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

sfchronicle.com

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

#381

Post by opportune »

cashsterling wrote: post #206
throwaway9274 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely right. To situate in terms of recent events, there have been three stages of trying to delay / influence the California CPUC robotaxi expansion approval vote: 1. Tried a politician scare campaign. Failed because it was too transparent it was an attempted distraction from their terrible public safety record. 2. Tried coning and disabling the vehicles. Failed because it was too transparently astroturfed, leg…

I don't know why the other reply to this post got downvoted to hell. THe person has a point. Fully autonomous cars are cool... don't get me wrong. But electric cars and autonomous electric/gas cars are probably not the right solution to our person transport needs. using energy to move a 4000 lb vehicle to transport one or two 200 lb humans is not energy-efficient... most of the energy is spent just moving the vehicle…

Sure. But that should be proposed independently of AV, it’s not an argument against AV.

Personally this line of reasoning is something I see all the time in SF when the local NIMBYs want to hand wring about something - they’ll reject something saying we should do X instead when X is not even being proposed or discussed, and they certainly aren’t trying to make X happen either. It’s not really about X to them, it’s just a rhetorical tool to stop the thing they want to stop. I’m not saying you’re doing that but given it’s prevalence in SF and the recent media surge against AV in SF I think this phenomenon is starting to rear it’s ugly head.

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

#382

Post by gerash »

loandbehold wrote: post #152
paxys wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 oper…

Exactly. once there is a reasonable negative consequence to these actions people will adjust. Why hasn't SFPD arrested anyone yet?

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

#383

Post by jeffbee »

simple-thoughts wrote: post #360
cashsterling wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the other reply to this post got downvoted to hell. THe person has a point. Fully autonomous cars are cool... don't get me wrong. But electric cars and autonomous electric/gas cars are probably not the right solution to our person transport needs. using energy to move a 4000 lb vehicle to transport one or two 200 lb humans is not energy-efficient... most of the energy is spent just moving the vehicle…

I’m just imagining going out on an ebike in the local weather here… lol. Maybe e-bikes are a good solution in SF where the weather is great year round but not in most places in the world.

E-bikes outsell EVs and with a CAGR of 10% they will soon have a majority share of the bicycle market. This is not weather-dependent. The e-bike share of the bicycle market in Finland is 15%, and e-bike unit sales in that country are about triple EV unit sales. The population centers of Finland are all north of the continental United States and virtually all of Canada.

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

#384

Post by km3r »

cashsterling wrote: post #206
throwaway9274 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely right. To situate in terms of recent events, there have been three stages of trying to delay / influence the California CPUC robotaxi expansion approval vote: 1. Tried a politician scare campaign. Failed because it was too transparent it was an attempted distraction from their terrible public safety record. 2. Tried coning and disabling the vehicles. Failed because it was too transparently astroturfed, leg…

I don't know why the other reply to this post got downvoted to hell. THe person has a point. Fully autonomous cars are cool... don't get me wrong. But electric cars and autonomous electric/gas cars are probably not the right solution to our person transport needs. using energy to move a 4000 lb vehicle to transport one or two 200 lb humans is not energy-efficient... most of the energy is spent just moving the vehicle…

I hadn't even considered a bike in SF due to the rampant theft, despite not having a car and taking MUNI/BART daily. And SF is not alone in this. As a country we need to figure out how to bring out crime levels down.

The few times I do call an Uber (or Waymo/Cruise if available), I am likely intoxicated or needing to get somewhere ASAP. We are very far away from public transit always be faster and biking while intoxicated is very unsafe, especially when sharing the road with human (and AI) drivers.

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

#385

Post by km3r »

worik wrote: post #315

I lost count of how many times there was a comment about a lack of data > The city is left in the dark about the exact number of driverless taxis operating in its streets, and the miles they’ve traveled. > city transportation leaders this time around informally collect their own incident data using 911 and 311 calls > Friedlander said the city can’t make definitive conclusions because it doesn’t have detailed data. Y…

Or Google and GM have the data, but aren't sharing it because people will overreact because despite it being an order of magnitude safer than human drivers, it still has some incidents that people will focus in on.

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

#386

Post by codampa01314 »

slashdev wrote: post #18
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…

Uber’s driverless vehicle killed someone jaywalking at night in another state. So you can’t say they’ve never killed anyone. Plus Teslas have killed their own occupants plenty of times.

This is a good point. The statement I made about not killing anyone (in quotes) is from the article, which is only a subset of the overall domain we're talking about.

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

#387

Post by ajmurmann »

what-no-tests wrote: post #211
JoshTko wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google will optimize minimizing deaths/accidents vs maximizing trips/revenue. So it seems that buzzing closer to people is optimal for Google.

That's the "AI Alignment" problem we've heard so much about recently.

The AI alignment problem for a decade used to be that AGI doesn't end humanity as a side effect. Now that the mainstream has caught on, it's been diluted.

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

#388

Post by housemusicfan »

Aurornis wrote: post #234
cashsterling wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the other reply to this post got downvoted to hell. THe person has a point. Fully autonomous cars are cool... don't get me wrong. But electric cars and autonomous electric/gas cars are probably not the right solution to our person transport needs. using energy to move a 4000 lb vehicle to transport one or two 200 lb humans is not energy-efficient... most of the energy is spent just moving the vehicle…

> A 60lb e-bike can also transport a 200 lb person whilst using far less resources (both to make the vehicle and to operate it) and space. E-bikes are great for the situations, climates, and people who can use them. E-bikes are not a substitute for the majority of people’s transportation needs. I think the young, healthy people who live in moderate climates with good weather, short commutes, and little need to haul a…

They're also ignoring that they smell terrible when arriving to the office. Nothing like showing up to work all sweaty and stinking all day because you're a "cyclist", somehow their coworkers are meant to tolerate this abhorrent behavior.

Downvote all you want; it violates the unwritten social contract you accept when working in a shared office with fellow humans. Furthermore, the spandex looks silly and is worthy of ridicule.

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

#389

Post by Nicksil »

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…

You still work for Google?

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

#390

Post by cowpig »

km3r wrote: post #385
worik wrote: post #315

I lost count of how many times there was a comment about a lack of data > The city is left in the dark about the exact number of driverless taxis operating in its streets, and the miles they’ve traveled. > city transportation leaders this time around informally collect their own incident data using 911 and 311 calls > Friedlander said the city can’t make definitive conclusions because it doesn’t have detailed data. Y…

Or Google and GM have the data, but aren't sharing it because people will overreact because despite it being an order of magnitude safer than human drivers, it still has some incidents that people will focus in on.

That doesn't sound plausible to me. If it were demonstrably safer they would surely be transparent about that
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