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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

cnbc.com

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Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#91

Post by kjkjadksj »

testfrequency wrote: post #24
TulliusCicero wrote: post #3

It's fascinating seeing all the comments elsewhere anytime Waymo starts testing in another city along the lines of, "ah, but how will they handle X, Y, and Z here?? Checkmate, robots!" despite having already launched service in several other cities. Granted, NYC is the biggest city in the US, so maybe that sort of reaction is more reasonable there than when people in Dallas or Boston do it.

Since Waymo is very reliable in LA and SF, you will be just fine in NYC. Your grid system is far less of a challenge than the amount of hills, twists, narrow streets and low visibility back streets in California. I genuinely think the most complicated challenge for Waymo in NYC will be…winter snow and ice.

The thing is waymo at least in LA specifically geolocks you from those hilly areas. Imo it also is not assertive enough and drivers seem to be learning one can bully a waymo on the road.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#92

Post by saila »

miltonlost wrote: post #56
wahnfrieden wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYPD cops don't like enforcing traffic violations: https://i.redd.it/w6es37v1sqpc1.png (License holders and drivers on the road are up in the same period that summonses are down, too. Traffic is up since pre-covid.) Now that I live in Toronto we face the same challenges. Politicians may introduce traffic laws to curb dangers and nuisances from drivers, but police refuse to enforce them. As they don't live in the city…

Part of the problem is we have police doing far too many jobs. We need to separate out traffic enforcement, mental health responses, and other works into their own focused units. Especially the mental health responses, as far too often police refuse to or (at best) don't know how to de-escalate in those situations.

I agree we need to separate these responsibilities, but when it comes to mental health response, the police themselves are often opposed to alternatives, even while they complain that they're not mental health providers and often can't do anything in those types of situations.

In my city, we've had an underfunded street response program for a few years now, but a lot of people (including a lot of people who don't live here) see it as antagonistic to police and police funding, when really it should just be part of a holistic system to address social issues.

It makes no sense to me that the people who ostensibly care the most about addressing crime and "disorder" on the streets are often the most oppositional to programs that might actually address some of the underlying issues (not all of course, but some).

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#93

Post by oceanplexian »

chrisshroba wrote: post #44
setgree wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semi-related, but just once in my life, I want to hear a mayoral candidate say: “I endorse broken windows theory, but for drivers. You honk when there’s no emergency, block the box, roll through a stop sign — buddy that’s a ticket. Do it enough and we’ll impound your car.” Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends…

This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using t…

Try driving anywhere in the world that's not Western Europe or The USA and you'll quickly see how advanced even our worst cities are when it comes to traffic.

Last time I was in China drivers simply go through four way intersections at top speed from all directions simultaneously. If you are a pedestrian I hope you're good at frogger because there is a 0% chance anyone will stop for you. I really wonder how self driving cars work because they must program some kind of insane software that ignores all laws or it wouldn't even be remotely workable.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#94

Post by freeone3000 »

dgs_sgd wrote: post #90
fsaid wrote: post #75

Waymo should add a thin layer of "assertiveness" for actual deadlock that their self-driving architecture could cause. While in Austin, I was in a Waymo that blocked 3 lanes of incoming traffic while attempting to merge into a lane going into the opposite direction. It was a super unorthodox move, but none of the drivers (even while stopped for a red light) would let the Waymo* merge into their lane. Thank God for th…

I think we're going to see more examples of this as Waymo's popularity grows. Basically human drivers taking advantage of Waymo's far more passive driving style. Maybe some rules of the road will have to change, or the Waymos will get dedicated lanes to solve this problem.

Imagine if we had dedicated lanes for giant Waymos, that could hold dozens of people. The future of transport.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#95

Post by dgs_sgd »

freeone3000 wrote: post #94
dgs_sgd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're going to see more examples of this as Waymo's popularity grows. Basically human drivers taking advantage of Waymo's far more passive driving style. Maybe some rules of the road will have to change, or the Waymos will get dedicated lanes to solve this problem.

Imagine if we had dedicated lanes for giant Waymos, that could hold dozens of people. The future of transport.

I would like that just as much as the next guy but the problem of public transport cannot be addressed until you first address the problem of anti social behavior on public transport.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#96

Post by testfrequency »

infecto wrote: post #42
testfrequency wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Waymo is very reliable in LA and SF, you will be just fine in NYC. Your grid system is far less of a challenge than the amount of hills, twists, narrow streets and low visibility back streets in California. I genuinely think the most complicated challenge for Waymo in NYC will be…winter snow and ice.

I would argue those two areas are very different though. The Bay Area is not as dense or as many aggressive drivers as NYC.

My point wasn’t to say they are the same, more that SF and LA (I would guess) have covered and defeated almost every single challenge and obstacle for an urban environment (sans..weather).

LA also has far denser areas than SF, places like DTLA and Koreatown are more dense than most boroughs in NYC (sans Manhattan).

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#97

Post by stuxnet79 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #94
dgs_sgd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're going to see more examples of this as Waymo's popularity grows. Basically human drivers taking advantage of Waymo's far more passive driving style. Maybe some rules of the road will have to change, or the Waymos will get dedicated lanes to solve this problem.

Imagine if we had dedicated lanes for giant Waymos, that could hold dozens of people. The future of transport.

This already exists outside of America and is abundant and cheap. It's called public transit.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#98

Post by Zigurd »

bsimpson wrote: post #46
hardwaregeek wrote: post #13

I’m curious if autonomous cars will become targets for aggressive drivers. Like a driver isn’t going to be as scared cutting off a Waymo or tailgating one because the AI isn’t gonna get road rage or honk like hell. In some places I could see the Waymo’s getting severely bullied if that’s the case.

They're already learning how to handle this in SF. (I don't live there anymore, so I can't give specific examples.) Waymo markets itself as an automated driver - same reason they're using off-the-shelf cars and not the cartoony concepts they originally showed. Like real drivers, they take the law as guidelines more than rules. De jure (what the law says) and de facto (what a cop enforces) rules have had a gap between…

TBF the Zeekr minivans are a big step toward a purpose-built Waymo vehicle. I do agree that Zoox has its priorities backwards by going straight for a purpose built robotaxi vehicle. But it has advantages like friendlier ergonomics for the disabled.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#99

Post by dmd »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #97
freeone3000 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we had dedicated lanes for giant Waymos, that could hold dozens of people. The future of transport.

This already exists outside of America and is abundant and cheap. It's called public transit.

that was the joke, yes

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#100

Post by thfuran »

freeone3000 wrote: post #94
dgs_sgd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're going to see more examples of this as Waymo's popularity grows. Basically human drivers taking advantage of Waymo's far more passive driving style. Maybe some rules of the road will have to change, or the Waymos will get dedicated lanes to solve this problem.

Imagine if we had dedicated lanes for giant Waymos, that could hold dozens of people. The future of transport.

You need to think bigger. Once we have separate lanes just for the waymos, we don't need them to be regular roadways. We can scale up the waymo even more and size the lane exactly to the vehicle, maybe even radically redesign the road surface for lower rolling resistance. What a future it will be.
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