Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, I definitely do illegal things - especially when there are cyclists on the road.
Uh, you run them over?
I cross solid yellow lines to give them more room than the law asks you to.
Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
121–130 of 166 posts
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The car still starts without auto insurance. There are still states where auto insurance isn’t even compulsory.
You can’t legislate civility. Attempting to force it with technology is even less effective.
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#123A 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.
on the other hand, they would be learning in a less realistic environment...
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#124US desperately needs self-driving cars. Desperately. I don't think most people realize how much. Because they've never seen a city with good public transport where most people don't own or care about cars. But achieving good public transport in US is impossible for cultural reasons. So there's no public transport so most expensive areas will fight to the death to keep population density low. Because more people means…
This is why I'm only willing to live in US cities with functional subways, but of course that's a luxury I get as a software engineer.
Right? I feel like we'd do a lot of service to the arguments here if we could just get people to stop saying "the US" like it is some monolithic entity
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#125When i honk at another car it is always to correct bad behavior of some sort, normally when someone doesnt notice when a light turns green. But can these cars learn from being honked at? If they are doing 50 in a 90[1] clearly because they missed a sign, is there anything we can do to communicate to them that they are making a mistake? Still wondering if they are capable of handling a police stop. Can they know that…
You might be aware already (I see that you're an attorney), but at least in California, honking is illegal except for safety purposes.
> (a) The driver of a motor vehicle when reasonably necessary to insure safe operation shall give audible warning with his horn.
> (b) The horn shall not otherwise be used, except as a theft alarm system which operates as specified in Article 13 (commencing with Section 28085) of this chapter.
Honking when someone doesn't notice a green light seems perfectly reasonable, if technically illegal. But I'm glad we have that law (albeit not much enforcement), since most honking just conveys impatience and increases stress for everyone without communicating anything useful.
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
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."
Ah, I may have completely missed that earlier. Whoops.
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#127I'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…
Yesterday, as I was taking a left turn with my motorcycle on a big intersection with flashing red signals, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd be able to communicate with self driving cars that it's my turn. It was chaotic and required some level of consensus among the vehicles involved.
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
That’s funny that the municipal speed limit for a 200 sq mile area including urban and rural densities is 30 mph. What a coincidence that most of the roads just so happen to have conditions that 30 mph is always the right speed. It’s 30 mph in the city which seems pretty reasonable but in fact seems too fast in some parts (this is an old non grid city)... meanwhile oh they bump it to 35 mph for a county road that is suburban to rural and two lanes wide in each direction. That same basic road with similar traffic patterns and construction is 45 mph the next county over. And then.. the next state over everything urban is 25 now.. even though that state gets a lot less rain and snow.
And explain to me how the laws of physics or “science” change across state lines. Because if you’ve ever driven from one state to the next in the US you will quickly learn that each DOT has its own theory of how to do things and how to assign speeds. The PA turnpike is 70 mph now and I refuse to believe you have any science to back up why that 70 mph is more appropriate than the 65 mph for the NYS thruway which is wider, straighter, flatter, better lit , in overall better shape throughout the state...also why is the speed 65 in bumblefuck as well as an hour outside of nyc (I lived through the politics of northeast road transportation and bud shuster so spare me your science counterargument, I already know it’s a pile).
I feel like you are or might be related to a traffic engineer and I honestly don’t want to hurt your feelings.
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#129I don't think I've ever heard anyone say they like conservative driving. "I would have risked that left turn, so you should have too. The person with the green light would have slowed down to avoid an accident, probably, and I would have gotten to the next red light 10 seconds sooner!" You will also hear this when talking about less-capable drivers ("get off the road, grandma!") or less-capable vehicles ("I hate havi…
>And of course, nobody ever says "you're going 80, the speed limit is 55! slow down!" incorrect
Even when I was a kid, my parents would be speeding and yelling at other cars that were speeding much faster than them. Perhaps those exact words weren't used, but they were definitely complaining about people driving too fast.
Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It means "stop if it is safe to do so". if you have to slam on your brakes, it is (arguably) not safe to stop.
Slamming the brakes means different things for a sports car vs a SUV. In my Subaru STI I can stop faster than some Escalade with only 2/3rds the brake pedal pressure. I'm not even close to maximum braking force. It's even more true in a lighter car like a Porsche 911. Just as if they were driving a large commercial truck it is the SUV driver's responsibility to not be too close to me.
Even following at a safe distance, if you stop suddenly, they will have to stop suddenly. The point is, don't stop suddenly unless you HAVE to.
Try to be smooth and predictable.