Is this one of those "400% increase from 2 to 10" things?
S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
451–460 of 1001 posts
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#452Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 work for the majority of people of all ages who live in cities where the infrastructure has been properly built to accommodate bikes. Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. I've demoed a multistory house down to the bricks and re-built it from the outside in without a car. Hired someone to haul off a dumpster several times. For major materials deliveries, like beams or window…
> Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do.
Heavy citation needed. I've been remodeling my home for the last 2 years and I'd say on regular (every other week or so) basis I've needed to pick up something from the hardware store that can't be biked home. When I buy groceries for the family for the week, I cannot bike those home. When I need to take a large package to the UPS store a bike doesn't work. When I buy a new lawn mower, that box can't be biked. When I need to go more than 3 miles quickly, a bike doesn't work. Baby (in the winter nonetheless), bike's a no-go. Etc.
It's awesome that you live somewhere where you can make due with a bike and hired labor. But you are frankly out of touch if you think that most people rarely need to transport things that are too big for a bike. And you're conveniently ignoring the fact that plenty of people have trucks, SUVs, hatchbacks, etc. for the cargo space so saying "you can't do that in a car" is neither here nor there.
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#453In my experience living in SF, these cars are much safer than the typical drivers in my neighborhood for pedestrians. Most human drivers around here don't even bother to stop at stop signs, and instead just slow slightly. With the cruise and Waymo cars, I feel like the risk is a bit lower when I'm on my bike or walking. I have witnessed a Cruise car stopping in the middle of the road when faced with an oncoming emerg…
I live in "the outside lands" [1] so I see them all the time. I think they do a lot of testing out here. I can only think of one time that a Cruise acted erratically and put me on guard. But honestly they drive so gradually and predictably that I am confident I could have got out of the way. I don't recall a single sketchy moment with a Waymo, but I'm a Googler so maybe we just chalk that up as incentivized blindspot and render that as inadmissible in the court of HN.
On the other hand, every day I see human drivers needlessly endangering themselves and others. Every. Single. Day.
Maybe the equation changes with more robo-drivers and less human drivers. I would take the other side of that bet any day.
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#454Earlier 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…
It would be amusing to see how humans react if you run up to their cars while stopped, put a traffic cone on the hood, and run away. Would most people try to shake it off while driving away, or stop in the middle of traffic? What's actually the right thing to do, both as a person and as an AV? More pertinently, should it be legal for people to go up and put traffic cones on top of actively driven vehicles, intentiona…
I mean, free cone?
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#455"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…
Luckily the article does provide data…
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#456Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn’t get your hopes up on it being 90% cheaper—typically Waymo cost the same or slightly more than Uber for me. Obviously the economics change as time goes on but I doubt they will make it that much cheaper.
> but I doubt they will make it that much cheaper. All other tech has gotten 10x cheaper across 10 years. No reason to doubt robotaxi fleets won’t as well.
> All other tech has gotten 10x cheaper across 10 years
Well that’s flat out not true, EVs aren’t 90% cheaper than they were 10 years ago.
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#457Earlier quoted context omitted.
They work for the majority of people of all ages who live in cities where the infrastructure has been properly built to accommodate bikes. Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. I've demoed a multistory house down to the bricks and re-built it from the outside in without a car. Hired someone to haul off a dumpster several times. For major materials deliveries, like beams or window…
> Most people rarely need to haul anything and can use carshare when they do. Heavy citation needed. I've been remodeling my home for the last 2 years and I'd say on regular (every other week or so) basis I've needed to pick up something from the hardware store that can't be biked home. When I buy groceries for the family for the week, I cannot bike those home. When I need to take a large package to the UPS store a b…
It’s awesome you’re remodeling your house, but I would equally want a citation that says this is a “most people” problem.
There will be exceptions, to be sure! Remodeling your house (at least to western standards) is surely one.
But then most people could potentially rent a truck from Home Depot for this sort of thing.
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#458Earlier 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…
Do you mean they can't replace almost all trips for a majority of people, or do you mean they can't replace a majority of trips?
I bet they can replace a majority of trips.
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#459Is this what Garry Tan's video (The Truth and Lies About Driverless Cars in SF [1]) was all about? I find him to be pretty credible in general, and he makes a strong case that there are some folks within the city government who are misrepresenting the safety record of self-driving cars. I don't know much about the situation, and I'm glad this testing isn't happening where I live (we do have tons of testing on the pen…
Tangential: This article made me curious about who owns the Chronicle these days. Looks like it's the Hearst family now [1] which is amusing because I'm pretty sure the Examiner and the Chronicle used to be sworn archenemies back in the 1800s. The Hearsts owned the Examiner back then.
Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’
#460Earlier 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…
Revolutionary solutions like "everyone just get an e-bike" rarely turn out well. There are too many unknowns. Is your grandmother going to strap on a helmet and ride an e-bike? Are we going to be able to stop bike theft at that scale? Will we need to invent special snow plows to keep the bike lanes clear in winter? Will we have to deal with e-bike accidents? People riding e-bikes drunk? People getting heat exhaustion in summer? Will we have to deal with abandoned e-bikes clogging up the bike lanes? Will everything slow to a crawl because people will be contending for limited bike lock-up spaces?
Meanwhile, an autonomous vehicle, well we know how those will work: Exactly like bedrivered cars, but with a few differences. I like that vision of the future. Maybe once we have this incremental improvement, we can start thinking about further improvements.