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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

#271

Post by godelski »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #256
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #185

I'm disappointed in all the folks immediately blaming the cyclist without further information, and I'm similarly disappointed in all the folks blaming Waymo for the same reason. But, unless they somehow have extra information we're not privy to, I'm much more disappointed in the S.F. Supervisor quoted in the article, Shamann Walton, for immediately going online to say "so much for safety." Us internet weenies are alw…

Nothing should surprise you about Shamann Walton. This is the man who refused to adhere to the City Hall's security procedures (on camera) and allegedly threatened the person who asked him to comply: https://sfstandard.com/2022/08/05/video-supervisor-shamann-w... He also bought a home outside San Francisco, with a mortgage condition that says it must be his principal residence. But if doesn't live in SF, how can he r…

I'm not surprised by the content of your links, but I can say I'm disappointed. After all, surprise and disappointment are different things.

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

#272

Post by shiroiuma »

vineyardmike wrote: post #261
shiroiuma wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is exactly how a large part of Japanese society lives today. It's one of the main reasons I moved here. I don't need a car, I walk or cycle or take trains wherever I need to go, including to other cities. Americans really don't want to live in this kind of society. They don't like walking that much, and they like the isolation and feeling of superiority they get by driving around in an expensiv…

> Americans really don't want to live in this kind of society. What's crazy is I don't think this is true. I think Americans think they want a car-centric society, and we've structured so much of society to reduce our freedom to chose the alternative. Where do Americans like to vacation? Walkable places. What cities and suburbs are regularly the most expensive and desirable in their area? Walkable ones. We built mall…

>Where do Americans like to vacation? Walkable places.

No, only some Americans vacation there. It's not like 80% of Americans all travel to European cities every year. In my observation, many Americans prefer to go to various US cities and rent cars, or to go to beach resorts, or spend their time on cruise ships drinking all day long.

>Americans will say that cars give them freedom to go anywhere, then complain all the good places don't have enough parking.

Right, this is one of the fundamental problems. Americans just don't understand that you can't have both.

>Anyways, I guess I'm jealous you get to live in Japan, because I totally wish that America could invest in our transit like Japan has.

Japan invested in transit because everything was already very dense. You can't just slap transit into a city like Houston and expect it to work out: you need high density to make it work. Living in Tokyo generally involves a LOT of walking (and stairs!); it's not like every destination is a block from a train station. It's why so many people own bicycles. Trains (and esp. subways) are extremely expensive to install and run and maintain, so you need very high ridership to make them work economically, and American cities outside of Manhattan just don't have that. You would need to change many things to get to Tokyo-level density; it'd be easier to just bulldoze the entire city and start over.

If you want to live in Japan and have tech skills, there's plenty of companies hiring here.

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

#274

Post by abalone »

Clearly one of these two scenarios happened:

1. The waymo made a left turn into the space occluded by truck, seeing there was no vehicle behind the truck when committing to accelerating through the turn, but not seeing the bike in the adjacent bike line proceeding through the intersection.

2. The bike made a left turn from behind the truck into an occluded space, which would be suicidal.

While we can’t rule out the latter until we see video, the former seems much more likely. And that strongly suggests it accelerated too quickly. All the talk about the bike not stopping is beside the point — Waymo is supposed to be able to safely handle such situations.

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

#275

Post by fallingknife »

r0m4n0 wrote: post #200
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.

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…

Not sure what the relevance of the pedestrian is because he far outside the path of travel for the car at the time he hit the bike.

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

#276

Post by godelski »

slg wrote: post #159
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…

Let's be honest, anyone making any type of conclusion based off the information in the article is just giving in to their biases. None of us know enough to actually have any serious opinion on this specific collision.

This feels like the "no vehicles in the park" all over again.[0] We're all naturally inclined to have assumptions, but I think many are not aware of this. I think all have the capacity, just not the habit.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36453856

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

#277

Post by Aloisius »

brian_cunnie wrote: post #176
yellow_postit wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

> rules as written/rules as followed As a bicyclist in San Francisco, if I follow the rules as written, I cause traffic. Cars expect me to blow through four-way stop-sign intersections, and if I stop and wait for the cars, the drivers get confused & don't want to go (afraid of hitting me, I suspect). In terms of right of way, the rules as followed seem to be pedestrian > bike > car.

I sometimes give way to bicyclists at four-way stops because I can't be sure they didn't get there before I did and I didn't see them because they're small.

And of course, if a vehicle, be it a bicyclist or car, enters an intersection when I have right-of-way, it's not like I'm going to start crossing and intentionally run into them.

Where bicyclists really risk their lives if they start assuming cars will give way to them is when they blow through two-way stops, especially at night or at one of the many intersections with poor visibility.

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

#278

Post by undersuit »

shiroiuma wrote: post #265
undersuit wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Someone else said that stop signs are legally equivalent to yield signs for bicycles in California. California does not have the "Idaho Stop". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

Presumably, Idaho does have the "Idaho stop", so driverless cars should be designed with that in mind, and operate as conservatively as possible to avoid crashes caused by other drivers or cyclists not perfectly obeying the rules.

Like how California leads the country on emission standards, you'd think the cars following the elevated CA emission standards across the country would also follow the Idaho standard too. Ignoring it is perilous... if a driver incorporates the Idaho Stop into their driving they will not be confused by bicyclists using the Idaho Stop. They might even be more prepared for other things like people running on the side of the road.

Drivers(Idaho included) by and far embrace the California Stop colloquialism if you ask me. The majority of traffic on roads is cars and the majority of traffic rolls through stop signs.

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

#279

Post by cozzyd »

fallingknife wrote: post #275
r0m4n0 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not sure what the relevance of the pedestrian is because he far outside the path of travel for the car at the time he hit the bike.

most states require you to stop as long as a pedestrian is in the cross-walk (one of the many traffic rules that most drivers disregard).

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

#280

Post by dmix »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #253
dmix wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rolling is usually slow enough to stop on a dime from my experience. The problem is cyclists who continue at full speed and then decide to react last second.

And I am willing to concede that on a bike, as long as you are just slow rolling and not impinging on the right of way such that it confuses other drivers, it's fine. But I have also seen plenty of cyclists who slow roll into the middle of the lane and then act indignant when they get honked at for blocking traffic; At that point, there's very little difference from having just blown through the intersection at full…

Yes there is a hostility between drivers and bikers and bikers and cars, where they both build up resentment and settled for this hostile middle ground where they both treat the others poorly.

Not to mention plenty of people in both are just dumb or ignorant of their surroundings

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