Meaningless statistics
Clark, in common with other speakers at the conference yesterday., emphasised the safety and societal benefits of driverless technology. Road fatalities in the UK are now 3,600 per year, compared to 6,400 in 1975. Given that 95 per cent of crashes involve human error, taking the human out of the equation will result in a massive drop in road deaths, the reasoning goes.
There are quite a few more drivers on the more congested roads now than there were in 1975 and road building has not kept up with demand, but even against all those odds, the figure is 50% less than back then. The vastly improved safety of modern cars also has a lot to do with things as we've got better at making them.
The bit that the stats glosses over is that "95% of crashes involve human error" - please remind me again who wrote the software for the automated death machines ?
I'm also prepared to be that the new "funky bubble" cars that keep popping up are a lot less safe in a crash than a modern hatchback or SUV.
I've been in charge of my body since a couple of years after I was born and if something is going to happen to me, then I want to be as much in control as possible. I don't want to become a statistic against bug number 3412-432, so don't expect to ever sell me one of these pieces of junk.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
