An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency • Hacker News Board

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#221

Post by Gordonjcp » Sat, May 28, 2022, 12:38 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #80

throwaway92394 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it mildly - this is unrealistic in the US except for major cities. Even then, depending on the city and where in the city, its going to be very difficult to convince and implement methods of cutting cars. While I think it's a good idea I just don't see this happening in the majority of the US other then major cities. In my state I just don't see how it would be possible given people commute 30+ miles regularly…

Start with better zoning laws so that people are not pushed to live 15 miles away from the their work and general/light commerce areas. After that, just copy the playbook from the Netherlands. Amsterdam was very much like most big American cities until the 70s, their streets were steadily being redesigned for human scale and less car dependency . It can be done and it can be done easily if Americans stop believing in…

> After that, just copy the playbook from the Netherlands

The Netherlands has a ridiculously dense population and is completely flat.

It's only a good model for other places with a ridiculous population density and pancake-flat geography.

You couldn't apply the Netherlands model to, for example, Scotland.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#222

Post by Gordonjcp » Sat, May 28, 2022, 12:42 PM UTC

anyfactor wrote: post #23

The trend of autonomous cars is one of the things that I believe is not practical. Even the most sophisticated machine learning algorithm requires repetition and constant input to be optimized. But there is infinitely many variables when it comes to driving on a street level. Driving is intuitive on a city street. The scope of autonomous vehicles should be limited to places where there is clarity of transit and very…

> The scope of autonomous vehicles should be limited to places where there is clarity of transit and very few variables.

This is precisely why Tesla Autopilot has such a good "safety record" - it only works on roads where people don't have accidents anyway. It works extremely well on motorways where everyone is travelling the same direction at the same speed and everything behaves extremely predictably. The moment anything crazy happens it hands off control to the human driver.

People compare this "x thousand miles without an accident" behaviour to the sum total of human driving, including twisty country roads and cities, but it's not a fair comparison.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#223

Post by Gordonjcp » Sat, May 28, 2022, 12:46 PM UTC

1970-01-01 wrote: post #133

>While a human might have reversed to clear the lane, the Cruise car stayed put. They give the theoretical human too much credit. I've seen much worse things happen, such as not stopping at all.

Looking at diagrams of the situation, "not stopping at all" means that the fire appliance would have had to stop, allow the autonomous vehicle to get out of the way, and then set off again. Not ideal, for sure, but "less worse" than just being blocked.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#224

Post by Gordonjcp » Sat, May 28, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #15

gkop wrote: post #12

Um so WHY was the Cruise car stopped in a travel lane to begin with? I skimmed 2x but don’t see this explained..

Because you yield to oncoming fire trucks.

This is a good idea because it is a 28 tonne truck full of water tanks coming at you at 50mph.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#225

Post by aetherson » Sat, May 28, 2022, 1:56 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #210

aetherson wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. You seem to think that driverless cars are unimportant for places like Europe. I think you're deeply wrong. If cars that can equal or exceed the performance of median humans come to the market without adding more than a few tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of the vehicle, I expect that they will rapidly become more popular than current automobiles in Europe (and Europe is far from car-averse -- the Netherl…

> The Netherlands has about one car per two people That is not the relevant metric. The important metric is how many trips does the average dutch take by car that could be taken by some more efficient mode ? Lots of people in European cities have cars but use them only on the weekend. Or they use the car to go to work on the outskirts of the city, but manage to use public transportation when going to a football match…

Nobody held driverless cars as a "panacea" to anything that's completely something you made up.

Let's just review this whole conversation:

1. I suggested to a poster who wanted to blame the whole Cruise problem on the garbage truck that garbage trucks do in fact have to block lanes.

2. You then jumped in and said that American should "just" reinvent itself so that cars weren't a big deal. You left it implicit why that was relevant here, but I think I understand you to believe that driverless cars are an unimportant technology.

3. I pointed out that "just" changing the fundamental mode of transit across all of America is in fact a tall order.

4. And then you've gotten less and less responsive to actual points until you get to here where you're now suggesting that driverless cars aren't a panacea, which is an argument nobody made.

To affirmatively restate my points:

1. Driverless cars, to be successful, must deal with a lot of messy road conditions, not just the 99% case.

2. If driverless cars do at some point cross the above line and genuinely become equal to or greater than the median human driver, I think they will be an important technology that will improve people's lives -- in both the United States and very significantly (if possibly somewhat less so) in Europe.

3. Driverless cars are plausibly on a much shorter timeline than remaking all of America's physical transportation/density infrastructure, and plausibly much less overall expensive than remaking all of America's physical transportation/density infrastructure.

4. Investment in driverless cars is non-rival to other changes to America's physical transportation/density infrastructure.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#226

Post by rglullis » Sat, May 28, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #220

rglullis wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, please watch the videos I linked. Especially the Not Just Bikes channel. For example, this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQY6WGOoYis can quickly explain why a transport system flooded with autonomous cars and poor public transit would make the overall system worse for everyone . There is also another video that talks about microcars for people with disability and reduced mobility: https://www.youtube.co…

I’ve watched all the Not Just Bikes videos in the past and just rewatched part of the first one you linked immediately above. The Downs-Thompson paradox may explain exactly what I see. We recently got priority bus lanes in my city (Cambridge, MA). The primary effect is that buses can now more quickly travel to where I didn’t need to go in the first place. Cars are still significantly faster, so people choose them. Re…

I also lived in the Cambridge, and I am very familiar with the 47 bus leaving from Central. I also biked there a lot, and I can tell you that there were very few times where I needed a car. The only times I needed one was where I was going to the suburbs and the alternative infra is non-existant. For the majority of cases, the T + biking was more than sufficient.

It is not about penalizing car driving. It would be a good start if the US did not subsidize car ownership. It the true cost of car ownership was put on those driving, perhaps cities would be able to finance better public transit...

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#227

Post by rglullis » Sat, May 28, 2022, 2:38 PM UTC

Gordonjcp wrote: post #221

rglullis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start with better zoning laws so that people are not pushed to live 15 miles away from the their work and general/light commerce areas. After that, just copy the playbook from the Netherlands. Amsterdam was very much like most big American cities until the 70s, their streets were steadily being redesigned for human scale and less car dependency . It can be done and it can be done easily if Americans stop believing in…

> After that, just copy the playbook from the Netherlands The Netherlands has a ridiculously dense population and is completely flat. It's only a good model for other places with a ridiculous population density and pancake-flat geography. You couldn't apply the Netherlands model to, for example, Scotland.

Flatlands or not, it does not mean that cars are the only reasonable mode of transportation. Even if you insist of trying to solve a social problem with technology, it would make more sense for those living in hilly areas to push for electric bikes than self-driving cars.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#228

Post by rglullis » Sat, May 28, 2022, 2:52 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #225

rglullis wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Netherlands has about one car per two people That is not the relevant metric. The important metric is how many trips does the average dutch take by car that could be taken by some more efficient mode ? Lots of people in European cities have cars but use them only on the weekend. Or they use the car to go to work on the outskirts of the city, but manage to use public transportation when going to a football match…

Nobody held driverless cars as a "panacea" to anything that's completely something you made up. Let's just review this whole conversation: 1. I suggested to a poster who wanted to blame the whole Cruise problem on the garbage truck that garbage trucks do in fact have to block lanes. 2. You then jumped in and said that American should "just" reinvent itself so that cars weren't a big deal. You left it implicit why tha…

The argument that I am making is simple: the more you push for self-driving cars, the more you are pushing to a car-centric system and the farther you are getting from better, more sustainable solutions. It is not just that is not a panacea, it is that it is a bad medicine.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#229

Post by aetherson » Sat, May 28, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #228

aetherson wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody held driverless cars as a "panacea" to anything that's completely something you made up. Let's just review this whole conversation: 1. I suggested to a poster who wanted to blame the whole Cruise problem on the garbage truck that garbage trucks do in fact have to block lanes. 2. You then jumped in and said that American should "just" reinvent itself so that cars weren't a big deal. You left it implicit why tha…

The argument that I am making is simple: the more you push for self-driving cars , the more you are pushing to a car-centric system and the farther you are getting from better, more sustainable solutions. It is not just that is not a panacea, it is that it is a bad medicine .

I suspect that you will find that your opinions are just not shared, and that people -- everywhere, including in places that you imagine to be ideologically aligned with you -- generally find that driverless cars make their lives better on the margin, if good driverless cars start to exist.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#230

Post by rglullis » Sat, May 28, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #229

rglullis wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument that I am making is simple: the more you push for self-driving cars , the more you are pushing to a car-centric system and the farther you are getting from better, more sustainable solutions. It is not just that is not a panacea, it is that it is a bad medicine .

I suspect that you will find that your opinions are just not shared, and that people -- everywhere, including in places that you imagine to be ideologically aligned with you -- generally find that driverless cars make their lives better on the margin, if good driverless cars start to exist.

That is way too low of a bar. All else being equal, even I would say that my life would be marginally better if self-driving cars existed.

The question is whether people value this more than the benefits of not being car-dependent.

You might think that these are not connected, but they pretty much are. Taking that in consideration, I could bet that only a minority would be willing to accept the trade-off.