[GFischer]

I don't know where you're getting that data, but it's incorrect, at least here in Montevideo, Uruguay, and in Brazil.

Source: I worked for an insurance company for 8 years, and part of my job involved updating casualty models.

There are a LOT of accidents, but most are fender-benders. I guess if you exclude those, yes, a serious collision occurs about those numbers.

[aetherson]

I admit that I have no idea what the accident rate is in Uruguay or Brazil.

In the US:

The Department of Transportation gets reports of one accident per 250k miles (roughly). It is broadly agreed that many accidents are unreported, with estimates of the true rate ranging from 1/200k miles to about 1/75k miles.

For example, this document from the US Department of Transportation:

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...

suggests 5,687,000 total crashes (including fatality, injury, and non-injury) in the US in 2013.

This graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA

puts total vehicle miles driven in 2013 in the US at 2,980,181,000,000.

So divide: 5,687,000 / 2,980,181,000,000

[GFischer]

Wow, yes, there are a LOT less accidents in the U.S. According to other statistics, there are 5 million accidents, for a population of 300 million. In Uruguay there are 50.000 accidents for a population of 3 million, and with a LOT lower average mileage per driver.

That's something we've discussed a lot here - there's NO way self-driving cars can go around South American streets - unless they learn to be very aggressive, beep the horn, cross streets whenever they can, shout and otherwise interact with other drivers.

And we mostly don't have highways. Americans drive a lot in highways, that must skew the per mile accidents.

I don't know how often accidents like fender-benders go unreported in the U.S. though.

[GFischer]

Before anyone chimes in, yes 5 million in 300 million is the same as 50.000 in 3 million.

What I wanted to mention is that there are a LOT more cars it the U.S., and the average US driver drives a LOT more than the average Uruguayan driver. (I'd have to look up hard numbers, but that's the gist of it)