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Waymos crash less than human drivers

(www.understandingai.org)
345 points rbanffy | 1 comments | 26 Mar 25 20:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.405s | source
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wnissen ◴[26 Mar 25 21:37 UTC] No.43487648[source]▶
Serious crash rates are a hockey stick pattern. 20% of the drivers cause 80% of the crashes, to a rough approximation. For the worst 20% of drivers, the Waymo is almost certainly better already.

Honestly, at this point I am more interested in whether they can operate their service profitably and affordably, because they are clearly nailing the technical side.

For example data from a 100 driver study, see table 2.11, p. 29. https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/37370 Roughly the same number of drivers had 0 or 1 near-crashes as had 13-50+. One of the drivers had 56 near crashes and 4 actual crashes in less than 20K miles! So the average isn't that helpful here.

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londons_explore ◴[27 Mar 25 06:18 UTC] No.43490833[source]▶
> One of the drivers had 56 near crashes and 4 actual crashes in less than 20K miles!

There would be a strong argument to simply banning the worst 1% of drivers from driving, and maybe even compensating them with lifetime free taxi rides, on the taxpayers dime.

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jillesvangurp ◴[27 Mar 25 07:41 UTC] No.43491240[source]▶
Nah, just revoke their licenses and make it much harder to get one to begin with. Autonomous driving removes the economic necessity of having one. Just get a proper car that can drive you to work. No need for you to do anything. Catch up on lost sleep (a common cause of accidents is people being to tired to drive) or whatever.

Expect to pay for the privilege of driving yourself and putting others at risk. If you really want to drive yourself, you'll just have to skill up to get a license and proper training, get extra insurance for the increased liability, etc. And then if you prove to be unworthy of having a license after all, it will be taken away. Because it's a privilege and not a right to have one and others on the road will insist that you are competent to drive. And with all the autonomous and camera equipped cars, incompetent drivers will be really easy to spot and police.

It will take a while before we get there; this won't happen overnight. But that's where it's going. Most people will choose not to drive most of the time for financial reasons. Driving manually then becomes a luxury. Getting a license becomes optional, not a rite of passage that every teenager takes. Eventually, owning cars that enable manual driving will become more expensive or may not even be road legal in certain areas. Etc.

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ChrisMarshallNY ◴[27 Mar 25 09:20 UTC] No.43491695[source]▶
Someone from Germany could confirm or correct this, but I have been told that if you get a DUI in Germany, your driver’s license is toast —for good.
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1. suyjuris ◴[27 Mar 25 14:02 UTC] No.43493790[source]▶
If you are caught driving above the legal limit of 0.05% you are fined roughly $570, are prohibited from driving for 1 month, and receive 2 “points”. Points accumulate and once you reach 8 you lose your drivers license. In this case you would keep the points for five years. Many different driving offences give you points.

For comparison, to get a similar penalty by speeding you would have to exceed the speed limit by 51 km/h (32 mph).

There are many additional related offences you could commit, with different consequences. Repeat offences to the above, for example, are punished more severely: you get 3 months instead of 1 and the fine is doubled and tripled for the second and third offence, respectively. Already with a blood alcohol level of 0.03% you risk legal consequences, e.g. if you make an error while driving. If you endanger someone else (or property) with that level you are committing a crime, will lose your license, and can go to prison. If you are in your probationary period (two years after acquiring your license), any nonzero level is an offence.

Losing your license is generally temporary. You are blocked from re-acquiring it for some time, depending on the offence (at least 6 months, but can be multiple years). You have to complete an MPU, which certifies your ability to safely drive. For alcohol based offences, this would include demonstrating that you have reduced your consumption significantly. This can be quite harsh; you may, for example, be required to show complete abstinence for a period of one year. Of course, you are also looking at costs close to $1000 for the MPU alone. It is possible to get permanently blocked from driving, but it's quite difficult, I believe.