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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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If he gets a slap in the forehead by the side of a truck that he drives into at 80mph, no amount of self insurance will keep him alive.

Life is about choices. Make poor choices, experience potentially poor outcomes.

(130k+ miles driven on Autopilot, no stranger to system limitations)

What if he hurts other people? Those considerations are also part of life.

Then he hurts someone and/or himself, just like you can’t stop any other driver out there with a license to pilot thousands of pounds of vehicular manslaughter. We have, in aggregate, decided to accept this risk for the benefit of mobility.

This seems like bizarre philosphical cover for someone recklessly injuring or killing someone else, which obviously is not accepted socially, morally, or legally.

I think you’re really over-risking Elon Musk (whom I loathe) and Autopilot and not understanding that on a day to day basis you will deal with drivers who are far, far more dangerous than Elon with Autopilot without the nudges. Don’t mistake a dislike for a rich guy seeming to get something others can’t have with actual risk assessment.

> Don’t mistake a dislike for a rich guy

Maybe you shouldn't try to read other people's minds. :)

I didn’t, I just read the comments. It is completely and utterly unremarkable that Elon Musk has the “don’t nudge” version of Autopilot. It’s not a news story. It’s not a safety hazard. It’s not worth even commenting on.

But since we are here because “Elon something something” it’s important to point out that it is unremarkable and being worried or even considering that to be a safety risk is very silly. Once you realize how dangerous driving in general is and how batshit crazy many drivers are, you would also realize Elon and his car is not a story or fact that is worth discussing.

Let me put it plainly: if you find yourself thinking about or concerned with Elon Musk driving a car, as soon as that thought enters your mind you should instead think about the tens of thousands who die every year in the US alone from pointless car crashes with or without driver assistant technology and stop letting yourself be distracted by actual problems and instead help find ways to get people out of their cars so we can save lives, decrease obesity, and increase wealth.

Here I thought the ultimate promise of autonomous self driving cars was to eliminate this kind of logic.

Well, if he sits behind the wheel of a car like he runs Twitter... maybe time to change a few things for my 2024 bets.

Fuck anyone who thinks that wealth should enable one to willingly endanger other road users.

I don't care if people want to drive dangerously (handsfree or otherwise) or if they want to test experimental features. But the minute they become a danger to other people, they can fuck right off the road. I'm sure Elon can afford to build a private road somewhere where he can do whatever he wants.

The wealth doesn’t enable it, it simply pays for the consequences. Plenty of poor and middle class people who willingly put others in harms way every day (DUIs, distracted driving, etc), they just have nothing to take or minimal wealth to confiscate for doing so.

You’re mad at Elon for letting the robot take the wheel, but he can pay for the harm you think he’s causing (real or not). 26% of Floridians have no auto insurance, for example. Creditor law protects their homes and retirement accounts (without limit in most cases!) from seizure (if applicable). When they cause harm (intentionally, willingly, or otherwise), the counterparty is simply fucked. What are we going to do about those people? Same as Elon: nothing. At least FSD hasn’t killed anyone like your average human driver does every day.

I don’t condone the risk appetite, but I understand it.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crash-death-est...

https://www.tesladeaths.com/

No, the wealth does enable it: if wealth allows you to buy yourself out of irresponsible behavior then you are much more likely to commit that behavior if you are wealthy.

Whether wealth or creditor law, if you have nothing to lose, that is what is incentivized. This is a policy problem, you won’t fix the human. This policy is likely to not change in any material way (US centric). Liability limits are engrained in the US, and the lability calculus is what drives behavior and responsibility.

There are people who behave responsibly even if they would not be liable if they behaved irresponsible and caused harm. Some people have moral and ethical systems that play a bigger role in deciding their behavior than how much liability they would face.

Indeed, but these people are not the subject of our discussion.

You are not disagreeing then.

I'd like to see some actual numbers on that, because I flat-out don't believe that claim.

When the punishment for the thing is effectively 0, you dont understand why people are more likely to do the thing?

If speeding tickets were reduced to 0, do you think more or less or exactly the same amount of people would speed?

> When the punishment for the thing is effectively 0, you dont understand why people are more likely to do the thing?

You're making several bad assumptions that nullify whatever point you were trying to make: that the punishment is the only thing that controls how often someone violates the law (other factors include culture and internal morals); that the punishment is "effectively 0"; and that the converse of "much more likely" is not "no difference".

wait, 26% of florida doesn't have car insurance?

How are their cars not impounded? even if I'm not driving, if the car isnt insured, there is a chance it'll get impounded.

moreover, if I'm caught, its a hefty fine plus points on my license.

They're poor, in a state with abysmal public transport. It's not like they're driving uninsured for kicks. So do you think the state of Florida wants to lose >26% of their workforce? Often the lowest-paid workers are the most essential, taken as a whole anyway.

no no, I totally get that. Its not a comment on poor floridians, it more a comment on the state of the State. Its a sign of a dysfunctional state that fails to enforce a basic safety feature.

There's a chance it'll get impounded if you get pulled over or something and a cop checks your (lack of) insurance. I imagine that's a rare scenario for Floridians; otherwise the rate would approach 0%.

Everybody (ex. [1]) seems to point to IRC [2] but they seem to say around 20% and I think the actual study is paywalled.

Whats really interesting is it sounds like in Florida you insure yourself and if you receive an injury then you file a claim against your own insurance who then pays you. As opposed to receiving a payment from the person who hit you.

> [1] Instead of mandating BI insurance, Florida requires drivers to purchase personal injury protection (PIP) insurance and property damage insurance. An injured driver is often limited to making a claim against his or her own PIP coverage. The coverage pays 80% of medical bills and 60% of lost wages, up to $10,000.

[1]: https://www.rite4justice.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-uni... [2]: https://insurance-research.org/

You have to be careful when attacking cult leaders on HN. The masses will immediately jump in to protect their beloved leader, and will have readily available arguments for it. You know, they will beat you with experience.

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