Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • November 15, 2019 1:29 AM

@ MarkH,

As I mentioned above, a typical driver would need about 1,000 years at 8 hours of driving per day, to reach a 50% likelihood of reaching that fatal incident.

I’m curious as to where that statistic came from…

As a back of a napkin first approximation 300,000,000 US citizens and 30,000 road fatalities a year. Says a 1:10,000 chance of being one of those fatalities. But as we know the actual number of drivers on the road is a lot less than that so one in four thousand might be nearer. But people do not drive for eight hours a day often it’s less than one hour a day…

Which brings up the vexed question of the ratio of drivers to fatalities. In modern cars it’s actually quite hard to die if the car is kept within the legal road behaviours. Interestingly as seen in many other nations road fatality statistics modern car design is keeping more drivers alive.

Interestingly that 30,000 road deaths a year in the US does not change that much even though population size has… Thus if the numbers of those dying inside a vehicle is decreasing, that suggests that the number of people outside of vehicles dying is increasing…

Clive Robinson • November 15, 2019 2:15 PM

@ Sancho_P,

Society doesn’t need driverless cars, we’d need solutions to drive less.

And whilst we are getting to the “drive less” we need ways to ensure we “drive more slowly”.

Because if you hit a child head on at 20mph you will hurt them but in by far the majority of cases they will get only minor injuries thus survive.

However even by far the majority of adults will not survive beong hit even by a side swipe at 40mph. And the 5% that do survive a head on hit at that speed, more than half will have permanent life changing injuries.

Bad as driving might appear in the US at double that of Canada and four times that of the UK and many other European nations, it is almost as nothing compaired with the middle and north east of Africa, and one or two parts of South America, where the memorial markers have got to such a density that they are now yet another danger to drivers and passengers.

It would appear that without significant legislation that is continuously enforced, some drivers fall into the worst of Dunning-Kruger behaviours.

And before people ask, I long ago decided that whilst cycling was something I was not just good at, but importantly safe at, driving cars was something I was crap at. Mainly because nearly all cars are physically too small for me to get into the driving position. Let’s face it, would you feel safe in a vehicle where the driver had such long legs, they had to contort themselves just to get a hand on the gear shift that was digging in the back of their knee and who’s vision was about 30 degrees from vertical because their head was pressed up hard against the roof such that they effectively had one ear on their shoulder and the other apparently stuck to the roof…

A friend has a picture of me sitting in the front passenger seat of their top of the line BMW. The sun roof is open so that I can stick more than half my head out of it…

So no, I decided long ago that driving was not for me. A decision that proved a wise one, when a few years later I started blacking out quite frequently and had to surender my licence on medical grounds, even though by then I was not driving.

Clive Robinson • November 20, 2019 3:29 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing,

A study of accidents involving AVs in California indicated that over half of them involved the AV being rear-ended because a human driver couldn’t figure out what in the world it was doing…

They couldn’t? Obviously they had not seen enough 1950’s B movies 😉 Otherwise they would have known, the AV is “a robot in disguise”. Thus like all robots it’s only desire is to,

“Kill All Humans”…

So the only real question is “how?”[1], which with this “jump out” algorithm appears to be by inducing sufficient stress to cause a heart attack :-S

[1] Now some people might think I’m a little biased, because I would like to try various medieval punishments on “jump out drivers”… But having spent an annoyingly long time in a “neck brace” and sling, also having great difficulty using my right hand all because of a “jump out car driver” I feel I might have justification for wanting to go all biblical on them… The so called “accident” happened because the bus I was on was busy, so I ended up having to stand in my crutches holding on as best I could with my right hand. When the car jumped out in front of the bus. Not without justification the bus driver stompped on the brakes. I ended up by the process of inertia quite literally “flying” down about one third the length of the bus my grip torn from the hand rail I’d been holding, befor my head made contact with the front of the bus bringing me to a stop in an untidy pile by the driver position. Thankfully not a “dead stop” but an unconscious one, that ended up with me being treated in hospital. Hence the uncomfortable fashion accessory at the neck and arm in a sling. With the accompanying stares from people wondering why I was hobbling around on one crutch looking like an extra escaping from a zombie movie due to sleep deprivation and pain. It’s at times like that you wonder if there is a “#NotAHappyCamper” social media tag.

Clive Robinson • November 21, 2019 4:38 AM

@ AlexS,

According to the CDC, ~200,000 people / year are injured in bathrooms.

That is effectively a meaningless quote and almost certainly wrong.

Firstly it’s not comparing “apples with apples”. We know for instance people cut themselves shaving, burn themselves on radient heaters and still electrocute themselves with hair dryers and mains powered radios. Whilst some of those are so minor they would not be reported, even the more severe such as burns would probably not be reported either. But what you would not report from the bathroom you almost certainly would if your new car cut you and gave rise to a similar level of blood letting as some shaving accidents, as for your car burning you again you would be hot on the phone to complain, likewise if your super duper electric car fried you alive on a rainy day, and you if you survived, or your loved ones if you didn’t would be baying for blood in newspapers and via lawyers.

A more intetesting statistic might be why US drivers die rather more frequently than North Western European countries. But take care there are two simple ways to normalise, the first is against numbers of people in a country (not good) or against number of vehicles in a country (better). There is also a third ehich is by estimated usage (better still).

Have a look at the list in,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

And look down at the US (12.4, 14.2, 7.3) and UK (3.1, 5.7, 3.4) lines which are next to each other. You will find that the US figures are loosely 4,3,2 times worse respectively than the UK, and the UK whilst not the worst in North West Europe, is most certainly not the best by a long way. One of the UK’s closest neighbours Norway for instance (2.7, 3.9, 3.0) and their neighbour Sweden (2.8, 4.6, 3.3) do noticeably better. Oh and then there is the US neighbours Canada (5.8, 8.9, 5.1) and Mexico (12.3, 43, 27.5).

Which ever way you look at it the Americas are not the places people drive safely. Which brings us to your argument of,

Will people die because of automation? Yes. Will people be saved due to automation? Yes. And at least from my experiences, yes, the number of people saved will outweigh the number of people killed.

It’s clear to see that one answer might be “It kills more in Europe than it saves, but Saves more in the Americas than it kills”.

That is whilst a machine on average might drive better than drivers in Mexico/US/Canada, it will drive worse than those in areas of North Western Europe.

It’s a complex subject, but one thing is clear, there is a wide disparity in driving standards, and,

Improving driving standards will in effect allways save more than it kills where ever you go.

Unlike machines currently or for the foreseeable future… And there is a well known reason for this which is “complexity” it’s why trains under human or machine control have way way better statistics than road vehicles.

Clive Robinson • November 21, 2019 6:27 PM

@ Sancho_P,

This road is a dead end, unneeded btw.

Unneeded by most, but wanted by many.

There are a few people who for various reasons medical/disability who either cannot drive or it would be unsafe for them to drive (I’m one these days). So if we can not use “public transport” for various reasons –like there is none– then our only option is expensive taxis and the like.

However there are many who would like the benifit of public transport / taxi but without the inconvenience or expense. Some would much rather read a book, do work, sleep or get up to otherthings in the privacy of their own vehicle. How many people do you think would like being able to go out on a Friday/Saturday night and not have to worry if they had one or more drinks to many and start sleeping it off on the way home? I’m guessing many if not most more responsible drivers.

So desirable to many and a life saver for some.

The question is “at what price?” as I’ve mentioned automatic trains and light railways are very safe, safer infact than driver operated trains except for one area, people being on the track.

We could very easily have cars that were as safe if we got rid of drivers and pedestrians. That is we could design the roads to be used like railway systems where the cars are not autonomous except in certain safety features and they would be under a central control system, which knows where each and every vehical is and where they are going thus can “look ahead” to move the vehicle safely.

But this would mean that there could be no drivers or pedestrians in the same area operating independently of the central control system. Most drivers are in no way ready to give up “self control”, that is they delude themselves they will always be better than a control system especially when an emergency is involved. Just about every real independent study done this century shows that the majority of drivers or operators do not function at all well in emergancies even with training, because they lack the brain paths caused by sufficiently repeated experience…

Like any “human skill” there is the “10,000 hour” rule to become firstly profficient, then experienced then master. How long do you think the average driver would have to spend actively behind the wheel to clock up 30,000 hours of driving bearing in mind many people only work 2,000 hours a year. In short many won’t get there before old age diminishes their abilities.

Clive Robinson • November 22, 2019 5:10 PM

@ supersaurus,

slightly less than 20 ft/sec or slightly greater than 13 mph. how do you think your head would feel after that collision?

I actually know because as I’ve said before on this blog I’ve had a head injury sufficiently forcefull to give me a full fracture of the lower jaw at the point of the jaw. And as I was told in hospital even people going through wind screens on cars at 60mph generally don’t get that sort of injury. In fact they are not normally seen on living people.

But look at it this way an adolescent who is still technically a child can throw a punch in excess of 6m/S or ~13mph into another childs face and they generally only end up with a bruise.

But the statistics of road accidents involving children / adolescents in the UK used to be issued by RoSPA and are still on line in places.

Have a look at,

https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/drivers/inappropriate-speed.pdf

Under pedestrians they give,

85% fatality at 40mph.
45% fatality at 30mph.
5% fatality at 20mph.

They used to do another report that had the figures in age or hight groupings but I did not see any current.

Clive Robinson • November 23, 2019 7:46 AM

@ Sancho_P,

You don’t believe that technical solutions will ever solve societal problems, do you?

Short answer “on their own no”.

Firstly “Be carefull what you wish for” when you say “solve societal problems” the history of eugenics should always always make you cautious.

But from my perspective the longer answer is, technology is agnostic to use and those that produce it follow capatalist economic behaviour. So unless society provides regulation or legislation as a social act to counter balance that then at the very least minorities and the vulnerable will be exploited.

I would very much like it to be otherwise, but I’m old enough to realise that “society has to fight for what it believes is right” rather than the stupid mantra of “The free market will provide” spouted by the self interested elite and their acolytes.

Very clearly technology as supplied to the market currently does not solve socoetal issues, as all manner of ICT products demonstrate “by the steaming bucket load” every day. When added to by bought legislation like the DMCA, that is not going to change anytime soon.

For instance most of society says that “being a peeping tom on others is bad for society” no matter who does it or for what ever motive. Because it is an excepted “social norm” or “more”. Thus spying on people is very far from “socially acceptable”.

Which is why you have the likes of the US FBI, DoJ, and Intelligence community, and their equivalents in other countries who want to spy on everyone for the power it gives them spout a load of very very distant corner cases and arm wave movie plots into existance to scare people with. Or invent bogiemen to scare people with such as the old “Reds under the beds” nonsense.

As just “chicken little” type rhetoric of the “Red Scare” nolonger realy works, these distant corners cased, movie plots, and bogiemen get termed in “emotional blackmail wording” which we sometimes call “think of the children rhetoric”.

They do this because they know that society is fundementaly against them, thus as they have no valid rational argument a normal person would accept, they have to resort to “emotional blackmail” or the threat of it. Further as we have seen they are quite prepared to do worse, a lot worse, by various entrapment and “agent provocateur” techniques create bogiemen in the flesh so they can get larger appropriations and more power as well as “on boarding” more legislators to get the legislation you know they will misuse to their benifit.

In times past we would have called such people and those associated with them “Evil” or “Pariahs” and at best made them outcasts by running them out of town, if not “tar and feather them” or earlier “burn them as witches” etc for the sake of “Justice being seen to be done” in public.

Now the best we are alowed to do is point out they are “evil” perhaps say at them “get behind me satan” or some other biblical quote and ridicule them and hold them up publically as the fools they are so every one laughs them out the door.

I’m sure there are quite a few such people in “high places” that many citizens would love to “turn on a spit” all be it figuratively.

But then “society” does not get a choice when it comes to such things, or say who gets positions of high office. Because we alowed those rights to be taken away from us by self interested legislators years ago. Just as we are loosing the right to hold “politicians on the take” via lobying etc to account…

If as we obvioulsy have, lost those rights, what else do you think we have lost?

Well obvioisly one is the right to say how technology is used in society.

Does that answer your question sufficiently?

Clive Robinson • November 25, 2019 8:47 PM

@ supersaurus,

5% fatality is not equivalent to “only minor injuries”

As I originally said (which you quoted earlier),

Because if you hit a child head on at 20mph you will hurt them but in by far the majority of cases they will get only minor injuries thus survive.

The “majority of cases” does not preclude either serious injury or death in a minority of cases.

Oh and please do not read “hitva child head on” as meaning hitting the child in the head. In England to “hit head on” means to make direct inline contact from you moving directly toward them, nothing more than that.

Also,

getting hit by the hard part of the front of a car that weighs 4,000lbs

A two tonne car is not normal in Europe or UK, due to many things but “Carbon footprint” “fuel emissions regulations” and high fuel prices tend to make people drive in smaller cars. Further European cars also tend not to have “hard parts” often the likes of radiator grills are made of flexible plastics and the front of vehicles is designed to be both low and sloped which is designed to cause even children to be hit in a quite vectored way, reducing the effective impact force significantly.

As for,

or by a concrete sidewalk

In the UK “sidewalks” are usually called “pavements” and frequently they are not concrete and more importantly in many areas where children are found such as urban and suburban areas the pavement is seperated from the road by a “verge” of grass on soil, four or often more, feet wide. The most dangerous part being the 90 degree outwards edge on the “kerb stone” that is granit or pre-formed cement.

is quite different from being hit by a six year old’s fist.

Yes the damage caused by an impact can be approximated as Newtons / Sq meter (in part it’s one of the reason bullets make holes in you whilst the butt of the gun just thumps the sholder). A childs closed fist at the same velocity of 6meters/second as the car has a very small surface area as little as 3cm squared. A car on the other hand especially with sloped bonnet etc may have a 0.5-1.5 square meter vector reduced impact area.

By the way the size of boxing gloves is designed to significantly increase the area and due to their mass actually increase the energy marginally but do not reduce the velocity or acceletation in any apreciable manner. In fact tests have shown that because the boxers hand is better protected they actually hit with much greater velocity and acceleration when the gloves are on their hands than when they are not. So in fact talking about boxers and their gloves is very much “not an apples to apples comparison either”.

As for,

however I must repeat my question about banging your head from six feet up

You actually provide to little information to say very much of anything.

As for my incident as I’ve said before, I was karate kicked with a “flying drop kick” to the back of the head by an adolescent who I’ve been told was over six feet tall and quite broad so probably upwards of 100kg. The point of my jaw hit a vertical steel sign pole aproximately 5cm diameter which was about 30cm in front of my face. It was estimatrd that I was unconcious for 20-45 minutes consistant with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). As the maxiofacial surgeon remarked it was the hardest bone break to make in the entire human body and very rarely seen on live humans. There is also evidence that it may well have caused me brain damage having cognitive impairment[1] and personality change. But as I am still functional at above average levels cognatively they did only basic brain scans which generally show little or nothing with what is called “mild TBI”. What should have been used was SPECT imaging, which uses a gamma emitting injection and gamma camera, and is of sufficient sensitivity to show up “traumatic brain injury” (TBI) and “chronic traumatic encephalopathy” (CTE). Both TBI and CTE often get misdiagnosed as PTSD and chronic depression. It’s important to know the difference between TBI and PTSD etc because treating for PTSD instead of TBI can be harmfull… The problem I have is that the neurologists think it’s PTSD and the psychiatrists TBI, that is they are both passing the buck.

The scary thing is that recent resurch into Alzheimers Disease and Tau Pathology suggest that in something like 50% of AD sufferers TBI has happened to them. Which if you think about it does not bode well…

[1] Amongst other things I had to teach myself to read again which was not fun. However whilst I used to be able to read a paperback a day, 400 odd technical papers and two or three technical books a week with significant recall before the attack, things are significantly different. Now I’m hard pushed to read one paperback a week and technical papers of any density tend to cause problems with “sensory overload” likewise technical books that I’m lucky to read but not realy remember three or four a year. However once information is “in and remembered” processing it is not realy any different and giving voice to results or putting them on paper only marginally more difficult than before.