How to be safer on the roads till Autonomous driving becomes mainstream
Autonomous vehicles are safer. What can we do while we wait?
There are two types of people in the world: those who love to drive and those who don’t. I, for one, am eager for autonomous vehicles to take over the roads1. Many companies are working hard to turn my dream into reality. Waymo is a frontrunner. They recently published two articles—one on traffic accidents involving pedestrians, bikers, and motorcyclists2 and another on how Waymo vehicles are better drivers than us.
How to be safe on the road?
Be vigilant at intersections
Don’t be absent-minded when you are on the road. It is not that you do not see, but that you did not pay attention that causes accidents3.
Pedestrians, Motorcyclists and Cyclists yield to vehicles as per the norm
Excerpts from the article below
more than 75% of all collisions occurred at roadway intersections.
Occlusions potentially limiting the agent’s ability to recognize the other involved party were observed to be present in fewer than one-third of all events.
VRU failure to yield to a moving vehicle represented the most common VRU initiating behavior, occurring in more than half of all vehicle responder events.
Pedestrian
Be vigilant during night
More than half of all pedestrian and motorcyclist events were observed to occur at night
Motorcyclist
Be vigilant during night
Wear helmet
More than half of all pedestrian and motorcyclist events were observed to occur at night
helmet usage was observed for 31% of cyclists (44/144) and 57% of motorcyclists (37/65)
Cyclist
Look out for vehicles so that you do not hit them
Stay in your lane
Wear helmet
improper lane-keeping by cyclists was observed in approximately 25% of cyclist initiator events.
helmet usage was observed for 31% of cyclists (44/144) and 57% of motorcyclists (37/65)
Vehicle Drivers
Look out for pedestrians so that you do not hit them
Look out for cyclists so that they do not hit you
vehicles initiating more than double the number of conflicts they responded to for pedestrians, while the inverse relationship was observed for collisions involving cyclists
Waymo is safer
Waymo vehicles crash 80% less than human drivers.
When considering all locations together, the any injury reported crashed vehicle rate was 0.6 incidents per million miles (IPMM) for the ADS vs. 2.80 IPMM for the human benchmark, an 80% reduction or a human crash rate that is 5 times higher than the ADS rate. Police-reported crashed vehicle rates for all locations together were 2.1 IPMM for the ADS vs. 4.68 IPMM for the human benchmark, a 55% reduction or a human crash rate that was 2.2 times higher than the ADS rate.
Let us drive safer on the roads and raise the human benchmark - because obviously, and also to impress the AI.
No points for guessing which type I fall into!
pedestrians, bikers, and motorcyclists are classified as vulnerable road users (VRU)
A wise man once told me to drive as if everyone else on the road is crazy. Served me well so far.