A little Googling uncovers the fact that airbags killed some 158 people in a recent year -- in low-speed accidents where the occupants would have been unharmed without the airbags. But airbags continued to grow in popularity (though now they're mandatory in the US, IIRC); automobile manufacturers just consider a certain amount of money paid out in liability a cost of doing business.
To help protect the manufacturers, they should make sure to have a good black-box recording of all the sensor data in the case of an accident. If there was a bug, they need to pay out the damages and fix the bug. If the accident was caused by someone else behaving dangerously, though, they should be protected from liability.
Bad press, however, is likely no matter what. The recent "Teslas can catch on fire!" media storm shows that; as I'm sure most HN readers know, a smaller percentage of Teslas caught fire than gasoline cars, and no Tesla owners were harmed, making the Tesla fires a non-story. Or it should have been a non-story, anyway.
Not 158 in one year, 158 "to date" as of the year 2000 (source below):
http://www.airbag-law.com/index.html
"As of April 1, 2000, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's Special Crash Investigation (SCI) has confirmed a total of 158 fatalities induced by airbag deployment. Of that total, 92 were children, 60 were drivers, and 6 were adult passengers."
Also, most of the fatalities occurred from being sitting too close to the airbag or not wearing a safety belt. From the wikipedia source again: "These fatalities have predominantly occurred when the children and adults were positioned precariously close to the compartment where the air bag was housed. Most of the children killed were not secured by safety belts and were thrown forward during pre-crash breaking, placing their heads just inches from the air bag when it deployed. Therefore, the best defense during an air bag deployment is to be wearing a safety belt."
Thanks for the correction. It's too late for me to edit my comment, or I'd change it.
Regardless, my point isn't that airbags are a problem. They clearly save lives on balance.
The point is that car manufacturers are happy to add features to cars that buyers want even when those features might kill people. On the other end, manufacturers have removed critical safety features to save a dollar or less on production costs, and those decisions also have killed people. [1]
In this case, though, it's more like airbags, where, on balance, more lives are saved than lost as a result of the feature. At least in theory.
Its 158 total since 2000 or so. Most of those deaths were children. That was before weight sensors were put in to disable the passenger side airbag and before parents were encourage to always put children in the back seat.
>automobile manufacturers just consider a certain amount of money paid out in liability a cost of doing business.
Actually for airbags its federal law and I believe liability issues there are handled by the federal government. I believe the government pre-empts "common law" liability here and can more or less wash its hands of it.
There's this great scene in Silicon Valley where one the characters gulps nervously before entering a self-driving car. I think there's going to be an element of fear here that's undeniable. I can't imagine riding in one at expressway speeds. Frankly, I think considering all the issues like weather, accidents, etc the self-driving car might be our generation's jetpack. Sure, sounds great on paper, but in reality its horrifying.
>liability issues there are handled by the federal government
Considering law firms exist that specialize in suing car companies over airbag accidents [1], I'm going to say [Citation Needed].
>Frankly, I think considering all the issues like weather, accidents, etc the self-driving car might be our generation's jetpack. Sure, sounds great on paper, but in reality its horrifying.
Cars with some of these features already exist, and are already on the road. Specifically auto-breaking collision avoidance, as well as auto-follow-distance cruise control (not to mention auto-parking).
These features are not only not horrifying, but they're starting to be standard on high-end cars. People will get used to them, and when the next innovation becomes commonplace, they will get used to it as well.
It's not only unlike jet-packs, it's almost inevitable at this point.
A little Googling uncovers the fact that airbags killed some 158 people in a recent year -- in low-speed accidents where the occupants would have been unharmed without the airbags. But airbags continued to grow in popularity (though now they're mandatory in the US, IIRC); automobile manufacturers just consider a certain amount of money paid out in liability a cost of doing business.
To help protect the manufacturers, they should make sure to have a good black-box recording of all the sensor data in the case of an accident. If there was a bug, they need to pay out the damages and fix the bug. If the accident was caused by someone else behaving dangerously, though, they should be protected from liability.
Bad press, however, is likely no matter what. The recent "Teslas can catch on fire!" media storm shows that; as I'm sure most HN readers know, a smaller percentage of Teslas caught fire than gasoline cars, and no Tesla owners were harmed, making the Tesla fires a non-story. Or it should have been a non-story, anyway.