[chii]

the nature of the accidents also makes a difference tho.

A small fender bender is common in human drivers. A catastrophic crash (like t-boning into a bus) is rare (it'd make the news for example).

Autodriving, on the other hand, almost never makes fender benders. But they do t-bone into busses in rare occasions - which also makes the news.

[Terr_]

If only it were easier to get the stats in the form of "damage in property/lives in the form of dollars per mile driven", that would let us kinda-combine both big tragic events with fender-benders.

(Yeah, I know it means putting an actuarial cost on a human life, but statistics means mathing things up.)

[zdragnar]

It is easy, if you run an insurance company. Knowing that data is literally how they price auto insurance policies.

Sadly for the rest of us, it's not exactly easy to get that data from the insurance company.

[steveBK123]

Putting aside Waymo specifically for a second (whom I believe is the leader in the space, but also self operates their own custom cars).

If the current state of commercially available ADAS was dramatically reducing accident rates, then Teslas etc would have lower insurance rates. And yet they instead have higher insurance rates.

[iamacyborg]

Is Tesla’s higher insurance rate not related to them being more common targets of vandalism?

[tonyhb]

AFAIK, it's due to things like single frame construction and expensive + backlogged parts which you order directly from Tesla (as opposed to, eg, a drivetrain that may be made for 3 separate manufacturers).

Or, when you do have an accident it's typically more expensive to repair.

[steveBK123]

That is entirely new issue and insurance does not respond this quickly.

Tesla's have had higher insurance for 5+ years. Some of which is due to wait times on repairs, costs of repairs, and also accident rates.

[aussiegreenie]

No, Teslas are hard to repair. The insurance rates were always higher than similar ICE vehicles. Any extra problems are marginal.

[Eavolution]

I think my car insurance policy actually does detail what they believe every part of your body + your life to be worth, it might be my old policy though. From memory an arm was £2,000

[Edit]: found the policy: death: £2,500 arm or leg: £2,000 blindness in one or both eyes: £2,000

[elromulous]

Wow. Is that a typo for death? Not only do they not value human life much at all, losing multiple limbs is more than dying?

[looofooo0]

Death is cheaper in our legal system than taking care of some one disabled for many years.

[throwaway48476]

China too, that's why you get... those videos.

[Fricken]

It costs more than dying.

[LandR]

I mean, I'd probably rather be dead than lose multiple limbs.

[ethbr1]

As my father quipped to me when I was younger: 'You know the best thing about a three-legged dog? It's not sad about the limb it's missing: it's happy for the three it still has.'

[potato3732842]

If the data made their rates look like a fair deal they'd be plastering it on billboards.

[chii]

Their competitors would also know, and specifically know which category to compete in to do the most damage.

[potato3732842]

I don't think that's possible. I don't think this is a "cooperate greed, nobody wants to end the gravy train by starting a price war" situation. I think it's a "the myriad of stuff you have to do to run a compliant company sets the price floor" situation. The fact that there is no nuclear "well I guess I just can't afford insurance, if I lose my house so be it" option available to customers prevents it all from caving in.

[tsimionescu]

Perhaps the best way to address this would be to look at property damage for car-car or cat-object collisions, and a separate stat for car-pedestrian accidents.

In collisions that don't involve pedestrians, the damage to the car/object is generally proportional to the chance that someone was badly injured or killed in those cases - the only thing you get by adding human life costs is to take into account the quality of the safety features of the cars being driven, which should be irrelevant for nay comparison with automated driving. In collisions that do involve pedestrians, this breaks down, since you can easily kill someone with almost 0 damage to the car.

So having these two stats per mile driven to compare would probably give you the best chance of a less biased comparison.

[Panzer04]

You could just keep life and money separate, it's technically possible for the ratios to be different.