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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

#191

Post by athrun »

stronglikedan wrote: post #151
bagels wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No lies in the article. "The bill now heads to Governor Newsom's desk" ... where it was vetoed, sadly.

> where it was vetoed, sadly Sounds like the gov did the right thing. Cyclists shouldn't get special privileges. They're operating a vehicle on the roadway just like everyone else. Drivers of other types of vehicles shouldn't also have to remember special rules just for cyclists.

What are you talking about?

All road users do have different rules for using the road: peds, cycles, scooters, motorcycles, cars, cargo trucks, buses, trams, etc. all have specific rules applying to them.

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #61
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 can treat Stop signs as Yield signs in California.

[deleted]

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

#195

Post by lmm »

elwebmaster wrote: post #135
lmm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rolling through stop signs while cycling is generally appropriate (and is the law in more enlightened places). In California it may be illegal, but so is a car exceeding the speed limit, and few would excuse Waymo for hitting one of those.

Cyclists are just dangerous and until we look at statistics we can’t assume that AI does worse than humans in protecting cyclists. As a driver, it took me many years to get into the habit of shoulder checking when turning right from the right lane. I always have my turning signal but to cyclists it doesn’t mean much, they will always try to pass me on the right on the intersection. Cyclists sometimes behave as though…

> Cyclists are just dangerous

Nope. The numbers of people killed or seriously injured in road collisions that don't involve motor vehicles are absolutely tiny. Motorists are dangerous, cyclists are not.

> Cyclists sometimes behave as though they are pedestrians and other times they behave as vehicles, depending on what is convenient.

And? Is that somehow bad? This seems to be a common motorist talking point, but I've never understood what it's supposed to imply.

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

#196

Post by causal »

ra7 wrote: post #166
fprog wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public trust is a pretty good reason.

There’s enough to establish public trust with their voluntary release of safety data and regulators closely overseeing their operations. Setting a precedent for releasing footage means fault is automatically assumed when they don’t voluntarily release it. It’s a problem if they’re not even releasing it to the regulators, but that’s not happening here.

Not to mention that no matter how compelling the footage, people will argue who is at fault.

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

#197

Post by undersuit »

nerdponx wrote: post #89
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.

Harder to do when the driver of the vehicle is not a human being you can make eye contact with, and the human operator isn't interested in maintaining safe and attentive authority over the vehicle that they are responsible for.

I feel like I'm the only person in my town without tinted windows. I never see other drivers faes whether I'm driving, biking, or walking.

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

#198

Post by School-Cotton »

girvo wrote: post #169
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.

> there are stop signs in all 4 directions This is a complete aside, but woah, is this common in SF? They simply aren't used here where I am (roundabouts are used instead) Like they're uncommon enough that theres a news article on it in a different state: https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/fourw... A four way stop sign seems like an absolute downgrade compared to a roundabout, but thats my local b…

Roundabouts are rare in the US. Four-way stops are far more common. If the authorities find a particular one to be too dangerous, they would normally install traffic lights rather than replace it with a roundabout.

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

#199

Post by jiveturkey »

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…

Agree with sibling. You are speaking out of turn in that you have no idea how long a human would take to react, as we don't know the situation completely enough from this article.

That said, my takeaway is that the cyclist likely ran their stop sign. This is a very common accident situation even between cars, where the view is obstructed and the at-fault driver imagines that their path is clear. It seems very likely that the cyclist did a similar kind of thing, but with the additional aspect of ignoring the traffic control.

Since I'm here: brakes not breaks.

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

#200

Post by r0m4n0 »

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.

Last year I caught this footage of a driver that hit a cyclist and they were fully visible. The police determined the driver technically wasn’t at fault because they had the right of way but humans drive incredibly unsafe.

https://youtu.be/uycFSrUI700?si=DPgNc_B5CNDctDyt

1) cyclist assumed they were safe to cross as there was a pedestrian 2) the driver didn’t slow down for the pedestrian in the road at all 3) driver was probably speeding 4) driver didn’t brake until very late, probably distracted 5) cyclist was 15 years old so probably not using enough caution in general

I honestly think a self driving car would have been going slow for the crossing pedestrian and this collision would have never happened (but I guess we can all just guess).

The question is, what’s better, occasional software glitches or human stupidity? I guess time and data will tell.

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