> It seems reasonable for self-driving cars to be expected to improve safety over human driving for the large majority of drivers, not just half of them.
Depends, do you want to save lives? Then self-driving cars only need to be a little safer than the drivers they replace. Which means if infrequent drivers with little experience that get replaced by robotaxis of average reliability could be a net-win in saved lives.
Delaying their deployment until technology arrives that beats the most conservative drivers just means accepting a higher death toll.
> if infrequent drivers with little experience that get replaced by robotaxis of average reliability could be a net-win in saved lives.
I don't know if frequent drivers are inherently safer drivers than infrequent drivers. There might be the negative effect of reduced attention due to more 'routine'.
But I seriously doubt that frequent drivers drive so much safer that they negate the effect of being exposed to the risk so much more. Is a person that drives 10x more than the average driver more than 10x safer? Why replace cars first, that don't get on the street a lot? And how do you organize deploying SDCs to infrequent drivers first? Unless those people don't own the cars anymore, but rent them, in which case I agree. That would increase utilizations of these cars.
> Unless those people don't own the cars anymore, but rent them
Yeah, that was the idea (hence robotaxis, not owned ones). It seems feasible especially in urban areas where car ownership is not essential so the remaining uses could be replaced by rented autonomous ones.
Depends, do you want to save lives? Then self-driving cars only need to be a little safer than the drivers they replace. Which means if infrequent drivers with little experience that get replaced by robotaxis of average reliability could be a net-win in saved lives. Delaying their deployment until technology arrives that beats the most conservative drivers just means accepting a higher death toll.