Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#111

Post by jandrese » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #42

> One woman said that she almost hit one of the company's minivans because it suddenly stopped while trying to make a right turn, while another man said that he gets so frustrated waiting for the cars to cross the intersection that he has illegally driven around them. I.e. obnoxiously bad human drivers hate impeccably good drivers that happen to be robots. Suddenly stopped trying to make a right turn? I'm not convinc…

Eh, I can sympathize with the lady. It's really annoying when someone needs to come to a near complete stop to make a right turn in otherwise flowing traffic.

Yes, you don't need to whip into the parking lot at 45mph, but at the same time you don't need to take 15 seconds to creep around the corner and build up a big line of cars. There is a goldilocks zone and some people just plain miss it.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#112

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #67

I think the degree to which driving is a social behavior is underappreciated. By social behavior, I mean we learn to read the "body language" of the drivers (cars) around us, pedestrians, bikers, etc. Have you ever thought to yourself, "that dumbass is just about to pull into my lane" or something like that? That's you being a social animal, making a social judgment about a fellow animal. This is ancient stuff. Natur…

>I think the degree to which driving is a social behavior is underappreciated.

I regret that I have but one upvote to give.

>We can design a conservative robot to put into a school of fish. The real fish will avoid it and leave it behind. The robot fish is safe, in that there are no collisions. But is it fulfilling the mission of being a good fish?

Has anyone even built a robot fish that can operate fairly seamlessly in a school of fish?

Obviously there's less resources being devoted to this because there's less incentive to do so because there isn't the same demonetization potential as self driving cars but it seems like technology capable of acting like a fish in a school is a prerequisite of a properly self driving car.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#113

Post by falcor84 » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #100

Meekro wrote: post #56

I've been in situations where I'm waiting to make a tricky left turn safely while people behind me literally yell at me to go faster. Now those same people have to contend with cars that can't be intimidated into making risky turns by the driver behind them yelling, honking, or tailgating. I hope it plays out like this: 1. Driver tailgates at an intersection or stop sign to try to intimidate the driverless car in fro…

I think there may be a problem in step 5. Human nature is not that malleable and anyone that would be so dumb to rear end a car because it’s not turning soon enough will likely not change.

I upvoted you. But now that I reread the post above, I think that the implication there might have equally well been different - that the driver would not be able to afford alinsurance anymore and thus forced out of the privileged position of being able to (legally) drive. So the person might still be a jackass, but no longer a jackass driver.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#114

Post by crooked-v » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #101

Meekro wrote: post #56

I've been in situations where I'm waiting to make a tricky left turn safely while people behind me literally yell at me to go faster. Now those same people have to contend with cars that can't be intimidated into making risky turns by the driver behind them yelling, honking, or tailgating. I hope it plays out like this: 1. Driver tailgates at an intersection or stop sign to try to intimidate the driverless car in fro…

While relatively ideal, that ignores potential edge cases like the real driver driving with enough momentum to cause the driverless car he/she rear-ends to hit the car or curb or some other obstacle in front of them. Hopefully by that point the driverless system's smart enough to apply all emergency braking to reduce the chance of that, but it's one possible scenario.

That sounds like it just changes step 4 into "Tailgater's insurance rates skyrocket after his insurer is forced to pay the maximum to repair the expensive driverless car and the maximum to repair everything the expensive driverless car was forced to hit."

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#115

Post by x3n0ph3n3 » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #12

klodolph wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also wondering what part of this is due to them being programmed to follow the letter of the law, instead of driving like other drivers.

As someone who attempts to follow the letter of the law, I experience quite a few incidents of aggressive driving. The complaints here are really just demonstrating how bad humans are at driving - the frustration probably arises due to the fact that they are unable to intimidate the driver in front of them with aggressive behavior. > One woman said that she almost hit one of the company's minivans because it suddenly…

> The complaints here are really just demonstrating how bad humans are at driving

Or that the letter of the law is not a useful abstraction for how systems optimally perform.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#116

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #49

zamalek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who attempts to follow the letter of the law, I experience quite a few incidents of aggressive driving. The complaints here are really just demonstrating how bad humans are at driving - the frustration probably arises due to the fact that they are unable to intimidate the driver in front of them with aggressive behavior. > One woman said that she almost hit one of the company's minivans because it suddenly…

Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Not even traffic officers follow the letter of the law; it's rare to get pulled over for going 60mph in a 55mph zone, for example. Do you ever find yourself on a road getting passed by all the other cars? Isn't that annoying? Why not just speed up a few mph and join the herd? I'm honestly asking; I just do not get the appeal.

it's rare to get pulled over for going 60mph in a 55mph zone, for example

Maybe where you are, but someone I work with got pulled over for 63 in a 60 recently.

She also got nailed recently for 93 in an 80MPH zone. Her excuse was that she was just keeping up with everyone else. The cop didn't buy it.

I'm honestly asking; I just do not get the appeal.

I like keeping my money, instead of risking it in fines and higher insurance rates to satisfy the peer pressure of a bunch of strangers.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#117

Post by falcor84 » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

lqet wrote: post #31

wnevets wrote: post #19

I wonder how many horse & buggy riders hated the automobile.

Well, that actually was a transition away from self-driving cars.

Not quite so, you'd have to be Dr. Doolittle to give a horse a direction and then have it navigate there on its own. I imagine it might perhaps be possible in limited circumstances in the countryside, but definitely not in the city.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#118

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #90

cozzyd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automated vehicles could finally follow speed limits, stop blocking buses and bike lanes, and yield to pedestrians. What's not to like about that?

Why would we want other vehicles to follow speed limits? Then everyone would be stuck moving slowly. On the other hand... if everyone were to obey all of the impractically-low speed limits at once - like a "work-to-rule" strike - perhaps that would create enough political pressure to get them raised up to a more reasonable level.

This just demonstrates that you don't understand what speed limits are for. They're not some arbitrary number imposed on you to make your life inconvenient.

In addition to being adjusted for the engineering of the road, they also create gaps in traffic allowing people to change lanes, or other people to enter traffic, or — in the case of roads with intersections — allow other people to make left turns, especially on curves.

Just because you don't understand why a speed limit exists doesn't mean it's wrong. A lot of science goes into these decisions.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#119

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:20 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #116

snowwrestler wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Not even traffic officers follow the letter of the law; it's rare to get pulled over for going 60mph in a 55mph zone, for example. Do you ever find yourself on a road getting passed by all the other cars? Isn't that annoying? Why not just speed up a few mph and join the herd? I'm honestly asking; I just do not get the appeal.

it's rare to get pulled over for going 60mph in a 55mph zone, for example Maybe where you are, but someone I work with got pulled over for 63 in a 60 recently. She also got nailed recently for 93 in an 80MPH zone. Her excuse was that she was just keeping up with everyone else. The cop didn't buy it. I'm honestly asking; I just do not get the appeal. I like keeping my money, instead of risking it in fines and higher i…

Wanna tell us where this place is so we can all avoid it?

If I had to guess I'd say DC, Maryland, Virginia area since they go full 1984 on traffic stuff there but unfortunately any non-white driving a beat up older car is a magnet for fishing cops which leads to unreasonable tickets like what you've described so it really could be anywhere.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#120

Post by Digit-Al » Wed, Aug 29, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

A thought that has just occurred to me. I wonder if self driving cars should have L plates? They are, after all, learning how to drive. It might change the way other drivers behave around them as well since people in general give learners more leeway for their errors.