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...the first death at the hands of autonomous vehicles will be all over CNN the first time it happens. There will be congressional investigations...

Why wait until then?

This is much like the news from earlier this year about Aspartame being renamed as AminoSweet, by its manufacturer Ajinomoto. There has been a growing awareness of the dangers of Aspartame, so renaming their product is presumably an attempt to confuse the public.

So now the same thing is being done by renaming high fructose corn syrup as "corn sugar," also presumably because of its bad reputation. I will be sure to watch for either of those new names when shopping, so that I can avoid products that contain either "corn sugar" or AminoSweet.

Here are a couple of articles about the renaming a Aspartame as AminoSweet:

• Beware AminoSweet, Toxic Aspartame's New Name
• Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener

I'm sorry, but if you actually hit the brakes in any car on the road it will come to a stop, assuming there is not a major mechanical problem (which would be relatively easy to discover after the fact). You don't need to switch into neutral or anything else to avoid an accident - you just need to hit the brakes.

Unfortunately for Mark Saylor and his family, you are wrong:

http://columbia.injuryboard.com/defective-and-dangerous-products/sudden-acceleration-issues-plague-toyota-and-lexus-owners.aspx

"As a result of the Saylor investigation, the NHTSA reported that:

        * it would require 150 pounds of pressure applied to the brake to override acceleration and stop the vehicle,
        * that there was no warning indicating that the engine start-stop button installed in this Lexus must be held for three seconds to shut off, and
        * neutral was hard to find on the shifter.

Evidence taken from the scene confirmed that brake pressure had been applied for a continued amount of time."

Please stop blaming the victims.

The problem is a lot of doctors, like a lot of slashdotters, think they're too smart to have to follow the rules. When they do, they get caught by the nurse, or the pharmacist, or the technician, or whoever else is working with them, and they often get fired for it. A degree is great and it means you have a certain amount of training and expertise, but it doesn't exempt you from the need to follow protocols and rely on the people around you for help and advice.

I assume that "they often get fired for it" is referring to the nurses, or the pharmacists, and the technicians, because doctors never get fired. As the old adage says, they bury their mistakes.

And here's some more evidence supporting the idea that "MDs think they're too smart to have to follow the rules": ... be sure to ask about a checklist, and don’t be surprised if the doctor is reluctant.

You have not posted a single link to support any of your arguments. You aren't even in the game.

 
Fine, I'll take the time to support the obvious with links.

Try this for drunk driver statistics.
For 2008:

11,773 deaths, or 32% of total auto accident deaths (37,261)

About 257,000 injuries

Most frequent BAC among drunk driver accidents that resulted in death, .16

40% of all motor vehicle fatalities are alcohol related

And now the cell phone statistics

For 2008:

6,000 fatalities and 500,000 injuries related to driver distraction (not necessarily cell phone related)

73% of drivers talk on cell phones while driving

Another Site

Estimates of the number of U.S. traffic deaths caused by cell phone talking while driving are generally in the 2,000 - 3,000 range with one hundred times as many injuries.

So lets see here. 73% of drivers talk on cell phone while driving, yet cell phone driving related deaths are about 3,000 a year and injuries let's say 300,000 a year.
 
I can't find any stats on how many people are driving drunk at any given time, but doing the math of 3 out of 4 people on the road causing 3,000 deaths a year with that activity, vs the > 11,000 drunk driving deaths a year, means that in order for cell phone driving to be "just as" deadly as drunk driving...well I don't feel like extrapolating it all out, but you get the point. Drunk driving deaths, injuries, etc are *SIGNIFICANTLY* higher when you compare the % of the populace who participates in the activity vs. the proven amount of death/injury/whatever that has been caused by it.
 
So there are your links and statistics. Anything else I can help you with today?

People believe that the bigger their vehicle, the safer they are. That perception has propelled the SUV industry into one of the fastest growing car markets in the United States. Unfortunately, that perception is not correct. SUV's, have a disturbing tendency to roll over which results in more serious accidents. Just about every make and model of SUV's have this problem...

What causes SUVS to flip and rollover? SUVs have a higher center of gravity because they are taller, have higher ground clearance and a narrower distance between their wheels. This higher center of gravity makes it easier for SUVs to tip over. In fact, the heavier the vehicle, which SUVs tend to be, the more likely the vehicle will tip over.

If you didn't mean what I said then I apologize.

However I see a problem with your post I replied to.
ANY reform on medical costs is worth it. several OB-GYN and and an anesthesiologist that I know (none with any previous issues) are paying over 100K/year for malpractice. That is outrageous.

According to more than one study medical malpractice adds little to the cost of health care, .5% is sited.

Falcon

Note that they have had a form of tort reform for medicine in Texas. and it has done nothing to curb the costs of medical care there.

Technically, the insurance companies add no value to the medical care that you receive. They act as a middleman collecting graft from both sides of the deal. Unfortunately, they are such a powerful lobby, that they have a stranglehold on congress (look at Lieberman promising to filibuster the bill - just a couple of years after he said he believed in universal coverage).

So, you have two things. A congress rife with special interests and no political will anywhere to do anything about them, and an unnecessary amoral (if not immoral) business demanding that they make ever increasing profits off the sick and healthy who they have not dropped off the roles yet.

This is why Republicans are so afraid of the public option - that it might actually work. The post office works pretty good for me, so their dire predictions seems pretty shrill. I think that it's unconscionable what they have done by sitting on their hands all these years and suddenly they come up with some pathetic plan involving tort reform that will do nothing for the millions that are uninsured. Not to mention all the Obama haters who are using numerous scare tactics to sway the uninformed. Worse yet, are those healthy people (who have a job and insurance) around who will fiercely tell you and me that there is nothing wrong with the system.

For me, they need to to do something to fix health care, and tweak the legislation down the road as it is needed.

omg chemicals are teh evilz

I'm sure the overwhelming quantity of available information on the dangers of chemical additives and pesticides in food has been planted only recently by the organic food lobbyists to sway the opinion of us ignorant plebes (kind of like how God put fossils in the Earth to trick people into believing that the Earth was more than 5000 years old). So good of you to point this out.

The higher price of organic food must also be a direct result of the organic food lobby. It certainly couldn't have anything to do with the true cost of pesticide-free food grown sustainably (which is what the fuck "organic" is supposed to mean, fyi). There is no way food grown in this manner could simply cost more to produce than pesticide-laden food grown in a manner that is environmentally destructive. Thanks for speaking truth to power.

Really? Because I see news references saying that the company was the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). If you go to their website, you can see that their full title is Peanut Corporation of America, Inc., indicating that they are a corporation, not a sole proprietorship. It doesn't really matter if a corporation is owned by one, two, or 10,000 people. The corporate culture and the legal protections that come with it still hold. You would have to be a fool to start a business and not incorporate.

When a kid screws up badly enough on the road there often aren't any second chances.

Top 20 Causes of Death - Older Teen (15 - 19), Teen Drivers Responsible for 31,000 Auto Accident Deaths

Schools get sued more than you think. Just the act of defending yourself is enough to drain valuable funds from a town. And one big successful lawsuit, especially if the town's insurer deems it not covered, can really impoversh a town. The threat of a lawsuit alone is enough to turn government agencies and businesses into pathetic nannies who have to point out the obvious dangers of everything so someone can't claim they didn't know better in court.

Now you can get sued if the curriculum doesn't make every single parent happy. Good luck with that! Lexington MA Lawsuit

While your asking programmers you may actually run into a business savvy person.
Can you ask if the contract process between in-country versus international is percieved as a potential problem or benefit of Indian based shops.

Currently the ability for corporations/persons inside Europe and North America to effectively sue under both tort , contract breach, and ethics breach is breaking down. Internationalizing commercial software exacerbates the prosecution situation.

Do the programmers/managers/entrepreneurs you meet feel that India has an effective legislative and justice body to protect their personal and corporate rights? Does India has an effective system to adequately respond to international requests for justice?

Given the fact that International lawsuits are very expensive and hard to enforce judgements across boarders for big crimes (humanity, slavery, trafficing, fraud, etc) how are small companies everywhere going to CYA [cover your arse] their hard cash currancy investments in India development shops?

What is the India's stance on Copywrite enforcment?
It it foreseeable that a SCO like travisty would happen cross boarders. It is also foreseeable that a "legitamate" accusation as in the Racecad/alibre situation.

I also would like to see what would happen in cases like the IBM S.K. bribery case. How effectively are Indian companies and government actually enforcing fraud laws?

Have Indian shops ever been stiffed for non-payment, late payment, under payment by a non regional company [Europe, US]? What was the costs and outcome of legal recourse?

http://www.injuryboard.com/view.cfm/ID=22

In order to win a lawsuit against another person or company for negligently causing you, your loved one, or your property harm, your attorney must be able to prove all of the following: 1. That the person you are suing, the Defendant, had a responsibility to act in a certain manner. Lawyers refer to this responsibility as a duty. Your attorney must show that it was the Defendant''s duty to act in a certain manner. For example, while driving a car, a defendant has a duty to pay attention to the road.

This would be perhaps the hardest part to prove. Does slashdot have a "duty" to warn someone before linking to them? Do DSL users have a duty to apply patches to keep their computers from spreading viruses? Surely these concepts will become more clear in the coming years, as these things start to get litigated.

2. That the Defendant in fact failed to act in the manner required.

3. That as a result of this failure by the Defendant to act responsibly (i.e., breaching his duty), you, a loved one, or your property was indeed injured or harmed in some way.

4. That you, a loved one or your property was actually hurt in some way.

If your lawyer can prove each of the above four elements, then you may win the lawsuit and the Defendant may be ordered to pay you money. However, even if your attorney can prove all four of the elements, the Defendant may have what attorneys call an affirmative defense. The bottom line is that your attorney must prove all four elements and the Defendant must fail in his attempt to show that he has an affirmative defense.