By definition nearly half of us are better than average drivers. Given that driving well is a matter of survival, I’ll take my own driving ability over any autonomous vehicle until they’re safer than 99% of drivers.
I mean, that’s an obvious one.
But how much better would it need to be? 99.9% or 99.9999999999999999999999%, or just 99.01%
A lot of people will have qualms as long as the chance of dying is higher than zero.
People have very poor understanding of statistics and will cancel holidays because someone in the vicinity of where they’re going got bitten by a shark (the current 10 year average of unprovoked shark bites is 74 per year).
Similarly we can expect people to go “I would never get into a self-driving car” when the news inevitably reports on a deadly accident even if the car was hit by a falling rock.
And then there’s the other question:
Since 50% of drivers are worse than the average - would you feel comfortable with those being replaced by self driving cars that were (proven to be) better than the average?
Given that I have no way of communicating with the driverless car and communication is often important to driving, I’d rather the kinda bad driving person. I can compensate for their bad driving when I spot it and give them room. Or sometimes i can even convey information that helps them be safer while they’re not paying attention. I’ve definitely stopped crashes that didn’t involve me using my horn.
There’s no amount of discussion or frantic hand waving that will alter the course of an automated vehicle.
I think you are optimistic about communicating with the worst percentile of drivers, but can’t argue with your reasoning
discussion or frantic hand waving
I don’t think drivers are supposed to communicate like that… but it raises a better question: how is a cop directing draffic, supposed to communicate with a driverless car?
If there is no mechanism in place, that’s a huge oversight… while if there is one, why didn’t use it in this case?
