Cruise halts SF service as Calif. DMV shuts down driverless car permits::Driverless car firm Cruise is forced to suspend its service in San Francisco as the California DMV calls out safety issues.

  • burliman@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Driverless cars will have an impossible standard to live up to. California has 48.5 injuries per 100 million miles driven (and 1.4 deaths). Unless that is zero with driverless cars, then the public will see an unreasonable risk. Any single accident gets tons of press… I found it very difficult to find an objective injury rate for driverless cars. Probably because there are five levels of automation, and many of them allow human error to come into play. Also they are self reported by the driver companies.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Really sounds like it was more that the company tried to hide that their car started driving again with someone trapped underneath.

      • burliman@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, this incident and response makes more sense. But it is another case in point of the difficulties driverless companies will have. I drive a lot and I see the stupidest things. I’m sure we all have stories. With this story it is very easy to imagine a clueless driver doing the same.

        But the best way to avoid crashes is to be predictable. Isn’t much more predictable than a bunch of self driven cars with no emotions.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          True. But if a clueless driver tried to hide that they started driving again with someone trapped underneath, we view that as a criminal act.

          I could totally see and even understand not knowing they were under the car and so trying to clear the scene of the accident.
          It’s the specific attempt to obscure that it happened. If a human did that, loosing their license is basically the bare minimum I’d expect.
          This isn’t an issue with the technology, but an issue with the company not being able to be relied upon to develop the technology in public in a safe fashion.

    • theluddite@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      found it very difficult to find an objective injury rate for driverless cars. Probably because there are five levels of automation, and many of them allow human error to come into play. Also they are self reported by the driver companies.

      This is an important point but I think you’re interpreting it backwards. The current system relies on companies with a profit motive to do the testing internally, and the rest of us to trust their honesty and openness working with regularity authorities to make that rollout safe. They violated that trust,.

      Also fwiw companies used to publish their data on injury rates for their internal testing, and by and large they were way worse than humans. In the last couple years, they’ve mostly stopped reporting them. Afaik there doesn’t exist a single shred of actual, empirical evidence that we can make self driving cars actually better than humans outside of faith in technological improvement. Maybe that faith is warranted, maybe it’s not (I think it’s not), but either way, safety must be the number one priority. If these companies can’t be trusted to work collaboratively with safety authorities then we should pull the plug hard and fast.

        • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          below the rate for human drivers…

          As a human driver, you know you have zero free kills. Your car, with a rate below zero, must then be able to resurrect at least one dead person for free.

          • essteeyou@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            If the total number of road deaths decreases then it’s a net benefit, regardless of whether some were killed by automation or some were killed by human error. I just want the number to decrease. It will never be zero. Don’t make good the enemy of perfect.

            • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              total number of road deaths

              No, I wasn’t asking about any anonymous ‘total number’. Just you, specifically, and your car, specifically.

              • essteeyou@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You’re arguing for no self-driving until it’s perfect, which is insane, so I’m not going to bother responding further. I don’t want this to descend any further into a waste of time.

  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    testing its fleet in the city for years and offering paid taxi-style driverless rides for months.

    They took money for the testing?