[motorest]

> Serious crash rates are a hockey stick pattern. 20% of the drivers cause 80% of the crashes, to a rough approximation. For the worst 20% of drivers, the Waymo is almost certainly better already.

I would wager that those 20% of drivers also are disproportionally under the influence of drugs, impaired in any way (i.e., stroke, heart attack, etc), or experiencing sudden unexpected events such as equipment malfunction.

Defensive driving is risk mitigation.

[MichaelRo]

You forgot "being an idiot" and it's strange, because the vast majority of the accidents are caused by that. Have you never watched "idiots driving" videos on YouTube?

[aziaziazi]

Stupid behavior is not exclusive to being on drugs, heart attack or equipment malfunction though.

While I like watching those videos I suspect a fair share of them has a deeper explanation than "being an idiot”. But it’s a lot less fun to watch when you imagine the guy driving may be in a desperate position.

Btw the meaning of idiot is “someone ignorant". As contextless external watchers of a crash, the real idiots are probably you and me, the YouTube watchers.

[timewizard]

You'd be correct. At least as far as fatalities are concerned. 50% of all fatalities involve drugs or alcohol. Around 50% of all fatalities are single vehicle accidents though. 15% are motorcycles. 15% are pedestrians.

And of course around 80% involve youth, testosterone and horsepower in some combination. The rest are almost always weather or terrain related in some way. Massive pileups on the highway in the winter and upside down vehicles on waterways in the summer.

Very rarely does a fatal accident happen without several factors being present.