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S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

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Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#51

Post by notakio »

standardUser wrote: post #22
notakio wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved out of SF ~2018, and only recently revisited, and the increased frequency with which I saw robocars was immediately concerning to me, largely based on the potential for things to go wrong, and with just how frequent they were. My second thought was, after hearing friends and family still there echo nothing for disdain for them, "how long before someone starts setting these on fire?" as some sort of nuisance c…

I know this is a tired argument, but it's not wrong: There is equal or greater cause for concern with cars driven by people, we're just used to those horrors and reluctant to trade them for a different set of horrors, even if they are conclusively less horrible. I lived carless in downtown SF for 10 years, usually with a walking commute, and it was not pleasant. Packed streets full of angry, stressed drivers honking…

I have no dog in this fight. If anything, my final takeaway was that my impressions were entirely anecdotal and/or experiential, and not based on any sort of legitimate analysis with useful data. It should probably be done, but my point was more that it's only getting more complicated as people take action based on their perception, whether that perception is supported rationally or not. So now, on top of a reasonably already complex engineering problem is an additional layer to correct for: irrational human reaction.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#52

Post by scarmig »

johnfn wrote: post #43
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #30

>Cruise and Waymo say city officials have mischaracterized their safety track records. Their driverless taxis, the companies say, have lower collision rates than human drivers and public transit. This is comparing the mean driverless incident rate to the mean human driver incident rate. This is disingenuous, since a small minority of human drivers cause the vast majority of incidents, thereby severely inflating the m…

Hmm, I think that, in fact, this comparison is disingenuous! If you want to reduce net collisions, you want to compare to the mean, not median. In that case, once you've produced a self-driving car that's better than the mean, you're saving lives. You don't need to create a self-driving car which is better than every driver, ever.

It doesn't even need to be at the mean. It just needs to drive more safely than the worst drivers who cause fatal crashes, and you're saving lives.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#53

Post by gonehome »

sbuttgereit wrote: post #32
wholien wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are only allowed to run from 9pm to 5/6am though. Rode a few and they seemed perfectly safe.

I regularly (like daily) see empty cars (Waymo & Cruise) driving around residential areas by Lake Merced while I'm driving to pick up/drop off my kid from summer school... that's between the hours 8am and noon. Also see them in the Ingleside neighborhoods during the day: they have been completely empty when I've seen them. So maybe they can't carry passengers other than those other times, but they are definitely driv…

Yeah, I think they don’t carry passengers outside of those nighttime hours, but they are still testing them in some areas during the day (which makes sense, need to test them then if they eventually want to operate then)

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#54

Post by cozzyd »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #21
DragonStrength wrote: post #14

I left SF a year ago but had Cruise and Waymo cars in my neighborhood constantly. They were a total nuisance. They'd jerk towards pedestrians in crosswalks leading to this uncomfortable standoff where no one in the neighborhood would ever step in front of one. I'd wager any stats here are way lower than real incidences as I was nearly hit multiple times and never got to the "report it" stage as there are so many barr…

I have similar experiences (as a pedestrian) crossing in front of Cruise cars, especially at 4-way stops when there aren't crosswalks explicitly drawn. It's odd because the cars are generally excruciatingly cautious, but for some reason as I'm crossing they seem to calculate exactly how fast they can take off such that they pass me right as I'm clear of their path -- whereas most drivers might wait for the pedestrian…

that sounds very harrowing. I don't think we have any of these cars in Chicago, but I'd be hesitant to push my daughter's stroller in front of one...

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#55

Post by imperialdrive »

jiveturkey wrote: post #6

My kneejerk was to say, yeah 1->3 is a tripling. In modern journalistic terms that is 'skyrocketing'. Then I read TFA. Yep 30->90. 'skyrocketing'. That's not to say it isn't concerning. The downed wire incident that is the highlight of the story seems quite bad. But human drivers do much, much worse things, with very high frequency. Weekly sideshows, for example. The article is very unfair.

I'm on the streets of SF for hours a day, every day, mostly on bicycle. Often at night, when these AVs are at their peak output. The difference in their behavior is scary noticeable, especially within the last 30 days. I'm very curious about the programming reason behind it.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#56

Post by yazaddaruvala »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #24

What seems odd to me is that hardly anyone in SF seems to want them there (citizens, officials) yet it keeps getting pushed through?

I'm so excited for them to come to Seattle!

There are many people that want them! There are even more than want 90% cheaper Ubers.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#57

Post by omgmajk »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #24

What seems odd to me is that hardly anyone in SF seems to want them there (citizens, officials) yet it keeps getting pushed through?

I'm not in SF, or even inte US - but the view I get from the internet reading stories, posts and comments is that only people in the NIMBY community really gets to voice their opinions in SF.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#58

Post by scarmig »

cozzyd wrote: post #44
scarmig wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mean is the relevant metric, though. If it's only the bottom 10% of human drivers who cause all crashes and driverless cars are as safe as the 20p human driver, you can replace all human drivers with autonomous ones and eliminate all crashes. That's to say nothing of the fact that driverless cars will improve from their current level, and the fact that companies operating them can be held liable for crashes and force…

you can more easily prevent the bottom 10% from driving by more rigorous driving standards / more stringent revocation of licenses.

About a month ago a human driver ran into me while I was riding a bike and sped away (luckily I was unharmed, aside from a scrape or two). How exactly would stricter driving tests or revocation of licenses have prevented that?

If a Waymo had done that, on the other hand, it'd have stopped and I'd be getting a nice big check from Google.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#59

Post by carapace »

peterisza wrote: post #5
carapace wrote: post #2

First, where is the data? Second, yeah, it's bananas to test large, fast, heavy robots on public streets. The only reason we let it happen is because the robots look like cars. Third, it's bananas to have large, fast, heavy vehicles everywhere mixed in with all the other traffic. The only reason we let it happen is a mass-marketing campaign (see "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) https://…

I think they are training and not testing. I might be wrong, but if I am right, the use of public roads is a necessity. This is how AI works, I guess.

What I think they should do (what I would do if I were in charge at a AI-car co.): There's a whole ersatz city out in the desert somewhere the whole purpose of which is to allow in situ modelling of new "smart" hardware. (This is a real thing, but I forgot what it's called and I'm too lazy to look it up, I apologize for my barbarism.) The people that "live" there are actually paid employees. That's where you test your self-driving cars.

Further, I would have started by making self-driving golf carts made out of nerf that can't go faster than, say, two miles per hour, and then iterated. It's reckless to immediately attempt to make Knight Industries Two Thousand, in my opinion. The potential for mayhem and death goes up with the kinetic energy, eh? Both speed and mass contribute to the "killer robot" aspect of these machines. Start small and light.

Also, let's call them "auto-autos", eh?

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#60

Post by ameister14 »

more_corn wrote: post #45
standardUser wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is a tired argument, but it's not wrong: There is equal or greater cause for concern with cars driven by people, we're just used to those horrors and reluctant to trade them for a different set of horrors, even if they are conclusively less horrible. I lived carless in downtown SF for 10 years, usually with a walking commute, and it was not pleasant. Packed streets full of angry, stressed drivers honking…

Uber performed self driving car tests in downtown San Francisco for a bit. I personally saw an error where self driving cars turning right on red failed to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk who had right of way. It was a bug. The driver looped and tried again while I was standing there and it happened again. It was an incident. It was a safety incident. Getting killed by a robot breaking the rules is no less dead…

It doesn't commit the fallacy of whataboutism - it's the same issue and a direct substitute.

Any safety incident is unacceptable is not a realistic standard, and I am not sure why a lower rate of incident is not a convincing argument for you. Yes, getting killed by a robot leaves you no less dead, but if 5 people are killed by robots where 10 people would have been killed by people, isn't that a net positive?

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