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Comment by spike021 | Hacker News Reader

The fact that this comment is a plethora of words trying to win an argument how falling asleep at the wheel shouldn't be considered unsafe is incredible.

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That's an ungenerous reading of the comment. They would agree that falling asleep at the wheel is unsafe.

We've designed a system, however, that is set up such that it's bound to happen sometimes. Not everyone can call in to work and tell their boss "sorry, I slept badly last night, I'm not coming in" or order a $60 Uber to get somewhere on a whim. Moralizing at people is just virtue signaling.

In one paragraph you've conveyed my point better than I could across multiple comments. This is the heart of what I was getting at.

This, and the fact that the HN demographic, mostly being techies, seem to be a bit disconnected from what real life looks like to 80%+ of the population of the world. A few instances per year of not coming in to work due to poor sleep or having to order Uber wouldn't just inconvenicence them - it would completely destroy their lives along with their children/families. People are doing what they need to do to survive and look after their loved ones.

That's quite a reach and a bad take.

I've only been in the full-time tech industry for about 3.5 years.

Before then I was working hourly jobs to make ends meet, including working half time or more while studying full-time in college, working during high school, etc. This so I could pay rent and tuition with minimal, if any, aid.

I couldn't even afford a car until after graduating from university.

I was walking or taking public transportation everywhere prior to finally getting a car.

I won't disagree that people in SV can be snobby but let's not jump to conclusions here.

In an earlier life, I worked in the trucking industry. If you refused to drive anytime you were fatigued, you would not be successful in the industry (one reason I am very glad to not be doing that anymore; it's also one of the most dangerous occupations out there, partly for that reason). I think that lots of the people here have never worked a non-privileged job in their lives.

I've seen the results of this first-hand when a big rig about 10 car lengths ahead of me on I-5 abruptly began moving from the right lane through the center median and into the lanes of oncoming traffic.

He slammed into a pickup truck and killed that truck's occupant.

I had to be called in as a witness of the incident by the victim and trucking company's attorneys.

I think there's a strong difference between (rightfully so) blaming the companies that force this environment and the people who are just trying to make a living safely.

If you can't drive safely; you can't drive. There is no middle ground. You may think it's fine to take a risk for yourself based on your costs/benefits, but it's definitely not fine to take a risk for others.

I'd point out that many things are not binary.

I agree that moralizing doesn't help, and that we should fully take into account "realities". But that also means you can't just assume autopilot will help you - it could very well be that having autopilot will end up making people to fall asleep at the wheel more often, and therefore increase the chance of accidents or severity of the accidents. We know for a fact that it does involve some trade off (see those people misusing autopilot and getting into accidents), and we simply don't know autopilot provides better safety overall.

There has been enough indirect evidence to suggest advanced driver assist without a significant driver monitoring is dangerous (Google's report of their employees doing other things, the fatal accident of Uber's self-driving vehicle, various fatal and non-fatal accidents of Tesla autopilot due to misuse), but there's been no systematic study and we don't have enough public data to suggest it's one way or another.

Nobody said it was safe. They merely pointed out that some people have to choose between safety and feeding their families.

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