1993: Fatal Crash Rate

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Fatal Crash Rate

Title text: Fixating on this seems unhealty. But in general, the more likely I think a crash is, the less likely one becomes, which is a strange kind of reverse placebo effect.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a bad driver - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This is the second recent comic on the subject of the dangers of cars. It combines general statistical correlations between age and safety improvements with fatal crashes. Randall worries that he will eventually be involved in a fatal car crash unless self driving cars, if they take over quickly enough, will eliminate th

Transcript

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[Graphs are shown inside of a panel.]

[Graph 1:] My fatal car crash probability based on my age

[Graph 2:] Overall US fatal crash rate per mile traveled

[Graph 3:] My miles traveled by car per year

[Graph 4, below the previous graphs:] My estimated lifetime probability of being in a fatal car crash

[Caption below the panel:]

It feels weird to look at car crash statistics and wonder whether we'll all be able to stop driving before I'm involved in a fatal crash.

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Discussion

Bad graphs, man. ~ ProphetZarquon (talk) 16:36, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
This implies that self-driving cars would have a fatality rate of zero. --Chrispugner (talk) 20:15, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

But even after "general safety improvements", the crash rate (top middle graph) is still not zero, so the bottom graph makes no sense... And how would you achieve a fatality rate of zero? Herobrine (talk) 03:47, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

According to Randall, a fatality rate of zero could only be achieved if self-driving cars worked well and if all cars on the road were self-driving cars. Assuming both conditions true, as they might be some day (or conversely might never be true), then it should be possible to minimize crashes to the point where fatalities would be statistically zero though certainly not absolutely zero, as malfunctions could happen. -boB (talk) 21:29, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Obviously, you reach a fatality rate of zero when there is no human on the road or around. -- Hkmaly (talk) 01:10, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Anything can be done by technology. :) Sweden had a lot of fatal train crashes, but after having introduced Automatic train control during the 80's, they completely vanished. (Three people have died on board Swedish trains since 1991, of which two were train employees. The accidents were due to non-rail vehicles being on or next to the track.) 162.158.134.10 10:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

"Fixating on this seems unhealty. But in general, the more likely I think a crash is, the less likely one becomes, which is a strange kind of reverse placebo effect." It will not be a reverse effect if "It feels weird to look at car crash statistics and wonder whether we'll all be able to stop driving before I'm involved in a fatal crash." is being done while driving. Gene Wirchenko [email protected] 108.162.216.220 04:37, 15 May 2018 (UTC)