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Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

sfgate.com

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Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#101

Post by manzanarama »

km3r wrote: post #11

So 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…

I feel like you are injecting facts with a lot of assumptions. How do we know a human driver would have taken longer? What if the human would have seen the bike 200 yards up the road 45 seconds ago, and since bikes don't disappear, waited a half second before proceeding into the intersection. Or what if a small portion of the bike was visible?

It could have been absolutely unavoidable but I don't think we know that now.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#102

Post by seanmcdirmid »

itake wrote: post #51
km3r wrote: post #11

So 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…

> When they became fully visible, our vehicle applied heavy braking but was not able to avoid the collision. The "fully visible" part made me thinks humans can identify a bicycle and rider with just partial visibility, which means they would stop faster than the car.

> The "fully visible" part made me thinks humans can identify a bicycle and rider with just partial visibility, which means they would stop faster than the car.

From my experience as a driver and a bicyclist, I guarantee you that is not true, most driver won’t see you unless you are >60% visible.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#103

Post by babl-yc »

FireBeyond wrote: post #99
babl-yc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Most treat it as a yield (myself included) because it's a pain to start+stop at every stop sign. Sure. It's a pain for cars to start and stop at every stop sign too. So?

I drive and bike. It's more annoying on a bike to come to a complete stop.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#104

Post by lokar »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #95
belltaco wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like the Waymo vehicle was turning after an all-way stop sign? Is this a good representation with the blue car being the Waymo and the truck being the red car? https://taylorkinglaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/4-Way-S... Wonder why it was cutting so close to the large truck's back while accelerating during the turn that it couldn't see the cyclist till it was too late. Them saying the car braked only after t…

Yeah. Seems like good driving means "don't drive in to places you cannot see". If you are just accelerating after a stop sign, there is no reason to have such high speed and urgency when making the turn.

Well, it sounds like the cyclist was doing the same while failing to stop or yield at a stop sign.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#105

Post by dharmab »

manzanarama wrote: post #101
km3r wrote: post #11

So 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…

I feel like you are injecting facts with a lot of assumptions. How do we know a human driver would have taken longer? What if the human would have seen the bike 200 yards up the road 45 seconds ago, and since bikes don't disappear, waited a half second before proceeding into the intersection. Or what if a small portion of the bike was visible? It could have been absolutely unavoidable but I don't think we know that n…

In my experience with motorcycling and bicycling as a primary mode of transport I'm happy if the human drivers attempt to stop at all

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#106

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jsyang00 wrote: post #22
km3r wrote: post #11

So 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

> 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

Not true. The Netherlands actually will redesign roads and intersections when this kind of thing happens; it will also actively seek rules for cars and cyclists that prevent visibility obfuscation. America just doesn’t believe in that, the only fix it can come up with is “drive better, cars.”

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#107

Post by FireBeyond »

fastball wrote: post #33
huytersd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? If you don’t follow the rules of the road the cyclist is to blame. Now what Waymo needs to do to avoid this in the future is a whole other discussion…

Waymo needs to do nothing to avoid this in the future if their vehicle was following the rules of the road and the cyclist did not.

You may want to look into the concept of the "Failure to Avoid" or "Failure to Reduce Speed" citation. These encapsulate scenarios where it there was reasonable opportunity to avoid or stop before causing a collision.

You don't just get to careen into a collision because someone else is not following the rules of the road, hoping for a payday.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#108

Post by brian-armstrong »

henriquez wrote: post #94
nicbou wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but fine-tuning is cumulative. Test situations can be created and tested against forever. Lessons can be learned and applied across the whole fleet. This is radically different from sharing the roads with a bunch of Sunday drivers, some of which might be distracted or impaired.

Yes, it totally makes sense for bike commuters to be run over and sent to the hospital by robotic driverless vehicles while billionaire entrepreneurs refine the AI models powering them — it’s a beta test after all, you can’t actually expect it to work on public streets. And I bet those cyclists weren’t even paying their road tax. The needs of the 95th percentile that the model was tuned for outweigh the needs of ever…

How many cyclists are hit per million Uber rides?

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#109

Post by patrick451 »

ganieldackle wrote: post #88
al_borland wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If computers are so good at this, why am I (a human) asked to identify bicycles and motorcycles to train these computers when confronted with a captcha? A human needs far less training and can identify a person on a bike without ever seeing an actual bike. They can also infer what is likely to happen based on a lot of context clues. Even if an event doesn’t seem likely, I can still prepare. For example, if I see kids…

A computer doesn't need a multi million dollar marketing campaign convincing it not to text while driving or drive drunk. >I don’t need to wait for the kid to be in the street to start reacting and prepare for different possibilities. Neither does a computer.

> A computer doesn't need a multi million dollar marketing campaign convincing it not to text while driving or drive drunk.

A human doesn't get random bugs every week from OTA updates. The human mind is not a viable target for hackers. The risks of human drivers are individual. The risks of computer drivers are systemic and massive. One bad bug or hack could kill millions if self driving cars become ubiquitous.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#110

Post by vineyardmike »

jsyang00 wrote: post #22
km3r wrote: post #11

So 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

Let’s apply this same thing to humans. If a human engaged in this situation, no one would blink an eye.

SF had a “zero motor deaths” goal for 2024 and there were human drivers in protest that any changes made to save lives would be inconvenient (eg removing parking spots to increase visibility). The ease at which people will negotiate a human life for parking is horrifying. And likely speaks to how they drive.

We really should make driving much more cautious and undesirable. Any incident should result in serious penalties. In MA, if you’re If people are worried that loss of driving will disrupt their life, then all of society might slowly become less car dependent. This would have great effects on the environment, people would have shorter commutes, they’d probably be healthier. Cities would be more walkable, people would save money on the incredibly expense that is cars, and so much more.

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