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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

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

#111

It's insane that they need permits for 8 cars that have humans driving them in 2025, when they're already fully automated in SF. > We’re a tech-friendly administration Clearly not.

There's gonna be people driving them? What's the point then?

Sounds like it's a person actively monitoring but not driving. The point is minimizing risk until safety can be proven.

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

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'll throw this out there: your human-driven car already accounts for acceleration and braking on slippery roads, without the need for the human. Traction control systems and electronic stability control systems exist! They're in fact incredibly common on modern cars. These systems don't help with the problems I am talking about. You have to drive completely differently in heavy snow, significantly slower, brake soo…

That all sounds like something that should be easier for a robot to do than the typical human. If programmed for how to drive in heavy snow, a robot should be able to switch driving modes much easier than the typical human brain. Waymo has been trained in Buffalo NY for winter conditions, unlike most NYC drivers.

Is it possible to train a machine to drive in snow? Yes. But consider that humans are trained to do so by means of things like: actually crashing, observing others crashing, talking to people who crashed, and all of the above is highly localized. Where I live there are many days in winter when someone not from the immediate area should not drive at all. But I might if there was a good reason because I have 25 years experience with the specific roads, conditions, how those conditions relate to wind and on and on. Training a machine to know all that seems feasible but unlikely to be commercially viable. It's just not a problem that can be solved with a simple closed loop control system like ABS or traction control.

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

#114
post #35

I can't wait to hear how it goes in NYC -- its going to be a total cluster - with the significantly more chaotic behavior on the streets, bike scooters, pedestrians and then the oddness of the streets/aggressive driving necessary behavior. Give it one month if they saturate it too much there will be political blowback on waymos causing traffic chaos. Queue track record in SF as datapoints.

I don’t think people commenting and downvoting us realize how things are in NYC. Not only do you have to deal with insane chaos you also have to deal with malicious drivers. Hit-and-run in NYC is shockingly high because it’s a no-fault state. People don’t stop after accidents. It’s gotten really bad since the pandemic.

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

#115
post #40

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.

But why would you tailgate a driverless car? I think usually people tailgate to intimidate the person ahead of them to drive faster.

Because that works every time?

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LA and SF are not close to close to the complexity of nyc traffic and pedestrian culture

TIL. LA doesn’t have complex traffic? What sort of traffic do we have in LA then? LA is walkable, it’s lazy (and mostly incorrect) to say LA isn’t walkable. LA County is massive, and depending on where you want to pick a comparison from, you may prove yourself either right or wrong.

there is nowhere in LA with the complex intermingling of pedestrian, car, bicycle, and motorbike traffic of anywhere in the boroughs other than Staten.

LA it’s gridlock or go. There’s nothing complicated about it other than strategizing where is gridlock and where is Go.

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

#118
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.

NYC is ramping up on this as well.

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I took a road trip that included time in SF last year and seeing a Waymo was pretty neat. To save some money, we stayed in downtown Oakland and took the BART into San Francisco. After getting ice cream at the Ghirardelli Chocolate shop, we were headed to Pier 39. My wife has a bad ankle and can't walk very far before needing a break to sit, and we could have taken another bus, we decided to take a Waymo f…

Why does tesla pretend to be autonomous? My friends with tesla fsd use it fully autonomously. It even finds a spot and parks for them.

It's a level 2 system, it can't be operated unattended. Your friends are risking thier lives as several people (now dead) have found out.
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