Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

waymo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 413 posts

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

#311

Post by mort96 »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #134
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…

Totally fair to be concerned about pervasive surveillance for the _potential_ of privacy violation. Not sure what to do about that. That being said, just speaking with some knowledge of current state: the scans don't live forever. At this point, all the data they collect is way too big to store even for a short period. They'll only keep data in scenarios that are helpful for improving driving performance, which is a…

It's Google we're talking about. In no way do I trust them to take pictures of me using their city-wide camera network and not use face/body recognition to keep track of where I go, for the purposes of targeting advertisement.

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

#312

Post by mavhc »

Lammy wrote: post #116
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.

> 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…

Buy your scramble suit now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aS4xhTaIPc

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

#313

Post by mavhc »

Toenex wrote: post #264
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.

Honestly future generations will be aghast at how we accepted road deaths caused by human drivers.

It's only more than a 9/11 every day of the year

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

#315

Post by jajko »

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…

You just described situation in Switzerland (and some other western European countries). I don't mean some tiny isolated situation or place, I mean whole countries, anything from tiny village to biggest traffic jam-packed cities.

Sometimes I am ashamed a bit how early drivers break for me as a pedestrian and let me pass, like 3m from road when they and 2-3 more cars could easily pass through without affecting my crossing.

The problem is getting used to this and then going to places where this is not the norm, potentially very dangerous especially for kids.

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

#316

Post by chrsw »

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…

I feel like this study aligns with my experience. I don't live in a Waymo city but I do sometimes drive to the office. I find many other drivers to be impatient, short tempered, selfish and at least once a trip, borderline reckless. Computer drivers definitely aren't perfect. But from what I can tell they aren't intentionally unsafe and will probably improve over time. I wish I could say the same for humans.

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

#317

Post by rubyfan »

kaliqt wrote: post #310
RandomBacon wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the "stopped" vehicle made the turn as the Waymo made the presumably-illegal turn into the "stopped" vehicle that was now moving?

So the answer is that we clearly need that car also to be a Waymo. Problem solved! Hah.

Why don’t we have cars talk to each other and coordinate their routing? Like some sort of peer to peer mechanism that helps them not crash each other. Why can’t vehicles be made to stop at cross walks when someone is crossing with some sort of communication to the vehicle?

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

#318

Post by rpastuszak »

Lammy wrote: post #192
Manuel_D wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human drivers have dash cams, too. Maybe without as sophisticated a data ingestion system as google, but they could theoretically put their dashcam footage on youtube if they wanted to.

I will be sure to think of that the next time I see a human driver whose car has 29 dash cams, 5 lidars, 4 radars, and is using four H100s to process all of its realtime images of me: https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2024/10/27/waymos-5-6...

Yeah, I mean it’s apples and a two trillion dollar adtech business.

I don’t understand why so many comments here are missing the context

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

#319

Post by anonymars »

crazygringo wrote: post #220
hn_acc1 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've clearly never been to the US.. Late-stage capitalism will find ways to make it cost exactly as much as driving your own car. OTOH, if I'm in a decent-sized car (minivan?) for 45 minutes+, I can get work done. I can then stay less time at work.

> You've clearly never been to the US. You're clearly wrong. > Late-stage capitalism will find ways to make it cost exactly as much as driving your own car. Late-stage capitalism is a defunct theory based on Marxism. Real, actual capitalism results in competition which drives prices down, as long as there are two or more competitors and antitrust law is enforced. Which is generally the case. And in the case of monopo…

> Real, actual capitalism results in competition which drives prices down, as long as there are two or more competitors and antitrust law is enforced.

I generally agree with you here, (though it's a bit simplistic for things not directly related to price: for example good luck avoiding arbitration clauses)

> Which is generally the case.

Now our opinions differ. Lina Khan was an exception, and I certainly can't imagine the current regime standing up against money.

Some recent(ish) ones I think have been less than great for competition

  HBO / Discovery? 
  Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp? 
  LiveNation / Ticketmaster? 
  Disney / Fox? 
  Charter / Time Warner Cable? 
  AT&T / Time Warner? 
  CBS / Viacom? 
  Comcast / NBC? 
  JP Morgan / Chase? 
  CVS / Aetna? 
  Cigna / Express Scripts?
  Sinclair Media

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

#320

Post by wffurr »

sneak wrote: post #292
squigz wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect "most roads" to be comprised of residential roads, and I find it hard to believe speeding on those roads is not a safety issue.

The speed limits on most residential roads are too low from a variety of factors, including tradition, policies, and desire for revenue or to generate PC to pull over drivers. You don't drive 25 on residential roads, because you know this to be true. Neither do I, nor does anyone else.

Patently untrue. I do, sometimes slower. My kids’ friends live on these roads.
Post reply on HN