using Lyft or Uber may be much less than the expected cost of using a cab.

For an example, if a ride-share is $6 less than a cab fare, and if there is an average of 1 injury every 100,000 rides, then if the average injury costs less than $600,000 then it's a better deal for everyone to use the ride share.

Using this reference, cabs crash about once every 300,000 miles.

Also note, the number of crashes in regular driving has decreased dramatically over the last few years, probably due to increased safety measures in vehicles and modern roadway improvements (Denver Barriers around bridge supports, for example).

And in any event, most people have health insurance. At the very least, a significant portion of riders would have health insurance - enough to reduce the risk by a further factor of four or more.

SHELL GAME is where you can't win. CASINO GAME is where the odds are against you. Uber and Lyft seem to be decidedly in the passenger's favor.

Cue the irrational fearmongering reply: "unless you are the one injured, then how would you feel!".

That article (and many other half-baked clips that were popular earlier this year) was based on a very weak report by AAA. Weak because it relied upon self-reporting, rather than accident report statistics.

The more I read into it, it's just a mess. Graphs correlating phone use with internet use (no bearing on safety?), alcohol use during the last year with phone use during the last month, and importantly, correlates the frequency of car crashes over two years with cell phone use over one month. In that point, which should have been their most relevant, it even showed no statistical difference between the self-reported phone use of "once/rarely" and "often/regularly."

Here is a link to the primary source.

Handsfree phones should be required; anything else should be prohibited.

Hands-free doesn't help: http://unews.utah.edu/old/p/062206-1.html http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=cellphone

There are other studies to point to. Point is, it's not the distraction of the hands that's the really big problem, it's the distraction of the brain.

Maybe you mis-copied, but that second link is to a study from 1991. Hands-free cellphone devices hadn't really taken off yet, unless you count the classic image of someone with a phone duct-taped to their head. If you missed the 1991 date at the top of the study, one giveaway is right there in the second paragraph (emphasis mine):

What CB radios were to the '70s, cellular phones were to the '80s. From early 1984, when the first complete systems became operational, the number of cellular phone users has grown to over two million. By the mid-'90s, when cellular service will be available throughout most population centers in the United States, the number of subscribers is expected to grow to between ten and twenty million.

The first link is to a study from 2006. I got my first hands-free Bluetooth headset in 2007, and it was bit balky to use. My wife's new Fiat comes standard with a voice-activated cellphone interface, so there are no fiddly buttons to mess with. Technology has progressed a bit.

I'd really like to see a more recent study that looks at hands-free cellphone use and explicitly lays out variables such as 1) how much button-fiddling is required, 2) how much the driver has to look away from the road to operate the hands-free unit, 3) how much the driver has to look away from the road to operate the phone itself, and 4) a description of any instructions given to the driver during the test (to weed out the Mythbusters scenario described further up the page, where the drivers apparently prioritized conversing over driving).

Provide some of these statistics, please.

Okay. Cellphones are 8th whilst fiddling with the radio is the 2nd in AAA's stats on distracted driving crashes.

If they were really safety nannies, as you claim, then what sense does it make for them to not go after other sources of distraction as well?

Because going after something that is a magnitude less of an issue is like a construction site safety inspector worrying about people getting splinters rather than falling objects.

IMO, if you're doing something -- *anything* -- that distracts you while driving, you're a selfish asshole. If you cause an accident, even non-fatal, while voluntarily distracted, you should suffer a much larger penalty than just the ding to your insurance rates. Take responsibility for your actions and all that.

I don't disagree that doing stuff to distract yourself while driving is bad. I'd just find it stupid that these people are going solely after cellphones whilst there are other sources of distractions that are the causes of 10x or more of the distracted driving incidents. Again, if these people were truly pro-safety rather than just anti-cellphone where are their recommendations about passing laws to outlaw the actual major sources of driver distraction? Oh right, they aren't doing that because that's not what their agenda truly is.

I didn't say it was due to listening. It's due to fiddling with the radio. And my citation is the AAA

Distracted Driver Crashes
Outside object, person, event 29.4% (602 cases)
Adjusting radio, cassette, CD 11.4

Those are the top two issues. Cellphones are 8th at 1.5%. Now where are your stats?

Handsfree phones should be required; anything else should be prohibited.

Hands-free doesn't help:
http://unews.utah.edu/old/p/062206-1.html
http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=cellphone

There are other studies to point to. Point is, it's not the distraction of the hands that's the really big problem, it's the distraction of the brain.

My right to free speech includes updating my blog from the passenger seat.
But seriously why would anyone think it is OK to operate a nanny state?

Also there was a test almost 20 years ago about cellular phones and driving.
"Research has shown that use of cellular phones does not interfere significantly with the ability to control an automobile except among the elderly, where potentially dangerous lane excursions can occur."

But there are other studies, one shows hands-free doesn't help with the distraction part of the equation:
"The increased cognitive workload involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands, causes the increased risk."

Is chatting with your passengers a distraction too? I think logically, yes. It's possibly worse than using a cellphone because you might be tempted to make eye contact with your passenger, which would be even more dangerous. (I think we have all done this)

I see two choices, we either accept the small but significant loss of life that comes with civilians driving cars, or ban all private car ownership and leave it to the professionals.

I liked your response - I don't necessarily agree with some of it, but your response was pretty well thought through.

As of the writing of this post, I see 3 responses to my post and apparently I got marked down as a "troll".

I would encourage all who have posted about about what "studies" say to read:
http://www.aaafoundation.org/resources/index.cfm?button=cellphone

This is an actual study. While it does point out that cell phone usage is a problem, it is not the boogie man that some make it out to be.

The study found that drivers were most often distracted by something outside their vehicle (29.4 percent) followed by adjusting a radio or CD player (11.4 percent). Other specific distractions included talking with other occupants (10.9 percent), adjusting vehicle or climate controls (2.8 percent), eating or drinking (1.7 percent), cell-phone use (1.5 percent) and smoking (0.9 percent).

http://www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/index.cfm?button=disdrv

If you want to reduce accidents due to distracted driving, the best thing to do would be to look at the list of distracted driving causes and discourage each one of them (perhaps by outright outlawing, but that need not be the only option) from the most common down to the level at which the inconvenience is worth the risk.

i.e. don't set speed limits to 5mph and require all cars to be made by Nerf. A certain number of driving fatalities is acceptable in a functioning economy.

Now, If you're looking at the list just about the least common cause is cell phones. According to http://www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/index.cfm? button=disdrv the most common cause is events outside the vehicle, followed by the radio, followed by a few other inside-the-car activities, including eating while driving.

All of which, before cell phones, are very plebeian activities. Which ones get banned? Only the one with the class-warfare implications. It's an order of magnitude less common than changing a radio station and an order of magnitude less than talking to passengers, yet we haven't even suggested people should drive in blissful silence.

So who is protecting whom from what?

*I am not suggesting that cell phone use while driving shouldn't be banned, only that if we're not going to go after other far more common, and equally easily bannable, causes, that we as a society have de facto declared that the reduced risk isn't worth the nuisance.

Judging from the numerous articles (in this particular discussion) praising the fun of using an iPod within an automobile, I suspect that "adjusting radio/cassette/CD/iPod" will soon rise to become the 2nd most common cause of distraction, leading to even more automobile crashes.

If using an iPod causes a fatal automobile accident, will some victim of such an accident eventually try to sue Apple?

Here are some quotes from the first 4 google results for "ABS stopping distances" relating to cars:

In exchange for an increased stopping distance, the vehicle will remain stable and maintain full steering since the wheels won't be locked.

On very soft surfaces, such as loose gravel or unpacked snow, an ABS system may actually lengthen stopping distances.

During 1988-91, NHTSA performed two extensive series of stopping tests involving vehicles with four-wheel ABS, on various road surfaces. The tests confirmed that ABS was highly effective in preventing yawing and allowing the driver to steer the car during panic braking. Stopping distances decreased substantially with four-wheel ABS on wet surfaces, but decreased only slightly on dry pavement and increased considerably on gravel.

Under most conditions, a vehicle with a good anti-lock brake system can stop in a slightly shorter distance than an average driver could accomplish [but] that is not the main purpose of ABS, and the difference is generally not great enough to notice or be of any real use... ABS can actually lengthen stopping distances on some surfaces, such as loose snow, dirt, or gravel, because of effects that occur during locked-wheel skidding that are unique to those surfaces.

It's no wonder you wrote your comment anonymously. http://www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/index.cfm? button=disdrv and http://www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/index.cfm? button=distractII

Also, from http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/consumer-protec tion/cell-phones-and-driver-distraction-202/overvi ew.htm "It's conversation that drives this effect. When you're talking, you're impaired. ..There was no discernible difference between talking while holding a cell phone and using a hands-free phone." Note: the article implies a comparison to 'light' passenger conversation, that cell phone use is more distracting. The largest distractions in cell phone use is dialing.

End of the story? my ass. While it may be true in the majority of cases on a conversation by conversation basis, that does not make it true for every case. Also, unless you spend the entire drive on a cell phone, the duration of distraction is much greater for passengers (see first two links above). Being distracted and wrecking your car is not a new phenomena that began with cell phones.

It's no wonder you wrote your comment anonymously. http://www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/index.cfm? button=disdrv and http://www.aaafoundation.org/multimedia/index.cfm? button=distractII

Also, from http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/consumer-protec tion/cell-phones-and-driver-distraction-202/overvi ew.htm "It's conversation that drives this effect. When you're talking, you're impaired. ..There was no discernible difference between talking while holding a cell phone and using a hands-free phone." Note: the article implies a comparison to 'light' passenger conversation, that cell phone use is more distracting. The largest distractions in cell phone use is dialing.

End of the story? my ass. While it may be true in the majority of cases on a conversation by conversation basis, that does not make it true for every case. Also, unless you spend the entire drive on a cell phone, the duration of distraction is much greater for passengers (see first two links above). Being distracted and wrecking your car is not a new phenomena that began with cell phones.

The study found that drivers were most often distracted by something outside their vehicle (29.4 percent) followed by adjusting a radio or CD player (11.4 percent). Other specific distractions included talking with other occupants (10.9 percent), adjusting vehicle or climate controls (2.8 percent), eating or drinking (1.7 percent), cell-phone use (1.5 percent) and smoking (0.9 percent).