Most Drivers Would Hand Keys Over To Computer If It Meant Lower Insurance Rates

Lucas123 writes "Most drivers would consider buying an autonomous vehicle if it meant their insurance rates would be reduced by 80%, a new survey of 2,000 licensed drivers found. Oddly enough, the survey by the online consumer insurance site Car insurance.com also showed that 75% of respondents think they could drive a car better than a computer. Another 64% said computers were not capable of the same quality of decision-making as human drivers. And 75% would not trust a driverless car to take their children to school. The survey also asked what commuters would be doing if a computer handled the driving: More than one-in-four would text/talk with friends; 21% would read; 10% would sleep; 8% would watch movies; 7% would play games; and 7% would work. The rest of those surveyed said they'd just watch the scenery blow by."

Comments

Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[Press2ToContinue]

If car auto-pilot is like auto-correct, we're all going to die in really funny ways. No matter what the results of this survey say.

Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[lgw]

"Lake street. No, no, Lake street. Aiiiiiiiii *splash*"

90% of people think they're in the top 10% of drivers. Ask if they feel safer with a computer driving, most will say no. Ask if they feel safer if everyone else had a computer driving, most will say yes.

Watch for this in the marketing when self-driving cars come to market (we'll see if Nissan hits their 2020 goal). The pitch will be all about ways it makes you safer despite you, personally, being the bestest driver evar. Plenty of ads showing loaning the car to your teenager, no doubt.

Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[anagama]

I think I'm at best an average driver. Whole stretches of the road seem to disappear and all I can recall is the story I was listening to or the thing I was thinking about. Anyway, I hate driving and would jump at the chance to be a passenger.

Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[s.petry]

"Hello, I am your new computer aided driver Ray Charles. Are you ready to boogie to a possible destination?"

Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[JustOK]

I'd say a little less than half are below average.

Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[Anonymous Coward]

That is why all of the cities will have to be replanned. "Take me to Sector 4, Zone 345." It will sound cooler and more futuristic too.

Re: Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[russotto]

I'm sure a computer could do it better as long as the gubmint doesn't regulate the crap out of it.

And there's a real problem. Would I turn my driving over to the computer if it's going to drive legally and conservatively? Not likely. In my state (and most of those I've been to), the speed limit is set to provide a more than adequate margin of error for half-blind idiots driving on bald tires in a blizzard. Nobody follows them (including said idiots, which is why they still crash). Further, the road is often full of hazards, obstructions, and idiots, some of which require one to take illegal actions (such as crossing into the opposite lane) to make forward progress. The computer couldn't do that.

Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[beelsebob]

Common misconception. It's actually entirely possible than 90% of drivers are above average... If 10% of drivers crash the very second they start the engine.

You can infer nothing at all about the percentage that are below average from that stat, beyond "it's less than 100%, and more than 0%".

Re:Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[JanneM]

Where I live (Osaka city), all my train and subway use - a daily commute and weekend trips in the area - cost less altogether than just renting a parking space for a car would cost for the same period. Then you'd add actually buying a car, paying taxes and insurance, fuel, maintenance, highway tolls...

We take taxis whenever we're in a hurry or the train is inconvenient, and we still come out way ahead of driving ourselves. In fact, I haven't actually driven for more than a decade, and only keep my license since it's a convenient form of ID.

Re: Flagrant Flatulism Posing as Reporting

[JanneM]

Once one car in ten or so is self-driving they'll act as pace cars and effectively force you to drive at the same speed and with the same care as they do. And since they keep detailed recordings of everything happening around them, you will get the blame for any incident if you tried to push the limits at the time.

And at that point, driving yourself has become a dull, monotonous exercize in boredom. So you might as well join the ranks of non-drivers as well.

lower insurance?

[Xicor]

lol... please... if everyone on the road had a robot driving the car, we wouldnt have need for car insurance. also, it isnt the insurance that would get me to have a robotic car, but the fact that i can play video games while it drives me places.

Re:lower insurance?

[a.d.trick]

Car insurance would still exist. Robot cars won't stop vandalism.

Re:lower insurance?

[stinerman]

We will not have a robot driving the car (or a computer) for a very long time.

People's cognitive biases are such that they overestimate the amount of risk involved in driving when they are in control (hence everyone saying they're above average in driving ability). Even then, there will be laws against such things. If, due to a software bug, 1 person died per day in a car accident, the cars would be classified as death traps in the media and in government. Of course, the fact that 32,367 people died in vehicle deaths in 2011 wouldn't matter. People will be able to handle 30,000 people per year dying due to driver error. They won't be able to handle 300 people dying per year due to software error.

Re:lower insurance?

[Obfuscant]

Yeah but a car that could self evacuate from a cyclone would certainly lower premiums by a lot more than 80%.

Do you have a citation that shows that such a large percentage of auto insurance claims comes from cars that are damaged in cyclones? For cyclone avoidance to cause such a large decrease in premiums, cyclones would have to create 80% of the damage.

You also might want to consider the liability created by an autonomous vehicle that "self evacuates" from any dangerous situation. The people it leaves behind when it decides to scoot out of danger may feel like suing the auto manufacturer for damages to them. You know how bad it will look for the big bad auto company when someone goes to court and testifies "When the warning horns started going off we picked up to leave. That stinking car had its own NOAA receiver, got the SAME alert before we did, and when the family and I went to the garage to evacuate that bugger had already left..."

Re:lower insurance?

[lordofthechia]

The car owner walks out with their family, a suitcase full of whatever clothes they can gather, food for the trip, toys, and of course the family albums.

A sudden panic overtakes him as he realizes his car is no longer where he left it. He frantically looks up and down the street to no avail. Finally he pickups up his phone to call the police when he sees a message:

Message from: FamilyCarAutodrive. Received at 8:01pm. "I told you motherfuckers I was out of here at 8'o'clock!"

Re:lower insurance?

[Obfuscant]

I think that once we start seeing driverless cars become mainstream, we'll see a development where it can avoid a pack of dumbasses with a spray can as well.

That would be a wonderful solution to the parking problem, especially for people with non-autonomous vehicles. When you get where you are going and can't find a parking space, pull a can of spray paint out of the glove box and all the autonomous cars parked nearby run away, leaving you a lot of spaces to park in.

I, for one.

[mcgrew]

Hell, I'd almost pay higher premiums for the computer to do the driving.

Computer vs human drivers

[c0d3g33k]

Another 64% said computers were not capable of the same quality of decision-making as human drivers.

That's right. Based on my observations of human drivers (not to mention traffic fatality statistics and the nightly "single vehicle accident" reports), the quality would consistently be better. Don't mod me funny, please. I'm not joking.

What's surprising about this?

[mishehu]

Think of what most people do every day in a car... They get into it, sit in a traffic jam for hours as their lives waste away. Having a computer-driven car would be the best of both worlds - the convenience of not having to drive yourself or pay attention to the road, coupled with the convenience of because able to go directly from point A to point B at your convenience. I too would opt for this convenience if it was a mature enough technology.

Re:What's surprising about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet! Let's apply (one sided) market principles to a captive audience in order to lessen the inconvenience on the more affluent. Once all of those annoying poor folk can't afford to commute to work, we won't have to wait behind them in traffic. If we want to keep chasing that revenue stream, we can re-engineer all of the routes for the sole purpose of maximizing revenue. We can pretend that's it's a free market by saying, "you can leave at any time."

Bonus points on the textbook application of rent seeking.

What is odd about those results?

[djmurdoch]

This seems to me to be a completely rational point of view:

  - I think I am a better driver than a computer.

  - I think insurance companies are not going to reduce my premiums if I let a computer drive my car, because I'm a safer driver than a computer would be.

  - You say they'll reduce my premiums by 80%? Well, maybe I was wrong, and I'll actually trust the computer to drive. After all, insurance companies aren't going to reduce my premiums by 80% unless the risk from claims is reduced by at least that much.

Re:What is odd about those results?

[stymy]

In fact, your local Department of Insurance wouldn't allow the insurance company to lower premiums by that much unless there was very strong evidence that the computers would cut claims by at least that. (Rules like that are so that Ponzi schemes can't disguise themselves as insurance companies. That is, a company could undercut all its competition massively without the regulations, and it could pocket big profits in the short term, but long term, as the bulk of the covered people die, and so forth, it would go broke.)

Re:people better than computers...

[ebno-10db]

No. Google's statements about their self-driving cars are just PR announcements. 300k miles without an accident (or whatever it is). No indication of driving conditions rain, snow, etc. Do the human drivers turn off the autopilot when they know they're approaching a situation it doesn't handle well? A good idea for safety, but a bad one for testing the cars. The truth is, we just don't know how good they are.

Reality check here

[volkerdi]

The question will actually be more like "would you keep driving manually if it meant 80% higher insurance rates?"

Re:Reality check here

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in this case it would be 400% higher.

No, read that again.

[Valdrax]

You mean people will choose to save money while increasing their overall safety if statistically proven?

You seem to have missed the part in which most people were of the belief that they would be decreasing their overall safety in exchange for more money. That's what it means when 75% believe that they would be better drivers for their children than an autonomous car and yet 75% would still take the money.

At the most extreme disjoint of the two sets, that means that 50% of people believe that letting a car drive their children to school would put them at higher risk, and yet they'd do it anyway for money. At least 2/3 of all the people who said yes, and it's likely more because there have to be at least some people who think it would be safer and who wouldn't do it in spite of the money for other unknown reasons.

That's kind of horrifying, actually, regardless of what you think about auto-drive.

Re:No, read that again.

[Obfuscant]

... and yet 75% would still take the money.

TFA says that 35% would "take the money". It says that 90% would consider it. Part of "considering it" is "would I let the car take the kids to school", and 75% say "no". That 75% have at least three options: don't buy an autonomous car, buy an autonomous car as a second vehicle (so they own two cars) and take the kids to school in the manual car, or replace their existing car with an autonomous car and home school.

The rich ones will have two cars. That won't save them on their insurance, it will actually go up. The poor ones will not be able to afford to have two, they'll have to pick -- and they'll probably keep the car they have because it is paid off and they can't afford a new one.

At the most extreme disjoint of the two sets, that means that 50% of people believe that letting a car drive their children to school would put them at higher risk, and yet they'd do it anyway for money.

TFA does not support that conclusion.

Re:No, read that again.

[Valdrax]

Ah, nuts. I got caught out reading the summary and not the article before posting.
When will I learn not to trust summaries...

So nothing would change?

[fox171171]

...what commuters would be doing if a computer handled the driving: More than one-in-four would text/talk with friends; 21% would read; 10% would sleep; 8% would watch movies; 7% would play games; and 7% would work. The rest of those surveyed said they'd just watch the scenery blow by."

So essentially the same as what most of them are doing now, based on casual observations.

Re: people better than computers...

[ColaMan]

It's not just blindly following maps with GPS, you know.

*Nav system*: Ok, now turn left here to get onto the highway.

*Vehicle Guidance*: Um, when I look to the left, there's an obstuction in the way. It goes on for at least 4 or 5 car lengths. Could be a railing or a wall or something. I can't see an intersection anywhere?

*Nav system*: Shit. Keep going and I'll re-route. I'll beep and let the passenger know that something's up.

*Vehicle Guidance*: Fuck me, Nav system, you had ONE JOB. Now we have to deal with the passenger who's probably on Slashdot as we speak posting about his crappy self-driving car wanting to drive him off a bridge.

Re:I like driving

[mhotchin]

The owner of the vehicle pays the insurance. It doesn't matter who's driving.

Re:Most Drivers Would Hand Keys Over To Computer I

[Skapare]

I told them I'd spend 100 minutes to save 100%. They didn't want to go along with that.

No fault is a lie in the US (by comparison)

[damn_registrars]

Ontario has no-fault insurance as the standard car insurance now. That means that if you're injured in a car accident, if you get a note from a doctor saying you need something, you get it pretty much right away, and the insurance companies sort out the liability between themselves

Many states in the US are defined as "no fault", however it doesn't mean what you just described. In the US, "no fault" means that a law enforcement officer will assign fault in the accident, and then the rates of everyone involved will go up. In contrast, in states that are not currently "no fault", a law enforcement officer will assign fault in the accident, and then the rates of everyone involved will go up. See the difference?