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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.’

#401

Post by [deleted] »

mediumdeviation wrote: post #217
dekhn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a rocket blasting off, it's a rocket failing to reach orbit by barely clearing the launch platform. More importantly: that chart isn't normalized by miles driven. As the companies have been ramping up, you'd expect (under a random model) that incidents would go up. It could also be explained by greater knowledge of SDCs, increased news coverage, and more awareness of how to report incidents. More important…

Per mile incident rate is a measure only the companies care about. Why wouldn't the city care about an increase in the total number of traffic incidents? Especially when the self-driving cars are not displacing human drivers, so at the end of the day the roads are getting less safe.

[deleted]

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

#402

Post by gcheong »

throwaway9274 wrote: post #145
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…

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…

“This one is too vital to the revitalization of SF.”

Nothing against the technology but can you explain this a bit more? I fail to see how driverless cars are going to be vital to SF’s revitalization when Uber/Lyft are readily available and haven’t seemed to move the needle much in that regard.

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

#403

Post by dekhn »

Nicksil wrote: post #389
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?

No, but I have tremendous respect for what Waymo has been doing.

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

#405

Post by BirAdam »

minwcnt5 wrote: post #303
reaperducer wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t the gain that those folks can find another job that’s more useful? What makes you think that if finding another job that they are capable of doing was so easy they wouldn't have already done so? Because they were waiting for some tech billionaire to throw them on the unemployment line?

No, they wouldn't have already done so, because their current job still exists and it's easier to maintain the status quo. Major structural employment changes don't happen overnight. This will take decades. AVs will decrease the demand for Uber drivers, but it doesn't mean they will all be out of a job overnight, just that incentives will slowly push workers towards other jobs.

It's easier to maintain the status quo, but there is also job enjoyment.

I am neither a deliverator nor a cab driver, but I do enjoy driving. When the org I work for needs stuff transported, I often volunteer for the task. Driving in silence, or to music, or while listening to podcast; for work, for recreation, or merely to enjoy the drive; it's all good. Of course, I also live in an area close to mountains and while going toward the city nearby is hell due to traffic, going toward the mountains is blissful and beautiful.

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

#406

Post by isityouyesitsme »

kelnos wrote: post #260
jeffbee wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something. That's why the "skyrocketing". They didn't count them before and now they do. If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report.

> The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something Want to provide a citation to back that up? > They didn't count them before and now they do. They've apparently been counting since spring of 2022; the large increase in incidents started a year later. > If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report. Lovely dose of whatab…

Based on personal experience, yes if an AV is susceptible to a problem, then all of them are susceptible on at least the same software and hardware configuration. This is the same in every safety-critical field.

The comment is a bit naive though.

What is your statistical model for such failures? let's go with the example and assume that from now henceforth forevermore, all AVs will run through caution tape (which is obviously not true).

What is the frequency of caution tape being drawn across the road in front of an AV vs. the frequency of JUST drivers driving drunk, or JUST speed violations, or JUST texting violations, or JUST distracted driving, etc.?

Though, we definitely ought to hold companies' feet to the fire when they are liable for incidents like this. Which we aren't really doing.

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

#407

Post by Veserv »

sroussey wrote: post #218
II2II wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers they gave is more than a doubling, while they were quite clear about the limitations of their data. That includes not knowing how many AVs are on the road, which is something that the companies should be able to provide. Also look at the claims that AVs have not caused death or serious injury. (I noticed that they did not claim that AVs have not caused injury.) That is great, except I would not expect any…

In February they hit 1,000,000 miles cumulative for all previous years. Last week they hit 3,000,000 miles. Cars kill about as many Americans as the Vietnam War, but every year. Aside from guns, I can't think of anything else so deadly that we give to our children as they enter adulthood. It is common, it is not part of the news cycle. We care more about the unlikely terrorist. People are bad with numbers. Personally…

Humans average 60,000,000 miles between fatalitys [1]. It is a average of 1.25 million miles between injurys. 3 million miles is not a statistically significant amount of data to make a valid estimate, not even close.

That is not to say that safe testing can not proceed or that they are being unsafe in their testing or validation process, but people are bad with numbers, so it is important to realize the actual magnitude of the status quo and what we are comparing against.

[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... PDF Page 7

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

#408

Post by geraldwhen »

llambda wrote: post #239
geraldwhen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My city doesn’t even have sidewalks. Bikes aren’t happening.

While I understand your point is likely that sidewalks would come before later advancements (like support for bikes) I want to make it clear that bikes do not belong on sidewalks. If you ride a bike please ride it in the street with other vehicles. This is the law in some jurisdictions (such as where I live) but frequently ignored. Failure to do this poses a serious risk to pedestrians. Please do not use sidewalks as…

There are few to no pedestrians because there are few to no sidewalks. Where sidewalks exist, it is legal to bike on them in my state.

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

#409

Post by amelius »

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…

> E-bikes are not a substitute for the majority of people’s transportation needs.

We should probably also drastically alter our transportation needs, by the way.

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