[AnthonyMouse]

> Because the NHTSA data includes all car, including the very cheap cars with bare minimum safety/help systems, old restored cars, ...

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

94% of crashes were caused by drivers, 2% by vehicle failures. This implies that the age or state of the vehicle has minimal influence (only the 2% that actually failed) outside of the propensity for older vehicles to have less safety features.

And comparing the new safety features that reduce or mitigate the driver error to those of the average vehicle is exactly the point -- the difference in outcomes is large. This actually matters even across price ranges because people may be willing to pay more for a car if it's more than four times less likely to kill them or their family.

It would be nice to have a comparison separated by class as well (obviously that data would have to come from the government rather than Tesla), but the comparison to the average still has value because it at least informs you whether a more expensive car is worth it.

[plasticchris]

Would switching lanes into another vehicle be an accident caused by a driver? Blind spot warnings. These safety features do reduce accidents caused by drivers.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Would switching lanes into another vehicle be an accident caused by a driver? Blind spot warnings. These safety features do reduce accidents caused by drivers.

That's the point.

The comparison to existing vehicles is valuable because the first requirement before someone is interested in a new car is that it be sufficiently better than their existing car. A difference of that magnitude is relevant.

[btilly]

That doesn't negate the point exactly because older vehicles have fewer safety features, and we know that those safety features prevent accidents. Take a look in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in... and see that the fatality rate has dropped by a factor of 2 in the last 40 years. Features like ABS are a big chunk of that.

For example ABS systems reduce accident rates by

[Retric]

Drunk driving reduction the majority of that.

In 1982 the fatality rate per 100,000 people was: 18.969, in 2016 it was 11.59. By comparison Drunk driving fell from 9.1 per 100k to 3.3 per 100k in 2016.

As an approximation drunk driving is ~5.8 and everything else is ~1.58. (Clearly some of those non drunk driving related saved lives also saved drunk drivers, but it's still ~3x as important as everything else put together.)

https://www.responsibility.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Al...