
Self driving cars crash five times as much as regular ones - abhianet
http://fortune.com/2015/10/29/self-driving-cars-crash/
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coldtea
> _Still, in spite of the self-driving cars’ high accident rate, the
> University of Michigan study did not contradict the conclusions of Google
> GOOG 0.56% and the DMV: The authors agreed that self-driving cars were not
> to blame in any of their crashes_

That's little consolation when you've just crashed.

And it basically translates in that they're not very good (compared to humans)
in handling active crisis situations on the road, where another driver took a
bad turn, there was some obstacle, etc.

> _Finally, self-driving cars actually have a lower fatality rate, with zero
> deaths resulting from their crashes_

Obviously, since they have not driven even 1/100.000 of the miles that regular
cars have had.

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panglott
[https://www.vox.com/technology/2015/10/30/9640230/self-
drivi...](https://www.vox.com/technology/2015/10/30/9640230/self-driving-car-
crashes) "Most of the accidents happened because another vehicle rear-ended
the self-driving car. Self-driving cars have not been involved in any head-on
collisions, and crashes involving self-driving cars were less likely to cause
injuries than crashes involving conventional vehicles — just two out of 11
crashes led to injuries, compared with 28 percent of conventional vehicles."

It's hard to say "you've crashed" when you've been rear-ended.

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abhianet
IMHO autonomous driving systems still do not mix well with humans on the road.
Could even say they are not compatible with each other. With how things have
been going, soon we would have systems predicting behavior of human driver for
safer driving. But by then, roads will have humans, systems predicting human
behavior and systems released between the two without prediction.

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collyw
I am of a similar opinion. People have been talking about self driving cars
for years, but for some reason as soon as people hear that Google is
developing them its assumed they will be a reality in the near future.

Likewise there is lots of talk about automation of jobs, which in a way is
happening, yet at the same time we seem to be working harder for more hours
than 20 years ago.

~~~
panglott
[https://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9567289/driverless-truck-
rio-...](https://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9567289/driverless-truck-rio-tinto)

~~~
collyw
From the article: "The big difference is that the mine setting offers a huge
advantage that most companies can't match — there are no human drivers on the
road."

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panglott
The article title is poorly written: the cars were at fault in none of these
accidents. Most of these accidents were cases where the self-driving car was
rear-ended.

