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New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

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Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#171

Post by Lammy »

hackncheese wrote: post #166
Lammy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never have to be concerned a Waymo hasn't seen me. Funnily enough that's exactly why I don't like them. Every time one rolls by me I know that tens of photos of me and even my 3D LIDAR scan get piled in to some fucking Google dataset where it will live forever :/ Their site is even proud of it: https://waymo.com/waymo-driver/ section titled “Keeping an eye on everything, all at once” “The Waymo Driver's perceptio…

Definitely a big privacy concern, especially for people like you who aren't using the technology, and haven't consented to giving your data. But car crashes are the third highest cause of death in the US ( https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm ). As a society, I think the benefit outweighs the cost in this case, and we can (theoretically) continue to make progress on privacy as a society. Seems…

> But car crashes are the third highest cause of death in the US (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm).

No, that says “Accidents (unintentional injuries)” as a category are collectively the third leading cause of death, and that category contains a lot of things.

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.

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#172

Post by boulos »

For those that are interested, our Safety Research team also makes the underlying data available for download:

https://waymo.com/safety/impact/#downloads

(I don't work on that team, but I've noticed a few comments that would be better served with their own analysis on top of the available data)

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#173

Post by umbra07 »

bluGill wrote: post #135
indigodaddy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you cannot brake you are following too close. I know everyone else does it (except 3/4ths of semis!), but you can be the one who maintains a long following distance and thus can stop in time. Every time setup the long following distance 5 cars jump into the gap - but then the gap remains as no more do.

what about when there's an idiot slightly ahead and in the next lane who decides to randomly swerve into my lane?

do you also maintain a long following distance when there's a car right next to you in the next lane? I try to, because I don't want to stay in someone's blind spot, but sometimes it's not really possible to fall back.

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#174

Post by porphyra »

paulnpace wrote: post #156

While driving a car, it is possible to do something, even on accident, that can land a person in jail. These crimes do not have the option of paying a fine in lieu of prison time. A "self-driving" car can cause the same accident but gain advantages over a human driver that the person ultimately responsible is no longer held to the same set of laws. This seems to undermine foundations of law, placing the owners of tho…

Currently, penalties for, say, killing someone while driving are already incredibly light.

* Driver whose vehicle struck and killed girl gets $1,200 fine" [1]

* Driver who allegedly struck and killed Staten Island baby charged with $750 fine and 15 days in jail [2]

* Driver who hit Jets assistant coach Greg Knapp won't be charged following his death [3]

[1] https://vancouversun.com/news/driver-whose-vehicle-struck-an...

[2] https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/shannon-cocozza-who-allegedly-...

[3] https://people.com/sports/driver-who-hit-jets-assistant-coac...

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#175

Post by ra7 »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #143
ra7 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo already warns you if it detects road users when you open a door. They just don't actively prevent you from opening the door, but they could implement it in their next generation vehicles.

They won't have to if they use sliding power doors (the geely cars have them). They should have had them for the jaguar generation :) Dooring people aside, what do you do if someone just leaves the door open when they leave their ride?!

Oh, that's already a problem for them. There are videos of many Waymos stranded because the previous rider didn't close the door fully.

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#176

Post by pests »

ziddoap wrote: post #46
xnx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a 3x effect for insurance agencies: 1) Google/Waymo doesn't buy insurance for their vehicles 2) Waymo vehicles are much less likely to cause accidents 3) Waymo vehicles actively avoid being hit and calm traffic overall

I'm not super familiar with this space, or laws where Waymo is active, what do you mean Google/Waymo don't buy insurance for their vehicles? Is having insurance not legally required? Do they just pay out when there's an accident where they injure someone?

It has been classic lore that Bill Gates couldn't get anyone to insure him after his younger years (see classic mugshot photo used as the silhouette) so he had to self insure. Not sure if completely true but I remember the stories.

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#177

Post by WillAdams »

philomath_mn wrote: post #58
johnfn wrote: post #37

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.

Driving is a cooperative game, which we all win if everyone arrives at their destination safely.

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#178

Post by twiceaday »

sollewitt wrote: post #70
johnfn wrote: post #37

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…

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.

I bet that when this tech is in normal cars some will have it tuned to drive much more aggressively and/or simply have that be a setting. I suspect that would be a big selling point / driving tacitly would be an anti-selling point.

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#179

Post by porphyra »

dheera wrote: post #77
sollewitt wrote: post #70

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…

> This would be a trivial software change in the specific case of Teslas

Tesla already has dooring prevention. If it detects a bicycle or something coming, it prevents you from opening the door the first time, and shows a warning. You can override it by trying to open it the second time, if you are sure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/1gwjq4v/new_an...

Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer

#180

Post by unquietwiki »

porphyra wrote: post #167
ordinaryradical wrote: post #108

Literally riding in a Waymo right now in Los Angeles. IMO they already won. The amount of stupid things you see people do here while driving is astonishing, so many people are not paying attention and looking at their phones. I used an Uber on the way here and the car was dirtier while the service was identical (silent ride, got me where I needed to go.) I’ve also been stuck in a Waymo that couldn’t figure out its wa…

I considered getting a Waymo once in LA but I found that since it doesn't go on highways, it is incredibly slow, and cost $60 to spend the same 1 hour as riding the E line for my trip. I ended up riding the E line.

Just last week, I was able to walk to the E-line in daylight; E-line to downtown; E-line back; and take Waymo at night home. It can be useful for a "last mile" scenario.
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