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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

#641

Post by isthatafact »

alemanek wrote: post #545
aubanel wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the end goal of self driving cars is simply to let people do something else than drive. Safety is only a condition for this to happen.

There are other benefits of self driving cars. For example average utilization of a self driving car would be at least an order of magnitude greater than non-self driving one. Think about how much time a car spends parked and waiting to be used. With greater utilization we should have a lower absolute number of vehicles that are replaced more frequently. This would lead to less polluting and better maintained vehicle…

That logic falls apart if everyone buys a self-driving car, and then decides that a 2+ hour commute is not so bad because they can use it as a mini mobile living room+bedroom+dining room. An overnight car ride to the weekend house in a distant mountain region might become a common habit too.

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

#642

Post by olyjohn »

prmoustache wrote: post #615
gwill wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it isn't priority by vehicle type, but by time that you arrive at the stop sign. everyone has to follow the rules equally. approach the sign, come to a complete stop, whoever was there first goes. if the intersection is full, then opposite pairs alternate with whoever is going straight getting right of way, followed by whoever's turning.

That sounds like a complete shit show and a recipe for problems for anything but very low volume traffic.

They generally don't build them in high traffic areas.

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

#643

Post by gpsx »

kurthr wrote: post #612
gwill wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it isn't priority by vehicle type, but by time that you arrive at the stop sign. everyone has to follow the rules equally. approach the sign, come to a complete stop, whoever was there first goes. if the intersection is full, then opposite pairs alternate with whoever is going straight getting right of way, followed by whoever's turning.

Also, if you come to a stop at the same time with two cars at right angles, the car on the right has the "right of way".

I think this is a rule in Europe but I am not aware of this being a rule in the US.

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

#644

Post by PeterisP »

ra7 wrote: post #590
PeterisP wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not enough, because at least for me and a few others (e.g. the neighboring comment "If the footage is not released to the public I'm going to assume it makes Waymo look bad.") being able to judge the event personally can establish much more trust than anything they do with the regulators, because we also don't necessarily fully trust the regulators and their political motivation, and want to see if we would agre…

Unless you’re willing to watch millions of hours video of every Waymo vehicle driving and judge them in aggregate, watching a one-off incident will tell you nothing about their safety. At that point, you might as well trust their aggregate statistics reported to the regulators because they capture everything. If you’re not an expert, it’s best to let the regulators and insurance adjusters do their job.

Your argument is much less effective at making me trust Waymo than the accident video could be.

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

#645

Post by gnicholas »

cgriswald wrote: post #489
viraptor wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my pet peeve with people being so sure online about their abilities of avoiding things on the road. Yeah, maybe you could avoid it with your super human reflexes, but there physically no way you could check that side of your car, register what's there, decide whether you can move that way and then did it. The kneejerk avoidance reaction may be extremely dangerous on its own. (Also in Oz, rolling your car when…

Do people really not mentally track the vehicles around them? I remember in driver’s ed even before we were behind the wheel to have “exit strategies” for situations exactly like this. Cars don’t just appear magically next to you.

People try to, but are imperfect at doing so. For example, most people do not closely track what is happening 2 lanes away. But someone can move from your blind spot 2 lanes away into your blind spot right next to you.

Also, if something potentially dangerous/important is happening to your left, you will focus your attention there and not be aware of things happening to your right, even if you normally would have seen those things had you been looking straight ahead.

I try to know what is going on around me, for the reason you describe (exit strategies), but I'm aware that sometimes I simply do not know what is to my left — and would not want to swerve there.

Having seen friends driving Teslas, I can see how the surround-view could be useful for situations like this. However, I have also seen that cars appear/vanish for no reason, and it is clearly not reliable at this point.

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

#646

Post by Mawr »

quonn wrote: post #504
sschueller wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a better solution for that: Public transportation.

And by better you mean that you prefer it. Because obviously most do not prefer it, otherwise they would use it. Various countries in Europe have a dense network of public transport that you can use - often unlimited all around the country - for less than 50 Euros per month. Given the choice, most would take cars, especially outside of dense cities.

Better = more efficient.

People in aggregate don't have any preferences actually. They just want to get to their destination in the cheapest/most convenient way, which is mostly dictated by what has been designed to be that way. If you design everything around the car, then obviously choosing the car will be the most convenient; it's hardly a choice at that point.

There is only one country that isn't completely drunk on cars that I know of - the Netherlands - and even then it's only barely so. The bar is on the floor.

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

#647

Post by hot_gril »

dns_snek wrote: post #486
resolutebat wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you one of the 88% who know they are better than average, or one of the 12% who are worse? https://www.smithlawco.com/blog/2017/december/do-most-driver...

This has nothing to do with being "a better driver" than average. If you simply don't drive while intoxicated, extremely tired, or distracted with your gadgets, you're already beating the average when it comes to collisions and injuries.

It's mostly that. I don't think I'm more skilled or something. Also, using a smartphone while driving is illegal, but somehow using a 17" touchscreen that mirrors your smartphone and shows incoming texts is OK and common in newer cars.

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

#648

Post by gnicholas »

shadowgovt wrote: post #380
gnicholas wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a human driver would have (for better or worse) swerved to avoid hitting the cyclist. That is, the Waymo might be programmed to only execute certain types of evasive maneuvers, whereas a human would instinctively do other things as well. Of course, if there were someone in the vehicle's blind spot, it's possible this would have resulted in a worse accident, since there would have been no time for a human…

Broadly speaking (and this is a very broad brush, details may differ), autonomous vehicles will resolve collision avoidance by doing something legal. Swerving is not legal and it's not legal because you might hit something you can't see. On the other hand, an autonomous vehicle maintains perpetual 360° situational awareness so it already knows whether it's safe to swerve.

> Swerving is not legal and it's not legal because you might hit something you can't see.

If I'm driving down the road and someone pushes a kid in front of my car, I'm very likely to swerve, even if I'm not 100% sure if there is someone next to me. If I hit a car next to me and cause damage/injure people, there is a good chance that a jury would find in my favor because a "reasonable person" (the relevant legal standard in a civil case) would seek to avoid the certain death of a faultless child, even if it means a chance of injury to passengers in a vehicle that might be nearby. I wouldn't swerve if I thought a bicyclist were there, but I would likely swerve into a vehicle, which affords occupants significant protection.

And I certainly would not be found guilty of a crime ("beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard in a criminal trial) because it is not criminally negligent to swerve when faced with the certainty of killing a child. Under the "defense of self/others" doctrine, you can do many things that would normally be illegal, if you are doing them to prevent the imminent death of yourself or someone else. (These analyses are not super detailed, but IAAL.)

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

#649

Post by hot_gril »

lupusreal wrote: post #521
resolutebat wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you one of the 88% who know they are better than average, or one of the 12% who are worse? https://www.smithlawco.com/blog/2017/december/do-most-driver...

Being better than average is easy because the average is dragged down by people who drive drunk/tired/etc. An average safety robocar would be a downgrade for most responsible people.

Yeah, I have 0 accidents, so nobody is going to convince me the AI is safer. Meanwhile my car's ESC has tried to send me off a cliff before.

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

#650

Post by watwut »

FireBeyond wrote: post #113
babl-yc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I find plenty of rules of the road annoying, whether I'm in a car, on a bicycle or pedestrian. This "Oh, well, it's annoying so we don't do that" is BS.

Very very few drivers respect speed limits to the T or the whole bunch "slow down when you do not see around" rules.

So, majority of drivers can stuff themselves when they suddenly demand absolute perfect compliance from non-drivers.

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