Not a self-driving car. Photo by on Oskar Krawczyk Unsplash Today, a self-driving car caused the . It won’t be the last. first fatality But let’s put things in perspective: In 2016, died on U.S. roads. That’s 102 deaths per day. 37,461 people It’s hard to say whether a human driver or a computer is safer at this point. The best measure would be fatalities per vehicle miles traveled (VMT). There were per 100 million VMT in 2016. 1.18 deaths Self-driving cars are improving all the time, while human drivers are not. We don’t have a VMT statistic for self-driving cars yet. This is hard to calculate because autonomous cars are new, but also because self-driving cars are improving all the time, while human drivers are not. We do know that human drivers are getting worse. In 2015 and 2016, deaths per VMT went up. This could be due to a number of factors, from worsening infrastructure to speed to inattention, despite safer vehicles. Expect more self-driving deaths. But also expect the overall death rate to decline—eventually—thanks to self-driving cars. If you liked this article, please hit the clap button above and share with your friends. I also encourage you to subscribe to my . Thanks for reading. YouTube channel
