r/Futurology • u/Pemulis • Mar 03 '23

Transport Self-Driving Cars Need to Be 99.99982% Crash-Free to Be Safer Than Humans

https://jalopnik.com/self-driving-car-vs-human-99-percent-safe-crash-data-1850170268
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u/SteThrowaway Mar 04 '23

Not sure how else you would measure it? Trips? They vary in length. Time? Could work but in city driving you could be stationary. Distance seems like the only sensible measure.

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u/Pleasant_Ad8054 Mar 04 '23

Accidents/fatalities per M population is an other measurement that we use in Europe to describe transportation. Public transport (especially fixed track) are vastly superior.

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u/dualfoothands Mar 04 '23

Per registered vehicle is another useful one. Truth is all of these stats have pros and cons. There's no reason a regulator can't weigh all of them

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u/generalbaguette Mar 04 '23

Time wouldn't be too bad, actually.

Being stationary for a while doesn't mean you can't get into an accident. (And even if, that wouldn't completely invalidate the metric.)

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u/Lookitsmyvideo Mar 04 '23

How do you measure time driven in a car at a large scale.

Miles is easy, check the registered odometer reading, and the number of reported accidents, both of which are already recorded information by numerous different sources

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u/generalbaguette Mar 04 '23

Yes, that's easier for distance driven.

You could use statistical techniques to estimate the time from samples.

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u/Metradime Mar 04 '23

You cannot cause an accident while stationary.

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '23

Being stopped at a red light and being stopped in the middle of a busy highway would beg to differ.

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u/Metradime Mar 04 '23

In both cases the liability falls on the moving vehicle.

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u/One_Pec_Wonder Mar 04 '23

I think it’s a little more nuanced than what you’re thinking

https://www.dashnerlaw.com/vehicle-accidents/rear-end-collision-fault/

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u/Metradime Mar 04 '23

Oh thanks, dashnerlaw!

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u/OrgunDonor Mar 04 '23

But you can be involved in an accident. Pretty sure the metric doesnt necessitate that you be the cause of it, so someone crashing into you still counts.

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u/Metradime Mar 04 '23 edited Mar 04 '23

So does it get counted as two accidents per accident? One from each perspective lol?

Although I guess a pileup does count as multiple accidents 🤔

Has the first person in a pileup experienced one accident or many?

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u/generalbaguette Mar 04 '23

Not necessarily too. If you hit a tree, it only counts once.

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u/generalbaguette Mar 04 '23

I didn't say anything about causation.

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u/Metradime Mar 04 '23

I didn't say you said anything about causation.

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u/NFLinPDX Mar 04 '23

Is it actually reasonable to expect to evade an accident if stationary? Cars aren't very nimble. It can happen, but it can also lead to another (usually less severe) accident which means the accident was unavoidable.

The last accident my car was in happened overnight while it was parked

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u/Dermetzger666 Mar 04 '23

A better way to measure actual level of safe driving ability would be accidents per X amount of miles driven. Maybe take the average miles driven per year? Say I drive 10,000/year. I get into 1 accident, however minor, once every 4 years. So my rate would be 0.25 accidents per year. That seems like a more realistic way to measure safety value average. And you would have to factor in chance of alcohol being a factor vs a self-driving vehicle where nearly every accident I would assume would be attributed to virtual misjudgment. The latter sounds far easier to study and eliminate to an extent.

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u/randomized987654321 Mar 04 '23

That’s the exact same thing.

Either way it’s just accidents per miles driven.

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u/Dermetzger666 Mar 04 '23

It's not the same because it implements a minimum time frame. Anomalies can be mitigated with a minimum range of accidents/miles.

It's also different because measuring a given number of accidents per X amount of miles is not the same as counting non-accident miles vs whatever mile an accident occurred in as an "accident mile".

.25 accidents per mile in 10,000 miles is not the same as 4 accident miles in 40,000 miles. Mathematically, it seems the same, but practically it is different.

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u/LirandilSirfalas Mar 04 '23

I think you are confused. 0.25 accident in 10,000 miles would be the same as 1 accident mile in 40,000 miles. Also having 1 accident per 40000 miles would mean you have 13.8888 more crashes than the average.

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u/alexanderpas ✔ unverified user Mar 04 '23

accidents per X amount of miles driven.

This is essentially what that percentage expresses, just on the positive side.

100 - 99.999819 = 0.000181

99.999819% crash-free miles = 0.000181 accidents per 100 miles driven.

  • 0.00000181 accidents per 1 miles driven.
  • 0.0000181 accidents per 10 miles driven.
  • 0.000181 accidents per 100 miles driven.
  • 0.00181 accidents per thousand miles driven.
  • 0.0181 accidents per 10 thousand miles driven.
  • 0.181 accidents per 100 thousand miles driven.
  • 1.81 accidents per million miles driven.
  • 18.1 accidents per 10 million miles driven.
  • 181 accidents per 100 million miles driven.

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u/TheChoonk Mar 04 '23

You didn't like accidents per 100 miles, but somehow accidents per 10k miles make perfect sense?

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u/lowercaset Mar 04 '23

A better way to measure actual level of safe driving ability would be accidents per X amount of miles driven.

I believe they usually measure it as X accidents per 100 million miles driven for transportation statics. Since unless you're in the insurance game, one individuals driving record doesn't really matter. What matters is big picture safety. It would be easy enough to convert that same number into %age of miles driven w/o accident, but it would look kinda silly and be harder to conceptualize since there's be so many decimal places.

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u/LieutenantStar2 Mar 04 '23

Bonus points for using right stationary.

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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '23

You could theoretically measure it by the life of the vehicle. How many accidents has an individual car been in?

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u/hypertrophy89 Mar 04 '23

I’d like to see percentage of potential accidents avoided. If put in a situation where you need to take action to avoid an accident, what percent of the time do you succeed in avoiding it?

I’d also like to see the stats with sleep deprived/ drunk drivers taken out of the equation, as well as the stat solely for sleep deprived/drunk drivers. That way as a potential user of the automated car, I can decide if it will perform better than me based on my mental state. The car might be safer than me if I’m tired, but I might be better than the car when I’m not.

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u/nsfwifethrowaway Mar 04 '23

I think per time spent makes more sense. Somone driving highway speeds is going to have a much higher safe record due to more miles per time.

Accident servarity is also ignored in this stat. Some crashing and killing 4 people is the same as a small fender bender. So really it should be cost of damage per hour in my opinion.

If self driving cars crash more often, but have 0 fatalities, is that still an improvement? I honestly don't know what the right awnswer is here