RE: Why deploying less-than-perfect autonomous vehicles will save more lives?

mcb1 — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 10:08:43 GMT

Figures are easy to make suit any argument ... for or against.

Unfortunately the statisitics for "human errors caused 94% of fatal crashes" possibly don't explain why or how the accident occurred.

Car v Car, single occupant, multiple occupant, day v night, good conditions v poor, road condition or other mitigating factors all help to explain the cause, rather than simpy 'driver caused'.

We've already seen the "non-braking' of some vehicles, and without the human intervention it could have been bad for any occupants.

Are we likely to see any accident caused by an autonomous vehicle becoming a serious accident?

I know here, the investigations never centre of all the factors that contributed (unlike Air Traffic investigations) and while it's easy to always blame the driver, would it have happened if e.g the road surface was different, lighting was less dazzling, etc.

I have noted that as our vehicles have become easier to drive (and safer) the number of accidents hasn't gone down ... BUT it might be were're travelling more per year, or driving further and therefore these factors are making the figures higher.

It is certainly easier to drive a modern vehicle so you aren't as focused on the task of actually keeping it on the road as you might have been 25-30 years ago.

Our roading infrastructure is poor and certainly not designed to cope with the number of vehicles it is carrying.

Sadly rectifying or improving it is not seen in context with the human cost and it will continue until somethign is done.

Identfying accident "black spots" is hardly fixing the issue.

Crashes in cities also tend to be low speed, but they are also likely to involve multiple vehicle and side impacts, etc.

Pehaps some of these might be avoided, but will it result in more congestion as autonomous vehicles wait even longer for the perfect moment?

It is interesting times.

Cheers

Mark