[ccallebs]

There are ~260 million automobiles on the road in America. There are a statistically insignificant number of self-driving automobiles. I _suspect_ that self-driving vehicles are going to reduce traffic accidents when deployed en masse. However, at the moment it's comparing apples and oranges.

[Fricken]

Toyota thinks they'll need 8.5 billion miles of autonomous driving before they'll have statistically useful data about the safety of autonomous vehicles. Of course, by the time anyone gets to the 8 billionth mile of driving, the technology will have matured considerably, rendering the early data moot. So it will be a long time before we can start making data based proclamations about how safe autonomous vehicles really are.

Escalator accidents kill 17 Americans a year. So I wonder if the average American travelled as many miles per year on escalators as they do in cars if the death/injury rates would be higher or lower?