Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 166 posts

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

#131

Post by dewey »

loco5niner wrote: post #89
guiomie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, technically he doesnt have anything to learn, because he is right. The person behind him should always keep enough distance to stop according to the speed he is driving. The person who rear-ended him is in wrong and is responsible for the damages.

Slamming on your breaks when you don't need to and forcing everyone behind you to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting you is a bad idea. Smooth and predictable is safe.

Sure, but you are still relying on the fact that other people never make mistakes so if you are not keeping the appropriate distance you are counting on other people to drive predictable all the time which will never be the reality (medical emergency, dropping your coffee in your lap,...)

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

#132

Post by dastbe »

zamalek wrote: post #79
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.

> Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Cars are objects that have an extreme amount of kinetic energy. The point isn't to avoid getting pulled over, the point is to avoid dying or killing. > 60mph in a 55mph Air resistance increases at a squared rate. The amount of fuel you use (and your emissions) is not linearly associated with your speed. So does your kinetic energy. Going at 25, 5 over is not the s…

> All the time, but it's not annoying because I don't care about being in front of everyone - I have left for my destination with ample time to make my appointment. I'm on the road to reach a destination, not to win the race. I don't care if people cut in front of me, because I have chosen not to and give them the safe room to do so.

> Driving aggressively is stressful, you [not specifically you] are fighting with everyone else on the road. You're going to risk your health in order to be directly ahead of me at a red traffic light two minutes later? I'll just pull to the right and give you room to pull in front of me. I try my best to get out of the way of aggressive driving; the further those drivers are away from me, the better.

the problem here is that you are (socially) forcing more cars to overtake in what sounds like nonstandard manners (from "I'll just pull to the right and give you room to pull in front of me" I can't tell if you're moving out of the left lane or pulling into the shoulder). by driving slower than other cars, you're impeding the ability for traffic to flow evenly which results in more frustration and more lane changes. both of these increase the likelihood of accidents occurring as they lead to more dangerous maneuvers occurring more frequently and with more emotion.

or rather, do you not see how your slow driving could be the cause of their aggressiveness? which doesn't really fit the adjective "courteous".

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

#133

Post by gizmo686 »

jcranmer wrote: post #106
gizmo686 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safe is relative. If he almost got rear ended, it probably wasn't safe. Of course, the other driver should have given ample distance himself and have been paying attention, but people often don't do that. At the margin, I think it is safer to err on the side of running a yellow then stopping abrubtly. I have never seen someone run a yellow and think they were being unsafe (even when the yellow turned red), but have s…

> I have never seen someone run a yellow and think they were being unsafe (even when the yellow turned red) I have seen people who have so egregiously missed the yellow that the cross-signal turned green before they entered the intersection. Saying that running a yellow is safer than not trains people to be entitled to running yellow lights, and that is going to make their actions much less safe. If there is someone…

And saying that stopping on yellow is safer than not trains people to slam the breaks when the light turns yellow.

> If there is someone in front of you, do not plan on running a yellow light.

Can I plan on running a green? Because greens turn into yellows abrubtly.

> If you planned on running the light, and the driver in front of you did not plan on doing so, it is you who is going to be at fault.

If someone slams their breaks in the middle of a clear road and I rear end them, then I am at fault. That doesn't mean it was safe to do so.

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

#134

Post by dwighttk »

jandrese wrote: post #108
kthejoker2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the vaaaast majority of honking is driven by impatience not any actual practical consideration (alerting others to your presence, trying to get someone's attention.) Honking to provoke someone into taking risks you don't have to incur the consequences of yourself is mild sociopathy.

Most of the time I honk it is because someone is playing on their phone and have not noticed that the light turned green 5 seconds ago.

I have a friend who uses his phone at red lights and never goes until someone honks at him. Just leaves it up to them to watch for the light change.

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

#135

Post by bryanbuckley »

zphds wrote: post #127
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…

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.

I had to deal with fully self-driving cars in SF a couple times and i actually became more aggressive about my right-of-way ("well, it's not going to hit me" i thought).

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

#136

Post by kazinator »

jandrese wrote: post #111
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.

I'd sympathize with the lady if there were more information about that intersection. Is there a stop sign? Is it an uncontrolled intersection with poor visibility?

Since this is a evidently a news story on CNBC, and not just someone's blog rant, it is reasonable to assume they are presenting the best evidence that they are able to come up with in support of its topic.

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

#137

Post by leesec »

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…

Luckily not all self driving approaches are trying to hard-code rules into their algorithms. See comma.ai , they use ML to have the driving agent learn from millions of miles of human driving data.

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

#138

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

zamalek wrote: post #79
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.

> Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Cars are objects that have an extreme amount of kinetic energy. The point isn't to avoid getting pulled over, the point is to avoid dying or killing. > 60mph in a 55mph Air resistance increases at a squared rate. The amount of fuel you use (and your emissions) is not linearly associated with your speed. So does your kinetic energy. Going at 25, 5 over is not the s…

> Air resistance increases at a squared rate. The amount of fuel you use (and your emissions) is not linearly associated with your speed. So does your kinetic energy. Going at 25, 5 over is not the same as going at 55, 5 over.

While true, engine efficiency might peak at higher engine speeds, which, depending on gear ratios, may reduce the impact of air resistance on your overall fuel economy.

I drive a 2016 BRZ with a manual transmission. It is stickered at 24 mpg city, 30 mpg highway. I usually drive 60-70 mph on the highway, depending on which highway. You know what my average fuel economy is? 33.5 mpg.

> Driving aggressively is stressful [...]

There's nothing aggressive about maintaining a speed that is equal to surrounding traffic, and by forcing so many people to change lanes and move around you, you're not only creating unnecessary stress in other drivers, but you're making the roads less safe.

If the speed limit is 55 mph, but everyone is driving 60 mph, then the safest speed is 60 mph. Within reason, reducing speed differential between cars is safer than keeping within the speed limit.

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

#139

Post by loco5niner »

dewey wrote: post #131
loco5niner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slamming on your breaks when you don't need to and forcing everyone behind you to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting you is a bad idea. Smooth and predictable is safe.

Sure, but you are still relying on the fact that other people never make mistakes so if you are not keeping the appropriate distance you are counting on other people to drive predictable all the time which will never be the reality (medical emergency, dropping your coffee in your lap,...)

> if you are not keeping the appropriate distance you are counting on other people to drive predictable all the time

I'm not advocating NOT keeping appropriate distance. You should.

I AM advocating NOT slamming your brakes needlessly.

Even when keeping appropriate distance, when the driver in front of you slams on their brakes, you will need to also.

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

#140

Post by cozzyd »

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.

If anything, speed limits are usually too high for non-grade-separated roads in populated areas.
Post reply on HN