Sometimes it seems that Waymo is moving awfully slowly but I think they are being really smart to remain cautious and keep their safety record. One major accident like Uber had could destroy the whole program. Better to move very deliberately, and incrementally, and don't expand beyond the system's abilities.
Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#32This reminds me of a video I watched long ago that analyzes roughly how many miles would a self-driving car need to be driven so that we can have a certain confidence that they are driving better than humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaYER2M8dcs
That's a pretty superficial take. The whole thing relies on the gigantic denominator of human miles, but humans are artificially inflating their average because overwhelming majority of miles driven are extremely simple trips on limited-access highways. Waymo, by comparison, racked up its million miles driving around the SF Tenderloin, in the dark. Opposite to the claims seen elsewhere in this thread, which are omnip…
> self-driving car developers operate in the most difficult conditions they can find.
Ehhhhhhh. While I agree that these aren't the easiest driving environments in the world, they are certainly mild climates. If I were in the business of proving that waymo vehicles weren't ready for prime time I'd be taking them up the alcan in winter or Florida during hurricane season, not Phoenix.
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess it's easier to do when you have a stellar safety record. ... for the conditions that the Waymo vehicles operated in. Deployment of Waymo FSD across the board would seem to be a sure win in SF and Phoenix, so I hope that it gets widely adopted in those areas at minimum since I think it will save a lot of lives. There's a lot of work to be done by Waymo yet to get it to work in other areas of the country and…
SF is not an easy locale to test in. Sure, there is no snow, but the city is narrow, dense, with a lot of challenging situations including fog, rain, and crackheads. This success seems promising.
SF is a terrible city to drive in. Narrow streets, terrible hills, a huge diversity of traffic: pedestrians, cyclists, electric scooters, buses, light rail, trains. Highly congested. Plenty of tourists driving (it’s not like NY or London where people who are visiting know not to drive).
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#34How does Waymo compare to human drivers when it comes to driving style? I've seen some complaints that it is annoyingly slow and indecisive sometimes, e.g. taking forever to make a left turn. Is this something Waymo also analyzes? Any hard data on that?
I don't think there is hard data. From two rides experience in Arizona it feels eerily similar to a human driver minus it adhering the speed limit.
And minus the times when it gets stuck and needs to be rescued by human driver either remotely or an actual Waymo guy coming over and getting in the car. Doesn't happen every time of course but it does happen.
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#35This reminds me of a video I watched long ago that analyzes roughly how many miles would a self-driving car need to be driven so that we can have a certain confidence that they are driving better than humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaYER2M8dcs
That's a pretty superficial take. The whole thing relies on the gigantic denominator of human miles, but humans are artificially inflating their average because overwhelming majority of miles driven are extremely simple trips on limited-access highways. Waymo, by comparison, racked up its million miles driving around the SF Tenderloin, in the dark. Opposite to the claims seen elsewhere in this thread, which are omnip…
> Waymo, by comparison, racked up its million miles driving around the SF Tenderloin, in the dark.
You might be confusing them with Cruise. Waymo is driving around SF driverless 24/7 so the million miles also come from during the day, while Cruise is limited to nighttime.
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#36One of the reports says that the accident was caused by the other driver looking at their phone. Could potentially the sensors of the waymo detect that and warn the other driver?
I mean if the other driver is using Android it should be possible to use some combination of license plate, phone GPS, Bluetooth proximity, and other means to identify who the other driver probably is and pop a “you are about to run into one of our cars, please loop up” message on their phone.
Yes, Black Mirror is in the process of producing that episode.
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#37If you don't want to read the full 30 page paper, Waymo has a blog post summarizing it: https://blog.waymo.com/2023/02/first-million-rider-only-mile... It's refreshing to see Waymo continue to be transparent about their safety data. I guess it's easier to do when you have a stellar safety record.
I've probably driven half a million miles and I don't remember having 10 incidents (I probably have, just don't remember). So I'd conclude I'm at least as safe a driver as Waymo. Even if not true, most people are going to feel that way when they see the data. Human nature.
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#38One of the reports says that the accident was caused by the other driver looking at their phone. Could potentially the sensors of the waymo detect that and warn the other driver?
"Hey guys, self-driving is a decent sprint but I think you should expand the scope to include detecting and modeling driver behavior in nearby vehicles. Add a quick study for HCI to warn drivers of their dangerous aberrant behavior and I think we might have something real here!" - tropsis, 2023
This feature is also required to solve the trolley problem so they might as well start on it now.
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess it's easier to do when you have a stellar safety record. ... for the conditions that the Waymo vehicles operated in. Deployment of Waymo FSD across the board would seem to be a sure win in SF and Phoenix, so I hope that it gets widely adopted in those areas at minimum since I think it will save a lot of lives. There's a lot of work to be done by Waymo yet to get it to work in other areas of the country and…
SF is not an easy locale to test in. Sure, there is no snow, but the city is narrow, dense, with a lot of challenging situations including fog, rain, and crackheads. This success seems promising.
Don't forget the "pedestrian right-of-way" law.
Re: Safety performance of the Waymo rider-only automated driving system [pdf]
#40Silly question: will the Waymo AV use the horn? I see a few parking lot incidents where another driver backed into the front of a stationary Waymo AV at ~2 mph. I think a human driver might have tried honking at the other driver, on seeing a slow-motion collision about to occur.
It would be a good feature to add, but...
I've been backed into before. I didn't hit my horn. I just kept thinking, "There's no way they're going to back into me."