The Slow Approval of Self-Driving Cars Is Costing Lives
A recent news story gave the anti-self-driving car pearl-clutchers some ammunition, although it was more comical than tragic. In West Hollywood last month, a goofy sidewalk-delivery robot collided with a robotaxi at around 4 miles per hour. There obviously were no injuries and neither vehicle was damaged, although writers had a field day depicting this as a preview of the coming dystopian war between robots.
Critics of autonomous vehicles, or AVs, can fixate on nonsense if they choose, but widespread legislative efforts to limit the development of these vehicles actually endanger us given that robots are much better drivers than human beings. They’re not chatting on cellphones, fussing with the radio, or distracted by crying children. They are more attuned to surrounding traffic—and can “see” much farther ahead than the average driver. But fear of the unknown often drives policy.
Granted, I used to share the “isn’t that cool, but I’m not getting into one of those” view as I’ve watched Waymo robotaxis covered with futuristic-looking cameras and lidar sensors zip around San Francisco. Then I grabbed a ride in one in Phoenix and was shocked by the non-shocking nature of the experience. It was like taking any taxi—except the car was a nice Jaguar, I could play my own music and I didn’t have to listen to the driver’s political theories.
The taxi ride from my hotel to tour Waymo’s operations center south of downtown actually was a bigger ordeal as the human driver got lost and took me miles out of the way. The robotaxi drove carefully. I’m not saying things can’t go wrong, but they can go wrong when riding in any vehicle. Accidents in traditional taxis and other human-piloted vehicles aren’t exactly an unusual occurrence.
News reports also made a big deal out of a minor robotaxi accident in San Francisco, even though there were scores of human-related car accidents the same day. The latest peer-reviewed research from Swiss Reinsurance Co. found that robotaxis “significantly outperformed…the overall driving population” with an 88-percent drop in property-damage claims and a 92-percent drop in bodily-injury claims. Insurance research tends to be extremely reliable as insurers need to
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