Can we mention that drivers using Tesla’s FSD are 5x less likely to be in an accident than human drivers?
Or all things Elon bad?
New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
231–240 of 413 posts
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If hit the brakes is the wrong answer, you are driving too fast.
Almost all of these tricky situations are avoided by slowing down and giving more space around hazards.
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#233Can we mention that drivers using Tesla’s FSD are 5x less likely to be in an accident than human drivers? Or all things Elon bad?
This may be true, but paradoxically, the data might be slightly skewed since Tesla's driver monitoring system (which is only active during autopilot) actively rewards drivers who are paying attention.
So is the accident rate lower because people are forced to be more attentive during FSD? Or is it genuinely lower (i.e, if you took out the driver, would there be less accidents)? To be fair, I'd still wager that yes, FSD is probably statistically way better than the average driver.
Maybe some combination of miles per intervention + accident data would give more insights into that.
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like the rest of the HN crowd is swooning over Waymo. Nothing but glowing reviews. As they become the monopolist, like they always do, watch how they’ll run the age old playbook to destroy the market and then hike prices. I’m not against self-driving cars. I’m against self-driving cars owned by a few megacorps, that will have even control and surveillance capabilities in addition to what’s already in your pocke…
> I’m not against self-driving cars. I’m against self-driving cars owned by a few megacorps Perfect is the enemy of the good. This sort of technological NIMBYism is, in practice, opposition to self-driving cars and their safety benefits.
Not even my point and this isn’t about the tech but about the societal context.
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#235As 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…
The thing I dislike about Waymo is other drivers. I've now had it happen twice that a car will fully blow through an intersection because they know a Waymo will slam on the breaks to avoid a collision. They basically abuse the car's reflexes. Also in any sort of situation where the Waymo is being very cautious the biggest danger is the impatient people behind the Waymo who will break the law to go out and around it.
Most of the world already solved this problem with red light cameras.
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#236As 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…
I agree, to a point. Waymo has some vaguely aggressive habits that are usually for the best, like initiating their turn forcefully, but there is one specific thing I've noticed. Coming down Mason and turning left onto Bush it is a one way street turning left onto a one way street. Twice now while trying to cross with the light Waymos have crept into the crosswalk while I was already crossing. It's very unsettling.
I imagine the weirdness of the situation (legal left on red) triggers it's "creep forward so I can see" logic but it definitely shouldn't be blocking a busy crosswalk there when there is little to know chance it will be able to turn AND peds from both sides.
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was just on a business trip to San Francisco for a few days, and I observed the near opposite of this from the Waymo fleet in SoMa: * Waymo vehicle creeping into the pedestrian crosswalk (while the pedestrians had right of way to cross), which caused someone to have to walk around the car into the intersection ahead of the Waymo. * Waymo vehicle entering a dedicated bike lane and practically tailgating the bicyclis…
> * Waymo vehicle entering a dedicated bike lane. In California, California Vehicle Code § 21209(a)(3) expressly permits a motor vehicle to enter a bicycle lane “to prepare for a turn within a distance of 200 feet from the intersection” -- among other cases. (The vehicle must yield to cyclists in the lane.)
I hope that means yield to cyclists ahead of them. To me the whole point of getting in the bike lane is to avoid cases where the cyclist going straight is in a blind spot during the car's right turn. As a cyclist I'll sometimes get into the car lane at intersections to make sure I'm seen. seems like the car being required to let the bike behind them go straight is exactly what you'd want to avoid
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#238That's great news. I wonder how much insurance rates will go down when autonomous vehicles get popular. Seems like the liability portion could go way down.
The problem is that Waymos can't replace cars (or even Ubers!) since they depend on human oversight and problem-solving. Even at a 20:1 ratio it is not feasible for autonomous vehicles to employ 10m people to account for every American on the road.
Where does the 20:1 stat come from? Does anyone know how may human interventions Waymo has per trip or per mile? How much human time is needed per intervention? And are the intervention rate and human time increasing or decreasing over time?
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very confusing position. Every Uber has full-time 1:1 "oversight". Waymo has a support team that only directs actions ( not remote driving) when the vehicle requests. I would be very surprised if the number of Waymo rides that need any intervention at all is greater than 1 in 20.
My point is you're not going to get much more than half[1] of those Uber drivers into a Waymo control center, even if they're facing unemployment. The workers have to come from somewhere. And it has to be somewhat regular hours, surge oversight doesn't make sense. [1] Edit - I meant 5% not half, I was on the train and very frustrated with these comments. (not yours, though it seems bad faith to say " not remote drivi…
I don't think Waymo needs a significant amount of vehicle support staff now, and will need even less (per vehicle) in the future. The ratio will probably be something like the number of elevator repair people to number of unattended elevators operating smoothly.
I emphasized that Waymo staff does not drive vehicles remotely, because this persists as a common misconception.
Re: New Study: Waymo is reducing serious crashes and making streets safer
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably not, if they're all computer-controlled, and can communicate with each other. I posit traffic jams is mostly caused by idiot and reckless drivers...
Yup, and if every car is computer controlled and in communication with nearby cars you can safely reduce spacing. Most of that space between cars is due to human reaction time. (And even then that's not always enough. 40 years ago, I'm going along, geezer is being awfully slow about their left turn so I lightly apply the brakes. Geezer then proceeds to completely stop, utterly unaware that I'm heading right towards h…
Most humans don't leave sufficient braking time on crowded roads. They leave almost enough space to stop, not accounting for reaction time at all.