this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2025
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Current full self driving cars terrify me. Someone gets in a car, runs a red, shatters a grandma, flattens her dog, they can be held accountable. An officer comes and apprehends them. No big deal.
A software bug compels a waymo to do the same and the company apologizes, pays a fine, and continues its activity. Possibly before the end of the day. Executives are too immune to prosecution for e-taxis to be a reasonable proposition to me.
It's odd that the thing that terrifies you is that nobody is able to be punished. Grandma and her dog are dead in both scenarios. We want whatever will cause that scenario to happen the least.
I'd rather 1 grandma is run over without a clearly responsible party than 10 grandmothers be killed while 10 drivers are sent to prison.
A person who's not paying attention or drunk is always going to exist no matter how many grandmas are flattened. The software bug can be fixed and sensors can be improved.
Self-driving cars are the worst they will ever be and they will only get better. Human drivers are not going to improve.
Until it’s no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, companies will make their cars safer, I agree. That’s the summation of my reasoning. As companies attempt to relieve themselves of their need for humans, the math becomes murkier. “Because they’ve become safer over time, they’ll continue to do so indefinitely” doesn’t work for me.
Until it's no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, or regulation requires they make their cars safer, or a competitor decides to take market share by making their cars safer.
That's fine because that's not what I said.
Which of these do you disagree with?:
Human driving capability has shown no indication of improving.
Autonomous vehicle capabilities are showing indications of improving.
It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to recognize that these measures of performance will eventually intersect (unless you think there's something fundamentally special about human driving that is impossible to replicate).
In the specific locations and conditions that waymo is allowed to operate, they are absolutely safer! And I expect self driving cars to improve up to the point that they are economically incentivized to do so.
I’ll say again, I don’t disagree with you, I just need personal accountability to feel assured of the trend not being bucked, and I do not expect that to ever be on offer in the United States where money is equivalent to your voice