General Motors’ Cruise says it’s suspending its driverless operations nationwide as the robotaxi service works to rebuild public trust.
Cruise has also previously maintained that its record of driverless miles have outperformed comparable human drivers in terms of safety, notably crash rates.
But is this actually true? I hate that they just printed this without any attempt to verify it. Surely some independent body has looked into this by now.
Driverless cars are certainly less error-prone overall than human operated ones. Distraction, sleepiness, intoxication, hubris, and other common “human error” causes of accidents are eliminated. Now we’re seeing, though, that human beings - even pretty average ones - are still able to make better judgments in unique situations.
Because the recent incidents have been so laughably stupid from a human perspective, the instinct is to doubt the accuracy of driverless cars in all situations. The robots are able to do the comparatively simple things extremely well. It’s just the more complex things they still have trouble with - so far. They’re still safer than human operators, and will only continue to get better.
I suspect there is something more to this than just that. After all, the car in question did this:
Earlier this month, a Cruise robotaxi notably ran over a pedestrian who had been hit by another vehicle driven by a human. The pedestrian became pinned under a tire of the Cruise vehicle after it came to a stop — and then was pulled for about 20 feet (six meters) as the car attempted to move off the road.
It seems like there are unsolvable safety problems going on.
