S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’ • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by dekhn » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:31 PM UTC

NickM wrote: post #142

dekhn wrote: post #115

"Skyrocket" is a word people use when they don't have the data to support their claim, but want to make it sound as extreme as possible. When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". But the source of the quote with skyrocket, basically admits that they didn't have any quantitative evidence to support a massive change in incidents. Remember: reality is banal. Things are far bette…

When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". The article actually has quantitative data that shows reports of "incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year. Yeah, the city officials have to cover their asses and make disclaimers about what they can and cannot conclude, because all they know is…

I dojn't think that chart represents anything informative. It's at least partly based on "social media reports" and they say it's "incomplete". Any number of alternative explanations for that chart (which isn't a "skyrocket") explain the results better, such as increased awareness of the cars, increased numbers of miles driven (so the complaint rate per mile is roughly constant), and negative press coverage of incidents.

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

#152

Post by loandbehold » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #104

veec_cas_tant wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why would that not be a valid data point? Cars driving on public roads need to successfully handle all regular day-to-day situations, not just the happy path Are you considering someone putting a traffic cone on a vehicle a day-to-day situation?

What would you do if you were stopped at an intersection and someone put a traffic cone in front of you? Sit there for the rest of your life blocking everyone behind you, or move it/drive around it? Same for literally every example that deviates from the happy path, no matter how minor. Construction work, something fallen on the road, a delivery van stopped on the side, temporary street closures. These cars are nowhe…

Putting cone on self driving car is vandalism and should be punished accordingly. Self driving companies have footage of people doing it. Is SFPD looking for these people? Self driving companies shouldn't need to be able to deal with criminals trying to actively disable it. These cars weren't designed to drive in a warzone. Most businesses are not able to operate when criminals try to actively interfere with its operations. Some basic level of law and order is required for modern society to exist.

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

#153

Post by gruez » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

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…

>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 mean human incident rate.

Why is this disingenuous? Unless you're also for advocating for banning those top 10% of drivers from driving, you can't just cherry pick only the good drivers.

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

#154

Post by medellin » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #92

parl_match wrote: post #3

I'm wary about using public roads to test these, but I think the way the data is presented is misleading. I'm not sure how it's misleading, but separating "incidents" into categories (safety, traffic, accident, etc) might be a good start. For example, I could start coning cruise cars, and cause these numbers to skyrocket. While that's an inconvenience to other drivers, it's not a safety issue at all. By the way, as a…

> For example, I could start coning cruise cars, and cause these numbers to skyrocket And why would that not be a valid data point? Cars driving on public roads need to successfully handle all regular day-to-day situations, not just the happy path. It seems like almost every day I run into some Cruise or Waymo (mostly Cruise) vehicle stuck in the middle of the street blocking traffic, and that should not be excused a…

Depending where someone put a cone on my car i would possibly just run them over or drive off unsafely if i felt that it was an attempt to rob me or steal my car.

Having things like that categorized differently makes sense because it’s caused by humans being dicks. But maybe you are right and that is the new reality we live in where none of us get to advance because of a small group of angry and stupid people.

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

#155

Post by Zetice » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #115

"Skyrocket" is a word people use when they don't have the data to support their claim, but want to make it sound as extreme as possible. When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". But the source of the quote with skyrocket, basically admits that they didn't have any quantitative evidence to support a massive change in incidents. Remember: reality is banal. Things are far bette…

Am I reading the graph wrong? a 3x increase over one month that sustains into the next month qualifies as "skyrocketing" to me...

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

#156

Post by dekhn » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

__loam wrote: post #111

paxys wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, I could start coning cruise cars, and cause these numbers to skyrocket And why would that not be a valid data point? Cars driving on public roads need to successfully handle all regular day-to-day situations, not just the happy path. It seems like almost every day I run into some Cruise or Waymo (mostly Cruise) vehicle stuck in the middle of the street blocking traffic, and that should not be excused a…

It's a lot higher than 0.1 people. 40 people died in SF last year due to traffic accidents. I've yet to hear about a self driving car killing someone despite how many there are in the city. I also disagree that coning a self-driving car's sensor is a "regular day to day situation". Throwing paint on someone's windshield or slashing their tires is a crime. E: making stat accurate

Your numbers are wrong: https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/traffic-fataliti... In 2022 (the year with the most), there were 40, not hundreds.

Please try to keep your stats as honest as possible.

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

#157

Post by solardev » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #144

solardev wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the summary?

https://www.summarize.tech/www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjgUPUKD-...

Oooh, this is awesome. Thanks! I'll have to use that more often.

I miss the days when people published their thoughts in writing... so many videos are just minutes/hours of wasted time.

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

#158

Post by abecedarius » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

ketralnis wrote: post #20

codampa01314 wrote: post #11

> In San Francisco, those problems can mean self-driving cars blocking traffic, transit and emergency responders, as well as erratic behavior resulting in close calls with cyclists, pedestrians or other vehicles. I have mixed feelings about how to test self-driving vehicles (mostly stemming from ignorance). But at some point don't you have to get this stuff out in the wild to see how it behaves or else we are resigne…

> at some point don't you have to get this stuff out in the wild to see how it behaves or else we are resigned to not making progress on this It's not my problem whether Waymo makes progress on their technology, but they make it my problem when they hit me with their car. I do have sympathy for wanting to make the progress: we might make better pacemakers faster by testing out 20 designs on 20 people. But nobody want…

Should student drivers not be allowed on the roads either?

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

#159

Post by rubyron » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

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…

They need a fake hand to rise up and wave over the steering wheel so pedestrians will know they’re waiting for them.

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

#160

Post by dekhn » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 9:36 PM UTC

Zetice wrote: post #155

dekhn wrote: post #115

"Skyrocket" is a word people use when they don't have the data to support their claim, but want to make it sound as extreme as possible. When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". But the source of the quote with skyrocket, basically admits that they didn't have any quantitative evidence to support a massive change in incidents. Remember: reality is banal. Things are far bette…

Am I reading the graph wrong? a 3x increase over one month that sustains into the next month qualifies as "skyrocketing" to me...

I've commented elsewhere I don't think the chart is informative (and listed several good reasons why). But all you're describing is a 300% increase, not several orders of magnitude increase.

If you look at Google's QPS chart (maintained in crayon by the original engineers!) you will see that they frequently had to rescale the chart by factors of ten because their growth rate in the early days was exponential.

The chart is not an example of exponential growth.