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A very small survey of people of different ages suggests that there are age and gender differences in the acceptance of riding in automated cars. In summary, 2,600 people in the US replied and of them 38% of the men and just 16% of women would be happy to ride in an automated vehicle. About a quarter of respondents said they would feel safe in a driverless car while around two thirds said they would not travel unless there was a driver. No mention was made about their opinions of sharing the road with these massive projectiles when driving themselves in traditional cars.
Source : Driverless cars: Men and women have very different opinions on letting go of the wheel
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Men and Women Have Very Different Opinions on Automated Cars
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New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:47PM (45 children)
There can be only one driver, driving is a habitual activity, and most couples are comprised of a Man and a Woman; the Man ends up being the driver.
So, you'd think that women, who are used to being ferried about by an autonomous vehicle, would mind autonomous vehicles least.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:54PM (3 children)
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:35PM (2 children)
This is exactly why. They can't criticize the automated driver. Well, they 'can' but they know it is pointless since the computer won't know it is being criticized.
And without having something to criticize, they have no idea what to do otherwise.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:29AM
Your post leads to a serious question:
What percentage of men actually take notice of their wive's criticism of his driving? From personal experience, I allowed a girl's criticism of my driving to influence my driving to a very small degree, when I was young, and dating. After marriage, that influence decreased, with time. Today, after almost 35 years, I seldom even hear her comments. If and when I do, I just turn the radio up. Or, I tell her to "climb in, sit down, hang on, and shut up".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @04:43PM
The computer could go on the interwebs and give them celebrity gossip, diet advice and cat videos to keep their minds of the driving.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @04:58PM (3 children)
Without a man in the car what is a woman to do? Carry a dildo?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by bob_super on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:48PM
Their hands will be busy anyway.
BTW, S Jobs was sent to hell by the Council of Female Gods for making his damn phones so skinny they hurt.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:12PM (1 child)
Flamebait!
Whoa! Damn! Special snowflake feminist frozen bitch moderator! Going for the kill... So tell me then, what do you gals do in the car when there's no man around? I doubt you're playing Gin Rummy...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:36PM
We lesbians drive U-Hauls, didn't you get the memo? :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:00PM (9 children)
I'm not so sure you're correct there. I frequently see men being driven around by women actually. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if many times, in married couples, the wife insists on driving because she thinks she's a safer driver. In my last marriage, that was the case (she believed she was safer, I disagreed but didn't argue it). In my current relationship, my girlfriend just prefers not to drive so I end up driving almost all the time, but her driving scares me sometimes so I don't mind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:10PM (3 children)
From 2012 [usatoday.com]:
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:34PM (2 children)
Doesn't surprise me. I read quite some time ago how women are now the majority of people who make car-buying decisions. (i.e., most car buyers are women, and in couples, women have more power over the decision.)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:39PM
In the old days, they made cars resemble a woman's ass stuck invitingly up in the air.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @01:27PM
In the old days, they made cars resemble a woman's ass stuck invitingly up in the air.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:36PM (3 children)
I frequently see men being driven around by women actually.
Probably because of the DUI
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:13PM (1 child)
This is modded Funny, but it should probably also be modded Insightful.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:55PM
And you really don't want your wife to see you driving your girlfriend's car...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 01 2018, @11:14PM
Or to avoid a DUI.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @11:43AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:03PM (4 children)
My wife was prone to motion sickness, being a passenger in a car, no matter who was driving, tended to make her green.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:49PM
That may actually be insightful. I understand that women are more prone to motion sickness than men. My wife wasn't, but my mother and both my sisters are, whereas I am not. I don't know about my brothers.
Also, I seem to recall reading that more women than men were bothered by motion sickness while wearing virtual reality glasses.
OTOH, I have no idea what the percentage difference is, or whether the effect is usually strong enough to be the deciding factor. (With my sisters it certainly would be.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:45PM (2 children)
The interesting part of that is that DOING the driving tends to eliminate motion sickness.
Just watching the road works as well, but passengers get distracted and look out the side windows, or at reading material or phones, and then they get motion sickness. Not seeing the cause of the movement (the turn, the lane change, the bumps) before the motion is felt seems to cause motion sickness.
Seeing the cause (ahead of time) and expecting it usually means no problem.
Steep turns during pilot training would get me queasy every time the instructor demonstrated it. When I was flying the plane, no problem. To this day, when I fly, I prefer to sit over the leading edge of the wing, and have a window seat for this reason.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday February 02 2018, @12:31AM
I think it may be less the predictable motion (curves, traffic, etc), and more the constant slight adjustments being made basically at random. Pretty much everybody wanders around the lane while driving, some by inches, some by a foot or more - generally speaking you steer towards whatever they're looking at in that moment. There's also variation in the frequency and sharpness of motion that can make a big difference in passenger nausea. As the driver of course, you're expecting every motion, even if you're not consciously aware that you're veering.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:37AM
As an old sailor, I'll vouch for the "watch the road" thing. Seasickness wasn't something that really bothered me - but in five years of sea duty, there were days that were worse than others. Generally, getting outside, on the weatherdecks, and watching the seas coming at you, relieved my discomfort.
Of course, the Navy's oldest remedy for seasickness is hard work. A person with a task in front of him, that demands his attention, is bothered by motion sickness far less than an idle sailor.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:21PM (21 children)
...or maybe men and women just have different attitudes to being alone in a car (whether for safety or social reasons) or their responsibility to passengers (possibly more likely to be kids in the case of women) or more strongly associate driving with personal freedom (Grandma didn't approve of women driving cars) or (heaven forfend) are, on average, less interested than men in having the latest tech gadget. Maybe women have more confidence in their driving ability than men (either rightly, and/or as a reaction to the "women driver" stereotype).
Or maybe the study was just skewed somehow... selection bias is almost impossible to avoid in a voluntary survey and it won't show up in your p value.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 01 2018, @06:42PM (20 children)
I think it's about *control*. when you're driving, you're in control and are responsible for your own actions. With *someone else* driving (whether that be a spouse, a relative, a taxi driver, an expert system, a bus driver or an airline pilot), they are in control.
Back in 2004, I chatted with a high school classmate who'd driven just about 2,000Km to attend our reunion. When I asked her why she drove rather than flew, she was shocked I'd even suggest it, given the events of September 11, 2001. She was adamant that flying just wasn't safe.
I pointed out that even with *all* the deaths (including those on the ground, not just the passengers) from airplane crashes/incidents, more people (by a factor of at least ten) died in automobile accidents every year than when flying.
Did that make a difference? Nope. Because she was in control behind the wheel of her car. It doesn't make logical sense, but it does make human sense.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday February 01 2018, @07:08PM (3 children)
After doing a quick survey of myself, 0 people have ever been involved in an accident of any scope while in a car I was driving. I do not know the same is true of a random pilot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:02PM (1 child)
Screw autonomous cars, how's the research on cloning TMB to drive 'em all going?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday February 01 2018, @09:37PM
Considering the fucker's only got one helix, surprisingly difficult. The ribosomes we're using to replicate the template keep going on strike; something about ethics and morals and things humankind would best not unleash on itself or something...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:25PM
You prove my point, Buzzard. Thanks!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 01 2018, @08:52PM (4 children)
A better reason to not fly is that you don't want your rights violated by TSA thugs. That agency needs to be abolished, but it won't be.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @12:41AM (3 children)
People who drive 2000 kilometers to a high school reunion are probably not worried about the TSA. Those of us who drive 2000 miles have more cause to be concerned with the TSA.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @04:34AM
Uhhh...not so much Runaway. I generally use SI units whenever possible. And yes, I went to high school in the US, as did (obviously) my classmate. And no, she didn't drive from Canada or Mexico.
Regardless, while we all hate the TSA (well I do, at least), my main concern when driving is not dying. I generally don't have that fear when flying.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @11:57AM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 02 2018, @11:03PM
This probably borders on pedantry - but the US doesn't exactly use the imperial system. Like a lot of other things, we borrowed heavily from the old empire, but adapted stuff to suit ourselves. Would you rather buy an imperial gallon or a US gallon for the same price?
Hmmmm - OK, so looking at this page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units [wikipedia.org] I find that a land mile in England was the same as a land mile in the US. Then again, this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_imperial_and_US_customary_measurement_systems [wikipedia.org] claims there were differences in our linear measures.
I guess I could figure it all out if I spent a little time on it. Not that the differences really amount to anything.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 02 2018, @02:07AM (9 children)
The popular wisdom that flying is safer may not be totally accurate. For distanced traveled, yes, flying is safer. But I have heard that if measured by hours traveled, flying is about equal to driving in safety.
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday February 02 2018, @03:42AM (5 children)
Per-trip, flying is more dangerous. In other words, every time you step into an airplane you are much more likely to die than when you get into a car. The big difference is that the typical person gets into a car hundreds, if not thousands of times a year, but into an airplane only a few times a year (if that).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @04:50AM (4 children)
Nope. In the US during 2015, for example, more than 35,000 people died in automobile crashes [dot.gov]. Zero people died in airplane crashes [ntsb.gov] during that same period.
Hmmm...let's see. I guarantee you that whatever values (okay positive numbers, which are the only ones that make sense in this context) you use for the denominators, 35,000/x is always greater than 0/y. Math is cruel, I know.
On a per-mile basis (and in absolute numbers), flying is, and has been -- for decades -- *much* safer than driving.
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/air-travel-safer-car-travel-1581.html [usatoday.com]
But don't believe me. Look at the statistics in the links I've helpfully provided (oh, and you're welcome) above. Even better, don't believe my links either. Do your own research. Or don't. It's no skin off my nose either way. Someone (you, in this case) being wrong on the Internet isn't a call to duty for me. [xkcd.com]
Have fun. Maybe go for a nice drive?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Friday February 02 2018, @12:00PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday February 02 2018, @03:24PM
If only there was a tunnel under the Bering Strait! See the unspoiled scenic wilds of Alaska and Siberia, travel the length of the Canadian Rockies and cross Russia's 11 time zones, retrace the route the Mongols took to Europe, and totally avoid the Atlantic Ocean. Sounds like fun!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday February 02 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
Your point is valid in terms of passengers in commercial service. However, there were fatal aviation accidents in the US in 2015 including that of commercial planes (without passengers):
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150211-0 [aviation-safety.net]
And there were fatalities of passengers in public use aircraft, just not on a commercially established carrier route:
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150625-0 [aviation-safety.net]
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150816-1 [aviation-safety.net] (had military personnel but was a contractor flight).
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150915-0 [aviation-safety.net]
Sorry for the nitpick, but the auto side counts all fatalities, not just commercial carriers. I still think the concept of your point is valid, though it would be interesting to map it out as a function of fatalities per travelling person per trip or something similar.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @06:25PM
Fair enough. I agree. All fatalities should have been included, not just "commercial" flights. I wonder though, given the source/destination (Miami to Venezula with a stopover in the Turks and Caicos), how many cars can make that trip (I suspect that would be zero, except, perhaps these guys [wikipedia.org] although that's dubious).
IIUC, at least two of the three crashes you listed were, in fact, commercial flights (i.e., with paying passengers on a plane owned by corporations which used the vehicles for commercial passenger flights, whether scheduled or not).
No apologies necessary. We should try (and I, apparently, failed) to include *all* relevant data to enable an apples-to-apples comparison.
Despite the fact that few people (in comparison to scheduled airline flights) fly in chartered/general aviation flights, it's useful to note *all* casualties.
It's instructive to note that two of the four crashes you cite:
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150625-0 [aviation-safety.net]
https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20150915-0 [aviation-safety.net]
occurred in Alaska, where (as I observed while in Alaska -- If there are any Soylentils who live there, please do chime in) in many cases automobile transit isn't just difficult, but is, in fact impossible.
The Miami to Venezuela flight you cite (which included a stopover in the Turks and Caicos) is, apparently (I tried several map/directions sites) not directly reachable solely by automobile.
Regardless, as you intimate, in absolute numbers of crashes and absolute number of deaths, automobile fatalities still overwhelm airplane fatalities by orders of magnitude.
tl;dr: In three of the four examples you cite, automobile transit wasn't even an option. As such, it seems that in those cases, it's not fair to compare that at all. More than half the deaths in those four cited examples were from the flights where automobile transit wasn't an option.
All that said, if someone wishes to believe they are safer in their car than on a plane, I won't further try to disabuse you of your delusions. In fact, I encourage you to go out for a nice drive and enjoy yourself. Please drive safely!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @04:57AM (2 children)
It's not "popular wisdom," it's a fact. Flying is safer (by orders of magnitude) than driving. What's more, that's been true for decades.
Please see my reply to another post [soylentnews.org] for relevant links to actual data.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 02 2018, @01:48PM (1 child)
The linked statistics do not contain any data on safety per hour of travel.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday February 02 2018, @06:26PM
Then I guess you have some work to do, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday February 02 2018, @04:00AM
These drivers may in fact be the most dangerous because they simply do not understand the risks of what they are doing. You can be involved in a life-ending collision and never see it coming. You will have no time to react. Being "in control" of the vehicle or not will not matter. These kinds of accidents happen far more frequently than all aircraft related deaths by huge margins.
Overconfidence is a killer. Riding a motorcycle around other vehicles and in bad weather really drives it home. Maybe she should buy a bike.