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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

#251

Post by Dylan16807 »

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…

Phone while stopped at a red light is explicitly legal here. I don't think it's been a problem?

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

#252

Post by ggreer »

kubectl_h wrote: post #217
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 think a well designed winter specific FSD system is probably more safe in snow and ice than a human. For instance downshifting to ensure wheels continue to spin on slippery surfaces, subtle corrective steering to keep the vehicle within its lane, etc. should be easier for a FSD car since it won't panic and over-correct like most people do in those situations. And if the car reduces speed when appropriate and some a…

Pretty much all electric cars have single speed transmissions, so there's no downshifting. And modern vehicles have electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, automatic emergency braking, and several other safety systems. It's pretty hard to overreact with those enabled. The main issue is that people exceed safe speeds for the conditions, making them unable to brake or turn in time to avoid a collision.

Right now, most self-driving software will refuse to activate in conditions of poor visibility. I've had that happen with Tesla's FSD, though in that case it was snowing so much that the road should have been closed. Also when the snow is deep enough that your front bumper becomes a plow, it will refuse to activate.

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

#253

Post by aprilthird2021 »

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.

This type of edge case covering is pretty essential to the jobs of most on this board. It doesn't surprise me to see it.

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

#254

Post by whyenot »

paffdragon wrote: post #208
whyenot wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each Waymo is equipped with multiple cameras (potentially LPR), LIDAR, etc. The car knows when the vehicles around it are breaking traffic laws and can provide photographic/video evidence of it. Imagine if Waymo cars started reporting violators to the police, and if the police started accepting those reports. Someday they might.

Isn't it too dystopian to have cars follow you around and report you to authorities? I can easily imagine some bad scenarios.

Yes it could potentially be very dystopian for human drivers. That doesn't mean it won't happen. Police departments could make a lot of extra money from the additional traffic tickets; there is a financial incentive for them to do this.

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

#255

Post by fnord77 »

meagher wrote: post #170

This is great long term for having cars that follow traffic laws since human drivers in NYC are awful (kill/injure pedestrians, bikers, and other street users all the time). Not so great for getting cars out of NYC and pedestrianizing more of the city/moving towards more “low traffic neighborhoods” as I imagine Waymo and other similar companies are going to fight against these efforts. Edit: Lots of people talking ab…

> Not so great for getting cars out of NYC

This will never happen. Not in our lifetimes. And as I get older and less able to walk, I don't want it to happen.

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

#256

Post by marcosdumay »

meagher wrote: post #211
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why you think waymo would fight against that. People getting rid of their own cars for daily use will increase how often a service like waymo is used for occasional usage. In the long run it would be a win for waymo. Not many people are taking taxis on a daily basis in New York for normal driving, they buy a car if they need to do that because even with the parking bill they will still come out ahead. An…

> not sure why you think waymo would fight against that If you were to pedestrianize 10% of Manhattan (or for example all of Broadway, which is being considered), then that’s less area for Waymo to operate and make money. To be clear, this is likely more of a long term issue.

They will probably gain way more by the removal of parking lots that comes with it than by losing rides to pedestrian traffic or bikes.

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

#258

Post by Natsu »

afcool83 wrote: post #239

I live in one of the areas they are actively testing/training in. Their cars consistently behave better and more safely than most human drivers that I’m forced to share the road with. As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

If you actually ride in one, you do notice some off behaviors that I didn't pick up while just driving alongside them. That said, I agree that the bad human drivers have done things far, far worse than any of the cars.

The biggest gripe with riding in one is that they're slow, both because of super cautious driving and because they won't take freeways yet.

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

#259

Post by matthewdgreen »

meagher wrote: post #170

This is great long term for having cars that follow traffic laws since human drivers in NYC are awful (kill/injure pedestrians, bikers, and other street users all the time). Not so great for getting cars out of NYC and pedestrianizing more of the city/moving towards more “low traffic neighborhoods” as I imagine Waymo and other similar companies are going to fight against these efforts. Edit: Lots of people talking ab…

It just means that feral bikers will take over the roads ;)

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

#260

Post by crazygringo »

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 joke, but the reality is going to be dynamic self-driving buses that don't have preset routes or stops but respond to instant demand.

You'll pay $$$ for a nonstop ride into midtown in a dedicated vehicle, or $ for a short dedicated ride to a self-driving bus you only need to wait a few minutes for, and which will drop you off on your destination block.

So yes -- self-driving buses seamlessly integrated into ride sharing are certainly going to be a major part of 21st century urban transportation. Which will save a ton of time compared to current buses.

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