I was hit while riding a bike in a situation that sounds similar: I was biking behind a car. A driver headed in the opposite direction turned left and hit me. I was difficult for the turning driver to see because I was obscured by the vehicle I was following. The description is totally plausible. It also sounds like the biker may have ignored the stop sign.
Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
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Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#22So the scenario (as described by waymo, surely with some spin): "Driving through a 4 way intersection, while a large truck is also going through the intersection. As you go through, a biker quickly passes behind the truck with minimal time to react once in sightlines." A human driver would take significantly longer to react, and could be deadly. Waymo managed to hit the breaks before the collision, potentially leadin…
> What I hope Waymo learbx for this, as well applies as similar scenarios: never cross through these zones of high bike traffic when the obstruction from another vehicle prevents a wide enough view to brake before this zone.
This might be fair, but at some point, if you are applying this consistent level of caution, there isn't going to be anywhere in the real world left to actually drive
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#23the cyclist left the scene “reporting only minor scratches.”
I'd never considered it before, but perhaps the endgame is humans getting used to automated taxis like potholes, animals, nails and other road hazards ? And then learning to judge the risk and accepting occasional small crashes like this.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#24Cant believe these things are allowed on the road...
The human drivers with worse response time?
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#25I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.
As someone who bikes on 17th street regularly, cyclists rarely stop completely. Most treat it as a yield (myself included) because it's a pain to start+stop at every stop sign.
But it's on the rider to make sure you're on the same page as the other drivers at the intersection, which some bikers don't and just blow through it without checking.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#26> According to Waymo, the company’s vehicle fully stopped at a four-way intersection before proceeding into the intersection as a large truck was driving through in the opposite direction. “The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle’s path,” the company said in a statement. “When they became fully visible, our vehicle applied heavy braking but was not able to…
It is pretty common to see people go from the opposite side of a stop sign since it's "safe", even if it happens to be against the rules. I can understand how the Waymo AI would end up being configured to do this. Hopefully they amend that based on this incident.
I don’t know about California but that’s legal where I live. Vehicles on opposite sides of a 4-way stop can enter simultaneously if both are going straight.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#27I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.
Are you implying that we shouldn't be concerned about automated vehicles hitting cyclists if the cyclist wasn't following the lawn to the letter?
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#28I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.
As someone who bikes on 17th street regularly, cyclists rarely stop completely. Most treat it as a yield (myself included) because it's a pain to start+stop at every stop sign. But it's on the rider to make sure you're on the same page as the other drivers at the intersection, which some bikers don't and just blow through it without checking.
Same, I take the wiggle all the time and definitely bully cars into letting me keep going :/
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#29If Waymo is truly as much better than Cruise as the statistics claim, this is a perfect opportunity to release the full video of the incident. Most collisions are avoidable, but a few are the result of a perfect storm of conditions that would be difficult to navigate for even the most skilled human driver. To know whether the truck's occlusion of the cyclist is one of those cases requires the actual footage.
Yes, they definitely have full footage. I would appreciate seeing it.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#30the cyclist left the scene “reporting only minor scratches.” I'd never considered it before, but perhaps the endgame is humans getting used to automated taxis like potholes, animals, nails and other road hazards ? And then learning to judge the risk and accepting occasional small crashes like this.
/s ?
Did you just ask if the endgame is humans getting used to cars crashing into them?
Thanks for the chuckle.