> Of course we all want a safe and responsible rollout of this tech, but people too easily forget how ABSURDLY dangerous driving is already.
I don't really understand how this meme gets so much traction. It just ignores the enormous number of miles driven by Americans every year. Last year, Americans drove 3.22 trillion miles. There were about 6 million accidents, or 500,000 miles between accidents. (Or about 37 years of driving at typical rates). Driving results in a death every 85 million miles traveled.
Driving is actually very safe. Conversely, because it is so safe, it wouldn't take much to dramatically increase accident rates from driving.
I don't really understand how this
meme gets so much traction.
The trick is to compare driving deaths to other things where we had a much bigger (or smaller) reaction relative to the number of lives lost.
For example, tell someone "cars kill as many people as twelve September-11th attacks every year" and they might wonder where the trillion-dollar war on road deaths is.
On the other hand, tell someone "heart disease kills 17 times as many people as cars every year" and you'll give them the opposite impression.
I guess many of us have such an inflated sense of self-importance that we think we can save humans from themselves, without stopping to think who will save everyone from crappy software.
I don't really understand how this meme gets so much traction. It just ignores the enormous number of miles driven by Americans every year. Last year, Americans drove 3.22 trillion miles. There were about 6 million accidents, or 500,000 miles between accidents. (Or about 37 years of driving at typical rates). Driving results in a death every 85 million miles traveled.
Driving is actually very safe. Conversely, because it is so safe, it wouldn't take much to dramatically increase accident rates from driving.