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Self-Driving Cars In California: 4 Out of 48 Have Accidents, None Their Fault
An anonymous reader writes: The Associated Press reports that 48 self-driving cars have been navigating the roads of California since the state began issuing permits last year. Of those, only four have been in accidents, and none of the accidents were the fault of the autonomous driving technology. Seven different companies have tested autonomous cars on California's roads, but Google, which is responsible for almost half of them, was involved in three of the four accidents — the other one happened to a car from Delphi Automotive. All four of the accidents happened at speeds of under 10 mph, and human drivers were in control during two of them. The Delphi accident happened when another car broadsided it while its human driver was waiting to make a left turn.
The AP pieced together its report from the DMV and people who saw the accident reports. But critics note that there aren't direct channels to find this information. Since one of the chief selling points of autonomous cars is their relative safety over cars piloted by humans, the lack of official transparency is troubling. "Google, which has 23 Lexus SUVs, would not discuss its three accidents in detail." Instead, the company affirmed its cars' accidents were "a handful of minor fender-benders, light damage, no injuries, so far caused by human error and inattention."
The AP pieced together its report from the DMV and people who saw the accident reports. But critics note that there aren't direct channels to find this information. Since one of the chief selling points of autonomous cars is their relative safety over cars piloted by humans, the lack of official transparency is troubling. "Google, which has 23 Lexus SUVs, would not discuss its three accidents in detail." Instead, the company affirmed its cars' accidents were "a handful of minor fender-benders, light damage, no injuries, so far caused by human error and inattention."
Perhaps you would like to read the story somewhere other than the NYT because paywalling is stupid and offensive, even if you know how to bypass it. Thanks, Seattle Times, for just showing me the flipping article.
Here's a news flash: You can get the same AP newswire article anywhere. Yet people still link the NYT. That's poor internet etiquette given that they paywall.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The fact that of the 4 accidents that happened, none of them were the car's fault is more significant than the 10% rat.
When any specific humans has 4 accident driving cars, on average exactly 50% of them were caused by that specific human. If I drove long enough to have 4 accidents and none of them were my fault that would be significant evidence that I am a far superior driver than the average human
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Accident rate in general: 4-5% Accident rate so far with only 48 vehicles: 8-9%
Ah, no, the meaningful rate is accidents per miles driven, not per car. These cars are driven constantly (for testing, data collection, etc), surely way more that twice the average.