Gulp

[AsleepInYorkshire]

According to the BBC website 3,900 people die every day around the world due to …

It's not war. War, terrorism and natural disasters account for less than 0.5%.

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Spoiler alert

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Road injuries

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47371078

I took the time to complete the form to obtain some guidance on my life expectancy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44107940

Hmmm ...

[Howyoudoin]

According to the BBC website 3,900 people die every day around the world due to …

...

Road injuries

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47371078

I took the time to complete the form to obtain some guidance on my life expectancy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44107940

I guess I shouldn't have completed that form whilst driving.

HYD

[AsleepInYorkshire]

According to the BBC website 3,900 people die every day around the world due to …

...

Road injuries

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47371078

I took the time to complete the form to obtain some guidance on my life expectancy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44107940

I guess I shouldn't have completed that form whilst driving.

HYD

After completing the form I've maxed my Barclycard

[gryffron]

Interesting mix of numbers you gave there which set all my "how to lie with statistics" alarm bells off. Is 3900 more or less than 0.5% ?

But total daily deaths 151k, so it is 2.5% of ALL deaths. Still fairly significant.

Gryff

[AsleepInYorkshire]

Interesting mix of numbers you gave there which set all my "how to lie with statistics" alarm bells off. Is 3900 more or less than 0.5% ?

But total daily deaths 151k, so it is 2.5% of ALL deaths. Still fairly significant.

Gryff

I recall reading or hearing that in the UK we have some of the safest roads in the world. I won't make the cynical observation that gridlock may help

I wonder if the vision of a future of driverless cars will usher in an era where road deaths reduce significantly?

There's another thread on this board discussing our energy needs. Part of that conversation has thrown up the future of electric vehicles and how they will play a part in reducing our carbon footprint.

In it's current form the car has reached the end of it's life?

AiY

[swill453]

In it's current form the car has reached the end of it's life?

A bit premature to say that I think. At a rough guess I'd say 95-99% of new cars being made still have an internal combustion engine. And 100% of cars are not fully autonomous - which will remain the case for a couple of decades IMO.

Scott.

[jfgw]

It's not war. War, terrorism and natural disasters account for less than 0.5%.

I haven't seen many wars or natural disasters in my local area. I see lots of cars though.

I wonder if the vision of a future of driverless cars will usher in an era where road deaths reduce significantly?

Probably considerably. There are still the less-obvious deaths caused by pollution. As tyre and brake dust is a significant proportion of this, even electric cars produce it.

Julian F. G. W.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

There are still the less-obvious deaths caused by pollution. As tyre and brake dust is a significant proportion of this, even electric cars produce it.

Great point.

AiY

[UncleEbenezer]

I recall reading or hearing that in the UK we have some of the safest roads in the world. I won't make the cynical observation that gridlock may help

One can probably answer that with a fairly confident No. 'Cos we could dig up figures for many other countries with both more and less gridlock than ours.

A more likely reason is fear: the number of Brits who won't go out on the roads without a metal cage for fear of those very cages. Particularly parents not letting their children out: one price of our road safety is that we also come out very badly in international league tables of quality of life for children.

And roads built to much higher safety standards than some countries.

I wonder if the vision of a future of driverless cars will usher in an era where road deaths reduce significantly?

It has potential to do that.

But there are risks to that. Apart from the obvious risks of technology failure[1], they're likely to be held to much higher standards than human drivers. If every self-driving accident becomes a big media fuss, we get a public perception that they're dangerous, and a backlash. That'll drive up costs[2], and could create a double-standard as seen in the treatment of nuclear power vs burning things.

[1] Security against malicious attack (the meeja usually call it "hackers") is a big issue. The usual story is that developers - or rather their managers worried about budgets - are far too complacent.
[2] As on the railways. Impose the same cost-per-death on road accidents as on rail and your car insurance will probably cost more than the car.