It won't be about an abstracted concept of "safer". It will be about whether the car is perceived to be a better driver than "me". Most people estimate their own abilities as above-average.
I bet most people think they're a better-than-average driver though. So if the cars are only a little better than the average person, you'll still have everyone assuming it's less safe for them.
But you can also be a pedestrian or passenger. Do you not want everyone else to be less likely to kill you?
Also, should you really trust your own estimate of your driving safety?
> McCormick, Walkey and Green (1986) found similar results in their study, asking 178 participants to evaluate their position on eight different dimensions of driving skills (examples include the "dangerous–safe" dimension and the "considerate–inconsiderate" dimension). Only a small minority rated themselves as below the median, and when all eight dimensions were considered together it was found that almost 80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being an above-average driver.[30]
This assumes a lot about the correctness of people's perceptions of their own driving skills. My experience is 99% of drivers think they're above average, and that obviously can't be true.
But how false is that impression that we are safer than average? I don't drive drunk, drugged, tired or distracted. I avoid driving in bad weather. I make sure I have good tires and brakes. I don't intentionally speed. I bet most accidents are caused by the above. I'm not interested in a self-driving car that drives like it's checking its cellphone after 3 beers.
> higher powered cars are safer (highly questionable)
there's a good correlation (not 1:1 but still, quite good) between car performances and their ability to corner and their braking distance. a fast car driven by an idiot is going to make him more dangerous, but in the hand of an average driver will serve him well in all the emergency maneuver he'll find himself doing.
Not to mention that "better driver than average" is a very fuzzy definition, and more than 50% probably hit at least one of the possible categories, e.g. safer? Quicker reaction time? More pleasant to other drivers? Most comfortable to ride with? More technically skilled when it comes to difficult conditions? Able and willing to go fastest? Gets the fewest speeding tickets? Etc.
To add to what has already been said, I sorta disagree with "they just have to be better than us." I would prefer the car to not just be better than an average driver, but be better than me. As any person, I'm sure I dramatically overestimate my skills, which makes that bar quite high. So it doesn't have to just be better than us, it has to be better than we (however wrongly) think we are.
> Of all the drivers you've seen on the road, do you rate yourself above average compared to them?
Using the second concept of "average," yes I do. I have seen lots of car accidents, and lots of people pulled over by police (presumably for speeding or reckless driving). I have never experienced either, other than being pulled over once for a missing tail light (humorously, literally hours after I had purchased that vehicle). So I do consider myself a better than average driver.
But this idea of "better than average driver" just isn't very useful. Because presumably the majority of drivers have not been in an accident, while the average number of accidents per driver is obviously greater than zero. Thus most people are better than average drivers, in the same sense that most people have more fingers than average.
This is a very good point, and one I hadn't considered.
It's common knowledge that most people think they're better than average drivers, so we tend to compensate and believe we're no better than the statistical average driver. But yes indeed, most of us in fact are better than average drivers whenever we're doing our best to drive carefully.
So basically while more sportiness can make you safer in theory, in practice you have a human in the mix who is all but guaranteed to drive less safely. I agree.
> Ninety-three percent of drivers say they are safer-than-average drivers.
Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel prize for studying these types of cognitive biases, has a really good explanation for this. The human mind has a strong tendency to invisibly substitute hard questions for easy ones. When faced with a difficult question like "what are this company's future prospects?", we tend to subconsciously answer an easier question like "do the founders of this company appear competent and confident?"
This, not arrogance, is the main reason why so many rate themselves as above average at common tasks. Truly ranking yourself is pretty cognitively difficult. You have to construct a mental model of the full range of driving ability in the population, then place yourself in it. So almost everybody substitutes the much easier question "am I good driver?" instead of "am I an above average driver?". And the reality is most driver, even those slightly below average are basically good drivers.
In other skills though, where most people perceive themselves as not good, the effect is flipped. For example well over 50% of people will rate themselves as below average when you ask them about their ability to strike up a conversation with strangers.
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