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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

#141

Post by tfehring »

adrr wrote: post #133
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…

Waymo and Truck in intersection both heading in opposite directions. I dont get where the bike was. It says behind the truck. So did bike run the stop sign and cross into waymos lane because that is way it sounds. Article doesnt state who's at fault.

Yeah, my reading was that the bike ran the stop sign and then attempted to make a left turn in front of the Waymo as it was going straight through the intersection.

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

#142

Post by ambigious7777 »

vineyardmike wrote: post #110
jsyang00 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 rea…

This.

I've seen all of those walkable cities, green cities, etc... For the most part, I think that staying away from driving is a good idea. If we could have cities planned out so that anything would just be a few minutes walk away, that would solve so many problems.

A car-independent society would have many improvements. Even for medium distance travel, we could have trains and such.

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

#143

Post by Retric »

belltaco wrote: post #68
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…

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…

Are we sure the Waymo was turning instead of the cyclist?

The only description is Waymo entered an intersection after a complete stop. “The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle’s path.”

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

#144

Post by fprog »

ra7 wrote: post #132
xianshou wrote: post #7

If 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.

They have no reason to release it to the public. They don’t want to set a precedent. They will show the video to the regulators (CA DMV) and if they’re not happy, they will take action. It’s regulation working as intended.

Public trust is a pretty good reason.

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

#145

Post by websap »

dharmab wrote: post #105
manzanarama wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Cyclists are supposed to stop at stop signs, if not stop at least yield. At least in this case (if true), the cyclist followed the truck through a 4 way intersection (assuming it's a 4-way stop), that would put them in the wrong.

Hope waymo releases the footage.

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

#146

Post by depsypher »

topkai22 wrote: post #5

I 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.

Cyclists are far from the only ones who don't stop at stop signs appropriately. Stand on a street corner sometime and count the cars that come to a full stop. I'd be shocked if you find more than 20% do. Which is all well and good as far as I'm concerned as long as people are paying attention and it doesn't cause an accident.

But if cars that take no physical effort of the driver to get moving again aren't expected to come to a full stop, it seems unfair to expect that of bikes. Of course if you blow through an intersection full speed without looking all bets are off and you probably get what you deserve, but I chafe at the bar being set at a "full stop or it was your fault" way of thinking, especially when the cyclist has so much more to lose.

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

#147

Post by fastball »

bagels wrote: post #80
fastball wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't think that they should try to avoid avoidable collisions?

Every collision is avoidable if you drive the car at 5mph at all times. But that wouldn't be reasonable. If the Waymo description of the incident is accurate, there would be no way to really avoid this accident without significantly nerfing the normal and expected driving behavior of this vehicle. e.g., you would need to not allow a Waymo vehicle to enter the intersection when there is any other vehicle in it as well, which (in my opinion) would not be reasonable at all.

If it drives better than a human (in this case it sounds like it probably did), that's good enough for me.

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

#148

Post by bunabhucan »

roenxi wrote: post #60
itake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Based on what? Humans run in to cyclists too and although I have know idea about Waymo's tech, in a research setting computers are better than humans at figuring out what objects are based on visual data.

Seeing a bike and inferring the vector of a bike are very different. A kid or tweaker on a bike needs more frequent updates than someone commuting or training.

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

#149

Post by twitchyliquid64 »

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…

I've been fairly impressed at Waymo's defensive driving skills, down to it being able to tell when someone turns around towards the road with an eye to cross, & the car slowing-down/giving a wider berth.

We will need to wait and see (i.e. footage) for more facts on this one, but I would caution thinking that Waymo's don't have object permanence capabilities.

(Usual disclaimer around 1st-hand experience etc etc)

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

#150

Post by yellow_postit »

websap wrote: post #145
dharmab wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Cyclists are supposed to stop at stop signs, if not stop at least yield. At least in this case (if true), the cyclist followed the truck through a 4 way intersection (assuming it's a 4-way stop), that would put them in the wrong. Hope waymo releases the footage.

There’s rules as written and then rules as followed — I’d much prefer a system that recognizes the rules that people tend to follow/bend/break — as a cyclist I too will often “convoy” with a bigger vehicle as it provides some additional protection most of the time (though obviously not here)
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