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Full moons and particularly "supermoons" have been linked to increased deaths of motorcyclists:
Distracted drivers, like those who text behind the wheel, are a danger to themselves and to others. Even a brief, momentary glance away from the road can result in life-threatening consequences.
Research published Dec. 11 in The BMJ [open, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.j5367] [DX] points toward another potential distraction for motorists: the full moon, gracing the sky with its brightness around 12 times a year, and the dazzling supermoon, which comes into focus around once a year.
The researchers found that on nights illuminated by a full moon, fatal motorcycle accidents increased by 5 percent compared to nights without a full moon. On evenings when the supermoon decorated the sky, this increased to 32 percent. The study included data from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
While this observational data cannot prove any firm conclusions, the researchers warn drivers of the risks of seemingly minor distractions, urging constant attention while driving at all times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:08AM (15 children)
And this is exactly why we desperately need autonomous vehicles on the road. 1,000,000+ dead a year in almost always preventable collisions. Always caused by someone not paying attention or being "in a hurry" or momentary lapse in judgment... 1 MILLION dead every year. Yet we seem to worry so much over some "terrorists" -- we are doing much worse with a cell phone or "I need to pass this guy going 38 in 40 zone NOW" than any terrorists have ever done.
Dead is dead, no matter how.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Virindi on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:18AM (6 children)
The safety you crave comes by loss of control by the individual. That loss will have other, undesired effects.
But currently, the vast majority of people have a choice as to whether they want to take the risk of being on the road or not. And even if you are on the road, you could most of the time choose slower speed local roads which are less likely to have fatalities. You can live in an urban area and never ride in a car at all.
People who ride in cars are accepting the risk.
Of course, I'd like it if people were more responsible drivers, too.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 13 2017, @07:48PM (5 children)
Well...he's comparing efforts to secure against terrorists vs efforts to secure against car accidents. Both require some loss of individual control in order to prevent them. Society already agrees that this loss of control is necessary (ex: TSA), they just only seem to find it necessary where it provides the greatest cost to save the fewest lives...
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:08PM (4 children)
Probably because, for most, flying on an airplane is an infrequent occurrence, while driving or riding in a car happens daily. Also, before the TSA existed there was still screening to get on a commercial aircraft.
So any loss of autonomy with air travel by the TSA is of low effect in practice on people's lives.
On the other hand, letting one or a handful of central authorities have command over all automobiles would have a large practical effect. As per the previous story about MTG, these authorities would be put under increasing pressure to use that power to solve people's pet problems. Sure, criminal vehicles would be insta-stopped, so car chases would be eliminated. But then there will be route algorithm tweaking to reduce congestion, and they will start trying to "nudge" people about where and when they go places. It won't be long after that before it is in full social engineering mode. While you may still nominally retain the ability to go anywhere at anytime, the overlords will do everything they can to force you to conform to their idea of where you should go and when. Sure they try to do that already (like with toll roads and HOV restrictions) but the scope of tinkering will be greatly expanded.
And that is a significant loss of individual autonomy compared to current society.
Maybe if autonomous vehicles were forbidden to be connected to the internet, and open source. But we all know that's not going to happen. The company that sells you the car (and the government) is going to be the one in ultimate control of where it goes and when. And you'll pay extra for the privilege of being under their control.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:37PM (2 children)
Of course you missed the most obvious objection: There is precious little real world evidence that having all vehicles (or even a substantial part of them) being autonomous will actually save lives. Its all guess work.
This is simply assumed by looking at accident records for the microscopic number of autonomous vehicle hours. Yet if you look at the AVERAGE driver on the road today, you will find an equally microscopic number that have been involved in fatal accidents.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Wednesday December 13 2017, @10:15PM (1 child)
When arguing against the idea that everyone will be safer in a padded cell, the strongest argument is not that padded cells are not as safe as you think. One can always work on making a safer padded cell.
Making that argument allows the discussion to be shifted to something which, in my opinion, is not the most important factor.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:56AM
Say we have really smart AI driving and it behaves like I do. If I see a dog in a difficult turn, I run the dog over so not to increase risk of a crash. However, if I see a child, I do whatever it takes to save her and would crash my car, if necessary, let alone take additional risk.
The question is, if people would buy cars that value car owner life less than others in certain situations; even if people themselves do the same. I will definitely not. I can and do risk my life for others, but only on my own choice - not some bloody corporate engineer.
I think autonomous cars will be legislated down our throats.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:55PM
Having autonomous cars is not the same as having cars that are controlled by an external authority. Neither does an autonomous car have to be controlled or controllable by a central authority (indeed, I would claim that a car that is controlled by a central authority is not really autonomous), nor is a car that is controlled by a central authority necessarily autonomous (indeed, hackers can take over non-autonomous cars today [wired.com] so it is not much of a stretch that there's a backdoor for central authorities, too).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:44AM (3 children)
How about just automate the human completely, why even have humans?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:59AM (1 child)
Our oligarchical overlords have their engineering department on it, and their beancounters and lawyers collaborating on the cost benefit analysis for when the majority of humanity just aren't worth the money any more.
Don't worry, based on current estimates there are at least 5-10 years before the majority of humans become obsolete. Just hope you aren't in that group after the analysis starting running humans in the red...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:59AM
That ship sailed some time ago.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:03AM
According to Karl Marx, workers would own businesses and enjoy all the benefits. It is obvious now he meant corporate executives.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @02:51PM (2 children)
This is why we desperately need decent driver education and severely punish people for engaged in reckless driving. Autonomous vehicles are hardly necessary to cut the fatalities down to a huge degree.
In crashes, the reasons pretty much always break down to some combination of inattention, drugs and car maintenance. Cases where that isn't the case are more or less negligible. But, we don't send people to jail over DUIs typically until they've already been given several chances, but that DUI is pretty much always just the one time they were caught these people usually are driving dozens of times under the influence before they're caught.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 13 2017, @03:07PM (1 child)
Driverless Cars Could Reduce Traffic Fatalities by Up to 90%, Says Report [sciencealert.com]
Teaching a driverless car is a copy-and-paste operation. Teaching humans means teaching some normal folks along with complete idiots. And good drivers still get distracted and can't react in tens of milliseconds like a computer can, and people still do drive drunk despite knowing it's wrong.
DUI consequences vary [wallethub.com]. But even if there was a 10 year minimum sentence for being caught the first time, people would still do it, endangering everybody on the road.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:50PM
Your cited study is pretty much guesswork science at best. Did you actually read it, or trace it back to the source?
Clue: There is no study. It was all speculation dating from 2015, when there were 48 such cars on the road world wide.
Lab rat cars in controlled conditions with an unknown (and tightly guarded secret) number of human interventions.
In the mean time, this super-human technology can to this day be brought to a stand still [nerdist.com] by one guy and a paint roller and a quart of cheap white paint.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 13 2017, @06:31PM
> 1,000,000+ dead a year in almost always preventable collisions.
Thank $Deities for that!
At the micro- level, it sucks for people involved.
At the Macro- level, humans are becoming too good at surviving, and avoiding the giant plagues and constant fights that used to keep the population from growing too fast.