[hackerlight]

"Minimizing deaths" is probably too simplistic, but not by much. If we can be reasonably confident that replacing human drivers will lead to 30% less traffic deaths, I think it would take some pretty large extenuating circumstances for me to not want that to happen.

> Also the state will have to grant legal immunity to car manufacturers so that they couldn't be sued to bankruptcy. That shouldn't provide them too many incentives to make their cars safer..

Indeed we would need to be careful not to make the wrong incentives.

[qwytw]

But there are already many measures which could decrease traffic deaths by up to 30% or so. They are expensive and/or inconvenient (but not even close to how expensive replacing all cars with self-driving ones would be). Which choose not to implement them for these reasons.

For instance ban all cars made prior to 2008 or so. That combined with massive investments into public transport (would decrease average miles driven, .e.g many EU countries have way less traffic fatalities per 100k pop. but about the same when adjusted by distance driven). Should be about 30% if not more and we don't even need self-driving cars...

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8118...