We have umpteen checks to ensure drivers are as safe as they can be. Deaths in the US from driving have come down from around 120 a day in 2000 to around 90 a day now.
In the UK, it's about 8 deaths a day from driving. The road network is now eight times safer per mile travelled than it was in 1966.
Just for comparison, around 400+ people die each day in the UK from cancer.
Instead of wasting a ton of money making robotic driverless cars because it sounds good, I'd invest that money straight into cancer research.
Deaths in the US from driving have come down from around 120 a day in 2000 to around 90 a day now.
In other words, one 9/11 every month. I refuse to believe that's as safe as possible.
I'd invest that money straight into cancer research.
Well, you'd have to look at the marginal benefits. Cancer research already gets lots of funding; it's unlikely that a relatively small percentage increase would result in drastic improvements. If we're going down that road, I'd rather invest in SENS and try to knock out all age-related diseases in one shot.
I'm a bit surprised at the opposition to this. I'm much more libertarian than average here, but I recognize that driving is by far the most dangerous thing I do on an average day. If automated cars can mostly eliminate that danger, I'd have no problem requiring them on public roads (or strongly encouraging them via insurance premiums). Plus, saving lives is only one of the major benefits. Look at rush hour traffic: ideally, automated vehicles would eliminate traffic jams, and even if not they would still allow commuters to do something productive or entertaining instead of slowly inching forward.
Why waste a ton of money on cancer research that has a good chance of saving no lives, when you can invest money into driverless vehicles that are guaranteed to save lives?
Riight.. And your uber-safe automatic car is able to react if I, the stupid pedestrian (or worse, because I'm faster, biker) cross a road without looking.
No matter how fast you react, if you go at reasonable speeds and I'm the idiot, you're going to hit me (kill is optional). I think that's what your parent poster was trying to say (because that way it is a sensible argument). Whatever you implement in vehicle safety: If I'm able to throw myself in front of the thing in the last moment, hopefully because I'm a moron and not intentionally, then no technology on earth can avoid the accident.
Unless... You want to add mandatory robot bikes and robot shoes...
I'd argue that a self-driving car can take actions that a human drivers would not be capable of performing...
First of all, it will have much quicker reactions - and in accidents, those extra milliseconds do save lives. Secondly, it can take calm reactions where a human would panic. For example, if a parson started stumbling around drunkenly on a highway, with human drivers zooming past at 70mph a deadly accident is guaranteed. With self-driven cars, it's not that unreasonable to assume that they will be able to spot the person some distance away and change lane to shift around him or her. It might cause a slow-down in traffic around that area, but there's a good chance the whole incident can happen without accidents.
In the UK, it's about 8 deaths a day from driving. The road network is now eight times safer per mile travelled than it was in 1966.
Just for comparison, around 400+ people die each day in the UK from cancer.
Instead of wasting a ton of money making robotic driverless cars because it sounds good, I'd invest that money straight into cancer research.