[xmzx]

> They already do this with everything else. Vehicles like Mercedes and Tesla are significantly safer than some competitors. Legislation sets the floor, not the ceiling. Or at least it shouldn't create a ceiling.

I think the difference is those are, for the most part, internal safety features for the car's driver and passengers, whereas self driving effects mostly people not in that automobile. Sure, there are some features in cars that aren't, but for the most part, a driver knows (should know) their vehicle, and someone driving a 1978 station wagon and someone else driving a 2018 Volvo won't make that much of a difference on the roadways. Driving a car with a bad autonomous mode vs. a car with a good autonomous mode could be a significantly bigger difference for pedestrians and other drivers than older and newer cars.

[NeedMoreTea]

2018 will be much heavier, bigger, with poorer visibility thanks to huge crash and rollover resistant A, B and C pillars. It will also have passed the pedestrian impact tests and have enormously better brakes and handling. So even though heavier it'll stop a lot quicker, and do less serious damage to a pedestrian at town speeds.

That's quite apart from any safety features like air bags or ABS.

[ams6110]

The big A pillars make it harder to see pedestrians though. Wonder if net injuries are actually reduced?

[mmirate]

What about safety differences that don't affect pedestrians and other such (nigh-)stationary objects?

For instance, I could easily imagine that some cars might have more powerful kinematic-prediction software+processors and therefore are able to use smaller safety margins, allowing for more aggressive/liberal driving-behaviors than would be possible to safely perform in self-driving systems that aren't so well-endowed.

(Then again, depending on how good the first batch of general-purpose self-driving systems are, it may be possible that traffic safety margins among the self-drivers will be reducible enough that even the base models are "good enough" for anyone who doesn't encounter too many meatbag-drivers on their commute.)

[shmish111]

I'm pretty sure the 78 car is way more likely to kill someone

[rubber_duck]

>Sure, there are some features in cars that aren't, but for the most part, a driver knows (should know) their vehicle, and someone driving a 1978 station wagon and someone else driving a 2018 Volvo won't make that much of a difference on the roadways.

Brakes, handling, visibility - better car - better response - safer for others. Also being lighter lowers potential damage impact. Not to mention stuff like sleep at the wheel detection etc.

[justtopost]

Except that cars have mostly been getting heavier since the 80s... And electrics even moreso.

[Reelin]

Since this touches on the safety of old vs new cars, I'd just like to leave this link to an "old vs new" crash test video here for anyone who might not have seen it before. https://youtu.be/C_r5UJrxcck

[wallace_f]

Historical vehicular deaths: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...

As an aside, strangely the Great Recession apparently improved safety during, even when adjusting for miles traveled.

[mywittyname]

The 2000s were a big era for improved safety. The NHSTA began studying and testing a wider variety of different crashes events and used ATDs (crash test dummies) designed to simulate women and children. Side-impact airbags became mandatory equipment in the USA in 2007 and electronic stability control in 2008.

It's not something people realize because they think car safety improvements slowed/stopped once airbags became widespread. But really, the mid 2000s are when cars began to get very safe. By 2011, the NHSTA had to make their star rating system much more strict because nearly every car had a achieved a five star rating.

[NeedMoreTea]

That's also when Euro tests changed significantly. The difference between cars this century and earlier is night and day.

A Volvo 940 from about 1993 head on at 80mph with a 2004 Renault Modus - the first small car to get 5 stars in the new Euro tests.

I would have bet on the Volvo. No. Dramatically no.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBDyeWofcLY

[quotemstr]

Just from a metrics geek POV: why didn't they add more stars instead of renorming the scale? Progress in car safety would have been more apparent had the scale gone unchanged.

[slededit]

The wanted the current standards to seem normative. This makes it much harder to roll them back.