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Comment by jazzyjackson | Hacker News Reader

I'm also of the opinion that automation is not compatible with safe driving. The issue is AI is able to handle the simple tasks first, trusting humans to takeover in outlier scenarios. But then, where does a new driver gain experience to handle the outliers?

We already went through this with airlines and decided to require pilots fly a certain number of hours without the automation, so when automation fails they are able to control the aircraft with some confidence.

As it is self driving cars are a luxury item for experienced drivers but I fear a future where a plurality of people panic when control is handed over to them once the computer determines the situation is too risky to continue on autopilot.

Some great backstory on automation in airlines is 99% Invisible's "Children of the Magenta":

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magen...

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We don't let 80 year old pilots with bad eyesight fly planes. We don't let pilots fly planes 15/hours a day for multiple days in a row. Pilots must pass tests every year.

If we are going to hold car drivers to the same training and restrictions that pilots are held to we will have far fewer drivers and much safer drivers. But it seems very unrealistic to think that will happen in a democracy. Realistically it seems that technology is the most realistic way to reduce deaths.

The overwhelming majority of mayhem on the roads is caused by the long tail of bad decisions made by humans who would be able to pass whatever dumb requirements you concoct.

Kicking the elderly off the road, throwing the book at the one guy who gets caught doing NYC-DC and back in a day and onerous regulations on equipment is fundamentally a waste of resources chasing a long tail and is going to do nearly nothing to actually affect things relative to the expense. Most of the problems are caused by people doing things they knew were risky and stupid at the time and did them anyway, breaking rules in an irresponsible manner, distractions, intoxication, etc.

Being applicable to a broad cross section of the actual problem is why low hanging fruit type stuff like AEB has such a big impact.

Really, though, the most straightforward technology to implement to reduce automotive deaths isn't self-driving or driving-assisting vehicles; it's to reduce the number of cars on the road, and the number of miles driven. Given that people will still want to get places, it makes sense to replace cars with safer options such as trains (more buses would help, though not as much).

It would cost trillions of dollars to rebuild our cities in a way that car driving isn't necessary.

So? It cost trillions of dollars to rebuild them in such a way that car driving is necessary. Most cities had functional public transportation before cars reached the tipping point that pushed cities into car dependency[1]. In the mean time, a lot of slack could be taken up by buses, especially by converting existing lanes into dedicated bus lanes.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_dependency

We don't let them fly a commercial flight, but they absolutely could fly their own Cessna.

I’m not arguing we be equally strict, I’m arguing we don’t allow self driving to take over the majority of our hours at the wheel.

But yes, I also think we are much too liberal in handing out licenses and the roads could be twice as safe by removing the bottom 5% of drivers. At least require a portion of the driving test on expressways, as it is you do a written test that you know what the signs mean and you drive around the block proving you know the gas from the brake. Unfortunately because you can’t get around most places in America without a car, we consider it an inalienable right to drive.

We can also have people drive less and have more public transport and riding E-bikes etc.

Cars aren't the solution to all problems.

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