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Comment by matte_black | Hacker News Reader

No, that conclusion completely ignores the fact that the kind of people who buy Teslas are generally not the kind of people who drive unsafely anyway and die in terrible wrecks.

If you give every shitty driver a self driving Tesla maybe you would do something to make roads safer, but if you’re just giving it to higher net worth individuals who place greater value on their own life, you haven’t even made a dent in traffic safety.

In fact in some cases all you’re doing is making drivers unsafer because the autopilot encourages them to not pay attention to the road no matter how much you think they are watching carefully. The men killed in Teslas could have all avoided their deaths if only they had been paying attention. If I see a Tesla on the road I stay the hell away lest it do something irrational from an error and kill us both.

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Is there evidence for your better driver claim? https://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/the-rich-drive-d...

I do see some sources that claim rich divers get better insurance rates, but it is unclear to me if that is due to driving skill or a number of other factors that increase rates like liklyhood of being stolen or miles driven.

Seems like your first two paragraphs are amenable to analysis. Surely there is data out there that splits traffic accident statistics on income, or some proxy for income. Is a Tesla on autopilot more accident-prone than a BMW or Lexus? The numbers as they stand certainly seem to imply "no", but I'd be willing to read a paper.

The third paragraph though is just you flinging opinion around. You assert without evidence that a Tesla is likely to "do something irrational from an error and kill us both" (has any such crash even happened? Seems like Tesla's are great at avoiding other vehicles and where they fall down it tends to be in recognizing static/slow things like medians, bikers and turning semis and not turning to avoid them). I mean, sure. You be you and "stay the hell away" from Teslas. But that doesn't really have much bearing on public policy.

Drunk drivers, recklessly fast drivers, redlight runners, stop sign blowers, high speed tailgaters... those are the demographic you have to compare the Tesla drivers to. Do people who buy Teslas engage in those kinds of dangerous activities?

There was a recent news item about a Tesla driver who fell asleep at the wheel and who was allegedly over the legal limit:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tesla+driver+drunk+asleep&t=ffsb&a...

yes

Yes, that sounds like a pretty good profile of people buying expensive high-performance cars.

> Drunk drivers, recklessly fast drivers, redlight runners, stop sign blowers, high speed tailgaters.

Wait, so you are willing to share the road with all those nutjobs, yet you're "staying the hell away from" Teslas you see which you claim are NOT being driven by these people? I think you need to reevaluate your argument. Badly.

That even leaves aside the clear point that a Tesla on autopilot is significantly less likely to make any of those mistakes...

>That even leaves aside the clear point that a Tesla on autopilot is significantly less likely to make any of those mistakes...

What are you basing this on? Specifically how is it 'clear' and what data has shown this to be 'significant' ?

Elon Musk probably

I stay away from all these people. I have no illusions that a self driving Tesla is significantly safer.

I don't think a self-driving car is safe today but the fundamentals of machine learning seem sound so arguably they will become safer with every mile they drive (and every accident they cause).

My only concern is that there should be somewhat responsible people working on it (this means for example no uber, Facebook, linked in, or ford self-driving car on public roads).

But thinking about bit more, what if competitors shared data? Would that get us "there" (level 4+) at all? Would it be a distraction?

Well, this is pretty classist...

The reason why people buy expensive cars is because it is one of the ways in which they can quickly and quietly signal wealth or status. Cars are classicist, like it or not.

After all, how much better can a $500K supercar be compared to a $50K car? Definitely not ten times better, the speed limits are the same, seating capacity is likely smaller, there may be a marginal improvement in acceleration and a corresponding reduction in range (and increased fuel consumption).

Even having a car / not having a car is a status thing for many people (and it goes both ways, some see not having a car as being 'better' than those that have cars and vice versa, usually dependent on whether or not car ownership was decided from a position of prosperity or poverty).

>Cars are classicist, like it or not.

as a trained classicist, I take exception to the idea a car could do what I do

I meant it as an adjective, not as a noun (I'd have added 'a' in front). Is it incorrect?

You'd want "classist" if you mean prejudice against a class

Noted! Thank you.

Oh I don't disagree. Rather, I was responding to the assertion that wealthy people are better drivers.

Some of us just really like nice cars without signaling wealth. I recently bought a Hyundai Genesis even though I liked and could afford the better Mercedes Benz because I preferred to have a non-luxury brand. It's a New England thing.

I went from a two door Hyundai Getz to a Tesla because I wanted an electric car. Not to signal anything. I also couldn't wait for the Model 3 to come to Australia due to a growing family and a 4 door requirement.

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