Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes • Hacker News Board

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#161

Post by Laarlf » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

zip1234 wrote: post #157

Laarlf wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe has built roads forever that makes driving engaging. Europe has a lot less issues with phones while driving etc. Germany also solves that problem by having no speed limit when it gets boring. Making driving engaging is the best way to create mindful drivers.

What do you think makes for an engaging road? One thing that comes to mind is road width. A narrower road forces a driver to pay more attention.

Regular corners. Road width isn’t even that important really. Smaller roads makes some people drive very inconsistent with their speed, which annoys people and encourages overtaking at possibly risky spots.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#162

Post by andrewzah » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

bkor wrote: post #140

ghaff wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has had a driver's license in the US for a very long time, my experience is that--as with many things--one of the main things that makes you a better driver is putting in hours driving. Could you move more of those hours into a supervised learning environment? Probably. But you do that at the cost of making getting a license more difficult, expensive, and exclusive (in an environment where driving is o…

> I'm not sure how "more expensive training" eliminates some people texting while driving. You can do and the other. It's not about eliminating. If someone is great at something that doesn't mean that they're good at teaching that skill. Further, just because someone drove for a long time doesn't mean they're a good driver. Likely they've improved, but it hasn't been checked. When I got my license I learned about a l…

"A country can change their car reliance."

Not to be bleak, but I doubt this will happen for a long time, if ever, in the US. It -may- happen regionally among a state or two, but good luck getting multiple states to coordinate on a project like this.

We can't even get things like voting centers done properly, so how in the world are we going to implement public transit? There is no incentive for politicians, and I bet the car industry would quickly give them incentives otherwise if they even attempted it.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#163

Post by dawnerd » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

Daho0n wrote: post #77

dawnerd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because consumers really don't want this product > Self driving cars will drive the speed limit Tesla is proving both to be false, today.

Tesla's aren't self driving. They are helping humans drive. For a Tesla to not drive the speed limit it would have to either be told to do so or fail.

Maybe you should drive a Tesla before you claim what it does.

It will gladly speed without driver input. There’s an offset setting since not everywhere has the same customs. Here it’s about 7% increase is safe without getting pulled over.

The FSD beta is rolling out to everyone that wants it (which is a lot) in the next week or so. Yes it’s not perfect, but saying it’s not self driving is doing a huge disservice to the entire development team.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#164

Post by wing-_-nuts » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #20

Animats wrote: post #18

You can read the California DMV's set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are "vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver". There's one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them. The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all hi…

>The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There's a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That's probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars. I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant. Most times…

I'm certainly not blaming the victim for getting rear ended, but I've noticed that a lot of people brake a lot harder and more suddenly than needed. It's easy to see how that can lead to getting rear ended, even if the other driver is only distracted for a second.

I try to spread my braking over the space I have to do so. Lower braking force over a longer time is much safer. It both gives people more time to react, and if a collision does occur the speed differential is lower, and less damage will occur. This doesn't save you from getting rear ended while stopped, but that's a minority of rear endings from what I have seen.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#165

Post by wing-_-nuts » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

pnutjam wrote: post #121

javagram wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the US, unless things are different from TV, you can get trained by someone else with a license in a regular car and do an exam. Be cautious about believing TV drama is realistic. States I’m familiar with require 30 hours of licensed classroom instruction and 6 hours of licensed driving instruction beyond the training via a parent or other adult. In any case, no amount of training seems to stop people from using…

I'm teaching my kids, insurance companies stopped giving any discount for drivers ed. My daughters all passed the exam to get a learning license on the first try. I made them read the dmv book, on the state website. I also quizzed them on various scenarios. They have friends who took classes and still failed the exam multiple times. IMHO, the problem has more to do with the entitlement around driving. People don't vi…

>IMHO, the problem has more to do with the entitlement around driving. People don't view it as a privilege.

Large parts of the US have little to no public transit, and can only be accessed via car. You can't say driving isn't an entitlement and then arrange your infrastructure in such a way as to require driving.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#166

Post by pnutjam » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #165

pnutjam wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm teaching my kids, insurance companies stopped giving any discount for drivers ed. My daughters all passed the exam to get a learning license on the first try. I made them read the dmv book, on the state website. I also quizzed them on various scenarios. They have friends who took classes and still failed the exam multiple times. IMHO, the problem has more to do with the entitlement around driving. People don't vi…

>IMHO, the problem has more to do with the entitlement around driving. People don't view it as a privilege. Large parts of the US have little to no public transit, and can only be accessed via car. You can't say driving isn't an entitlement and then arrange your infrastructure in such a way as to require driving.

Welcome to the USA. You shouldn't, but you certainly can and we have. Read any laws about driving licenses and reasons for suspension.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#167

Post by jaywalk » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

bkor wrote: post #145

jaywalk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The requirements in my US state are very similar to yours, except the amount of time you need to spend with a licensed instructor in an adapted car is fixed (don't remember the number). But after that, and before you can take your practical exam, you're required to spend a significant (fixed minimum) amount of time driving with a parent or guardian in the passenger seat. And the cost is far less than the nearly $3000…

> you're required to spend a significant (fixed minimum) amount of time driving with a parent or guardian in the passenger seat. That seems pretty unsafe from my viewpoint. Just because you can drive doesn't mean you can teach/instruct. I think people here generally do 20 hours of driving with a licensed instructor. There's no minimum I think, it's just that the (practical) exam is expensive so people only do the exa…

You're only allowed to drive with a parent after classroom instruction and driving with an instructor for the required amount of hours and passing. So it's not unsafe at all, because where you'd be allowed to just start driving on your own, my state requires you to drive with a parent for X hours before that.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#168

Post by thebruce87m » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #139

Animats wrote: post #18

You can read the California DMV's set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are "vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver". There's one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them. The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all hi…

> The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There's a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That's probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars. Not necessarily. I have a Honda, and the system in my car is deliberately designed…

It will be due to false positives. By the time the system is really sure you are going to hit something it’s probably too late to stop.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#169

Post by hardtke » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

mindvirus wrote: post #118

hardtke wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the adoption process will be slow because consumers really don't want this product. Self driving cars will drive the speed limit and infuriate both other motorists and their owners who are getting passed by speeding human driven cars. There will also be well publicized stories of the few times that self driving cars perform worse than humans. All drivers think they are above average and therefore the statis…

I think people will want it. They'll get to watch netflix or read or take meetings on their commutes. They'll get to live further from the city in a bigger place than they could otherwise. I also suspect we'll see cars looking more like living rooms or offices. The other thing is that as we have more self driving cars, speed limits will be able to be relaxed. Most humans can't safely drive at 100mph, but on a road of…

I agree that a world of 100% fully self driving cars that talk to each other makes the road capacity and travel speeds much greater. I don't see any way, however, to get from here to there (at least in the US). Are we going to give cars to people that currently rely on beat up used cars to get to their jobs? It's the same reason we can't have single payer healthcare -- the chasm is too far for us to cross politically and economically even if the destination would be superior.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#170

Post by mindslight » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

burlesona wrote: post #123

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars have been pervasive for over a century and virtually none of the actual improvements in safety have come from "hoping humans do better". I disagree, given how standards for getting a driver's license are different between countries and getting more and more tighter. In the US, unless things are different from TV, you can get trained by someone else with a license in a regular car and do an exam. Over here, you…

Please stop thinking that one can know how “the states” are from a distance. The US is quite large and diverse. I’ve lived in four states and they were each significantly different in terms of legal structures, policies, culture, daily life etc. As an American I would rarely claim to know how things are in “the states.” I only know the parts I’ve lived in, or the few things that are actually federal in nature. The US…

You've got a point in general, but here specifically I don't think OP was wrong.

The US definitely has an overarching philosophy, regardless of differing per-state policies. From my own experience with one of the more restrictive states in the US, all that is required to get a driving license is a written test and a road test once you reach 18 years old. Most people want to get their license before then, so they opt into training classes with an instructor and a car with dual controls. But that isn't required. I don't know how things are in the other more restrictive states, but I'd guess what I said goes for at least 90% of the country.