The life-or-death case for self-driving cars

The studies are in, and self-driving cars are a good idea.  We should remain skeptical.

Waymo did a study of the safety performance of its autonomous vehicles over the course of 56.7 million miles driven in Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco.  Here’s what they found:

Compared to human drivers, the Waymo self-driving cars had:

  • 81 percent fewer airbag-deploying crashes
  • 85 percent fewer crashes with suspected serious or worse injuries
  • 96 percent fewer injury crashes at intersections (primarily because Waymo detects red lights faster than humans)
  • 92 percent fewer crashes that involve injuries to pedestrians.

That all sounds good, and maybe it’s true.  The study doesn’t address regions were there might be significant leaves or snow on the street.

Articles like this don’t address ownership of the self-driving car.  A Waymo car costs a quarter-million dollars and needs significant tech support.  This is not compatible with private ownership, but is aligned with the World Economic Forum’s plan for the future.

Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better,

Articles never address the resilience of the self-driving car.  What happens if there is a power outage in the area?  If the data link is dropped?  If a sensor malfunctions?

The safety statistics do look good, but deployment should be cautious.  The Village, in Florida is an age-restricted community with an area of 35 square miles.  Try it out there. 

Pick a few compatible cities to offer evening taxi service to bars and nightclubs.  A self-driving car is certainly better than a drunk or sleepy patron.  That would be good for the bars and nightclubs.

Get Waymo working in the best-case situations for five years, then we can look at expanding.