We don't have to ban self driving cars. We just set the success criteria at zero deaths. If companies want to spend money pursuing it believing they can hit that goal that's on them.
We have around 38,000 deaths a year on US roads. We already accept significant risk to maintain the status quo.
Sensible legislation is needed to balance innovation and safety for self driving cars on public roads, but not zero. We don’t even accept zero pedestrian hit and run deaths yet…
California, Texas, and Michigan legislators have already bought in to the benefits that these companies will bring.
There's multiple alternatives to driver-driven cars that result in many fewer excess deaths. They've been trialed and deployed in many countries very successfully. You may know of them by common names such as "buses", "streetcars", "trains", "metros", or even "people movers". There's nothing wrong with innovation but we do not need to put self-driving technology on a pedestal when there are alternatives that exist today that move people around that have none of these externalities. If entities want to innovate, let them innovate within safety parameters.
We could also set the speed limit to 5mph and limit cars to 10hp. That would save a lot of lives. The reason we don't is because some deaths are worth the cost.
>If entities want to innovate, let them innovate within safety parameters.
Sure, but the safety parameters have already been established[0] at 40,000 deaths a year, or less, for transportation equivalently convenient and functional as compared to a manually-driven car.
> We could also set the speed limit to 5mph and limit cars to 10hp. That would save a lot of lives. The reason we don't is because some deaths are worth the cost.
Are you saying that, despite transit alternatives that do not lead to excess deaths, that deaths due to self-driving cars is worth the cost? We have existing solutions that don't result in these excess deaths, but because of some reason, we don't want those solutions _and_ we want to kill more people just to birth this technology? _Why_?
> [0]By the crowd-sourced wisdom of democracy.
... Which bill are you talking about? I don't remember my Rep or Senator voting on allowing me to be a casualty of the self-driving industry. The fact that automobiles in the US result in 40k deaths is itself a travesty. Even Canada is doing better than the US here. Pointing to the worst driving safety record in the G8 and one of the worst in the G20 isn't exactly proof positive that the American automobile system is safe, it's just proof that we have grandfathered an extremely unsafe system here.
>We have existing solutions that don't result in these excess deaths
The existing solutions <As chosen by the collective will of the American people> cause 40,000 dead Americans every year. Other 'Solutions' are not. Don't ask me why they are not, ask your neighbor, and your congressman -- but they are not. Also ask yourself how many collective minutes spent waiting for a bus is a traffic fatality worth? This isn't rhetorical, the answer is a number.
>Which bill are you talking about?
Lets start with the United States Department of Transportation, followed shortly thereafter by your state's department of transportation.
>it's just proof that we have grandfathered an extremely unsafe system here.
All the reason why a potentially new system should have to meet the safety standard of 'less unsafe' and not 'perfect'. Literally every day the adoption of self driving is delayed kills 109.6 people[0] because that's one more day of the status quo. To save lives we should be damn near throwing people in front of Teslas to help them train instead of wringing our hands over the matter.
[0]As much as, divided by the relative eventually safety of a fully developed self driving. As Americans, more globally of course.
I'm confused. Is the only way forward private automobiles? Did the creation of the Department of Transportation ban the creation of transit?
Americans choose automobiles because of zoning laws mandating massive setbacks and minimum parking requirements. There's nothing in the DoT or my state's DoT that mandates use of a car. It's all due to American city planning, which is driven by auto friendly city planning policy. So again, why is transit out of the question here?
Self-driving cars aren't an incremental improvement away. We have no idea how many more deaths are needed to mature the technology. So why are we bending over backwards for it when there are proven solutions to move people without casualty? If self driving can innovate without casualty, then be my guest.
> To save lives we should be damn near throwing people in front of Teslas to help them train instead of wringing our hands over the matter.
The unstated assumption in this is that self-driving is feasible with current technology and without enough training will be better than human drivers.
That's a strawman. You can make private automobile ownership much safer and more convenient by building transit. What you're implying is that "forcing everyone to use public transit" is bad, so we need to sacrifice a couple thousand people for self-driving cars? My argument is that we can put much more stringent safety requirements on automobile users. If self driving cars can meet those requirements, then be my guest. Why are you willing to bend over backwards, to the point of endangering others, just to avoid public transit or other proven safe technologies?
Riots in the streets? That happened in France when the government increased the price of diesel. Imagine what would have happened if the government had tried to ban cars entirely!
If a state government or the US Federal government tried to ban cars, they would be out of power very quickly, even in the most liberal parts of the country.
Yes and I'm pretty sure if you let everyone know they're going to be enrolled into a massive experiment to test beta self driving software upon themselves with or without their consent, then they're going to be rioting also.
Because the technology is a non-starter and will never work unless accepted terms of public safety are redefined in its favor. "Just draw a bigger bullseye!"
of course it's not, it just increases expense, but that should be offset by the potential reward of a true breakthrough. it will change the innovation path yes but it's not a ban
Impossible standards are equivalent to bans, and zero deaths is an impossible standard.
All of the companies that are testing self-driving cars have had accidents with other cars and pedestrians. Some of them resulted in death. Others did not, but easily could have, and eventually their luck will run out and they will also cause deaths.
Who would invest millions of dollars into developing a technology when a single mistake could flush all that money down the drain?