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Forecasting the Impact of Fully Automated Vehicle Adoption on US Road Traffic Injuries

by Jeff Fulmer | Published: 2026-01-05 14:03:06
Is Waymo Coming To Your City? Google Robotaxis Hit The Road For Tests

Techxplore summarizes a JAMA Surgery study concluding that by 2035, autonomous vehicles could reduce 1 million road injuries across the US. That's a 3.6% reduction in traffic-related injuries over the next decade.

That seems likely.

In the long run, ten years is a lifetime in tech, so this is probably correct. But I've seen millions of lines of code in my career. And since most programmers don't check their fscking inputs, I won't be an early adopter. And I'll certainly never use Microsoft Autodrive.

Autonomous vehicles are equipped with numerous sensors that generate massive amounts of data, which form the basis of the vehicle's decision-making. Input checks are crucial for ensuring safety, reliability, and security by validating data integrity and accuracy. I haven't seen this code, but I'm confident the checks they're using now will be significantly improved later. 

Software manufacturers make a strong case: "Input checks are critical throughout the entire code lifecycle!" But management needs a prototype to play with; it makes them feel important. The fastest way to deliver one is to bypass input checks. "Here you go." We'll tighten that later. But "later" is when you handle scope creep. Okay, okay. We'll address input checks during integration testing.

But when the project is behind schedule, what's the only collapsible timeline? Testing. Input checks are added later. We refer to them as "bug fixes." 

I'm certain robots will be driving your JoeDog around one day. Just not today.