91–100 of 413 posts
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Best part is that they probably have data to show that all that patience costs the typical passenger mere seconds to a minute on 99% of rides. This has always bothered me about aggressive or impatient human drivers: they are probably shaving like 30 seconds off of their daily commute while greatly increasing the odds of an incident.
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> those instinctual "decide which way to swerve in a split-second" scenarios that come up maybe once every 10-20 years The correct answer is almost always to hit the brakes. Not to swerve. And Waymo will hit the brakes earlier than you or me.
I would be interested to see waymo adapt to the snow and ice, where “hit the breaks” Is the wrong answer, and the correct is to drop the car into neutral. I believe waymo will figure this out in time, nut SF and Phoenix are idealized driving conditions.
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Fellow SF cyclist: Even setting aside the malicious SF stuff, Waymo's have enormous advantages over humans relying on mirrors and accounting for blindspots. I never have to be concerned a Waymo hasn't seen me. I can't wait until the technology is just standard on cars, and they won't let drivers side-swipe or door cyclists.
Dooring is so incredibly preventable with simple computer vision and some kind of actuator that adds an audible alarm and mechanical 3x resistance to the door opening when a cyclist is detected. The door should still be openable in emergency but should be hard to open until the cyclist passes. (For cars that have both a normally-used electronic door open button and a manual emergency release (e.g. Teslas), the electr…
As someone who is often on SF city streets without a car - I bike and run a lot - I absolutely love Waymo. I am continuously seeing human drivers cut me off, perform illegal maneuvers (i.e. run red lights when I'm going through a crosswalk), and break various other traffic laws. All these things genuinely put people in danger. Just the other day, a guy started running a "no right turn on red" lane in SF, and when I p…
Best part is that they probably have data to show that all that patience costs the typical passenger mere seconds to a minute on 99% of rides. This has always bothered me about aggressive or impatient human drivers: they are probably shaving like 30 seconds off of their daily commute while greatly increasing the odds of an incident.
Now, when there's long stretch or when you have to go up hill, that's where the electric scooter begins to shine and makes the largest difference.
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I am also hopeful that Waymo has other positive externalities for bikes/pedestrians: less need for parking spots, car ownership, etc. At the same time, I guess you could say the same for rideshare, so it would depend on if robo-rideshare is cheaper than ownership
My prediction is that car usage will go thought the roof when AI cars work. People can have a stress-free commute to a nice house in the countryside and work in the cities. Because the car is electric, it will be inexpensive to run.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fellow SF cyclist: Even setting aside the malicious SF stuff, Waymo's have enormous advantages over humans relying on mirrors and accounting for blindspots. I never have to be concerned a Waymo hasn't seen me. I can't wait until the technology is just standard on cars, and they won't let drivers side-swipe or door cyclists.
Dooring is so incredibly preventable with simple computer vision and some kind of actuator that adds an audible alarm and mechanical 3x resistance to the door opening when a cyclist is detected. The door should still be openable in emergency but should be hard to open until the cyclist passes. (For cars that have both a normally-used electronic door open button and a manual emergency release (e.g. Teslas), the electr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> those instinctual "decide which way to swerve in a split-second" scenarios that come up maybe once every 10-20 years The correct answer is almost always to hit the brakes. Not to swerve. And Waymo will hit the brakes earlier than you or me.
I disagree. High percentage of these scenarios are at speeds and scenarios where hitting the brake would not prevent a collision and a quick swerve is the only option to not collide. Obviously your quick swerve could cause another collision so I guess it's which decision on average causes the least harm/death? I agree though that most people's extinct would be to brake. Mine never has been though.
If it’s 1989 and you don’t have ABS, yes. Otherwise, swerving is a gamble [1]. If you don’t have time to stop, you physically don’t have time to evaluate and choose a right or left swerve. You’re trading the certainty of a head-on collision with whatever is in front of you against the uncertainty of what’s to the right or left, compounded with all the fun that comes with a side/tumbling collision and increased risk of not hitting a car.
[1] https://peterhancock.ucf.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/201...
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Best part is that they probably have data to show that all that patience costs the typical passenger mere seconds to a minute on 99% of rides. This has always bothered me about aggressive or impatient human drivers: they are probably shaving like 30 seconds off of their daily commute while greatly increasing the odds of an incident.
I experienced this phenomena on my electric scooter. I could always scoot faster than someone walking but ultimately it makes little difference because I just spent more time for the crossing signal to turn green. So they end up catching up to me. Now, when there's long stretch or when you have to go up hill, that's where the electric scooter begins to shine and makes the largest difference.
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Tens of thousands of Americas are killed every year in car crashes. The existence of a case or some cases where a self-driving car caused injury has zero value. What matters is the rate of cases per mile driven.
The reason they investigate every airplane crash for a root cause is not necessarily because the number of deaths tilts the statistics, it's because they are highly complicated mechanical and electrical machines where there is always the chance for a systematic fault that will doom many further planes if not found and rectified. The same of course applies to self-driving cars; they are literally cars driven by softwa…
I've personally read through the root cause reports for most of the notable AV accidents. They're not always quite as intensive as aerospace, but I'd be hard pressed to describe any of them as wacky statistical arguments.
Obviously most of those reports aren't public, but I'm assuming you also have industry access.
Waymo says Waymo is safe. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-16/woman-ge...
Tens of thousands of Americas are killed every year in car crashes. The existence of a case or some cases where a self-driving car caused injury has zero value. What matters is the rate of cases per mile driven.
CDC “Underlying Cause of Death” dataset sez https://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10-expanded.html https://i.imgur.com/4PB0xyC.jpeg
- “Person injured in unspecified motor-vehicle accident, traffic” is the 50th leading cause of death at 0.4% of deaths.
- “Person injured in collision between other specified motor vehicles (traffic)” is the 108th leading cause of death at 0.2% of deaths.
