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Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

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Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#111

Post by bryanlarsen »

xnx wrote: post #39
embedding-shape wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Freeways might appear "easy" on the surface, but there are all sorts of long tail edge-cases that make them insanely tricky to do confidently without a driver Maybe my memory is failing me, but I seem to remember people saying the exact opposite here on HN when Tesla first announced/showed off their "self-driving but not really self-driving" features, saying it'll be very easy to get working on the highways, but th…

Highways are on average a much more structured and consistent environment, but every single weird thing (pedestrians, animals, debris, flooding) that occurs on streets also happens on highways. When you're doing as many trips and miles as Waymo, once-in-a-lifetime exceptions happen every day. On highways the kinetic energy is much greater (Waymo's reaction time is superhuman, but the car can't brake any harder.) and…

Those constraints apply to humans too. So it seems likely that:

- it's easier to get to human levels of safety on freeways then on streets

- it's much harder to get to an order of magnitude better than humans on freeways than it is on streets

Freeways are significantly safer than streets when humans are driving, so "as good as humans" may be acceptable there.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#112

Post by nradov »

cortesoft wrote: post #30
s1mon wrote: post #10

How will Waymos handle speed limits on highways? In the city, they seem to stick to the rules. A large percentage of drivers in the bay area, including non-emergency police, drive well above the legal limit regularly. Unless Waymo sticks to the slow lane, it's going to be a weird issue.

Luckily this won't be a problem in Los Angeles, because traffic prevents you from ever going over the speed limit.

It's hilarious to see people in LA buying sports cars. Like even if you're willing to risk a speeding ticket you won't be able to drive faster than the traffic in front of you. Just a status symbol, I guess.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#113

Post by throwup238 »

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #90
LZ_Khan wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is overly conservative last time I checked. Driving the speed limit basically means getting to your destination twice as slow.

You realize it's technically illegal to drive faster than the speed limit, right? In the eyes of the law, it's doesn't matter whether everyone else is doing it or not.

It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit.

It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed limit is really the prevailing speed of traffic plus X mph, where X adjusted for the state. I.e. in my experience Texas is more strict about the speed limit even on their desolate highways, LA is about 10 mph faster than San Francisco, in Seattle it depends on the weather, you’ll never hit the speed limit in New York anyway, and in Florida you just say the gator ate the officer who pulled you over.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#114

Post by Night_Thastus »

LZ_Khan wrote: post #83
mmmlinux wrote: post #28

I was in SF a few weekend ago and rode both Waymo and normal Lyft style taxi cars. the Waymo was a better experience in every single way. One of the Lyfts i was in drove on the shoulder for a while like it was a lane. The Waymos were just smooth consistent driving. No aggressive driving to get you dumped off so they can get to the next fair.

Waymo is overly conservative last time I checked. Driving the speed limit basically means getting to your destination twice as slow.

"Twice as slow" is not even slightly accurate.

If you're driving 45 in a 40, that may sound like 12% faster, but once you add traffic, lights, stop signs, turns, etc - you'll find that the 12% all but evaporates. Even if you're really pushing it and going 15 over, at most speeds and for most typical commutes, it saves very little.

Most of the time speeding ends up saving on the order of seconds on ~30 minutes or shorter trips.

Just about the only time it can be noticeable is if you're really pushing it (going to get pulled over speeds) on a nearly empty highway for a commute of 1.5+ hours.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#115

Post by nradov »

mmmlinux wrote: post #28

I was in SF a few weekend ago and rode both Waymo and normal Lyft style taxi cars. the Waymo was a better experience in every single way. One of the Lyfts i was in drove on the shoulder for a while like it was a lane. The Waymos were just smooth consistent driving. No aggressive driving to get you dumped off so they can get to the next fair.

Waymo cars are also more likely to be properly maintained. I've noticed that a lot of Uber / Lyft cars have some kind of warning light on the dashboard: check engine, low tire pressure, overdue for service.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#116

Post by [deleted] »

whimsicalism wrote: post #95
vasusen wrote: post #92

I am really excited for this. Once going home with my family via Uber in SFO we realized on the freeway that our driver was high and driving at 80-85 mph. It was a really scary experience and I couldn’t do much about it in the moment.

high on what?

[deleted]

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#117

Post by QuercusMax »

CPLX wrote: post #105
estearum wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These sentances conflict. I recently took a taxi from JFK to Manhattan during rush hour, and I estimate if the driver didn't use all of the paved surface, it would have taken at least 10 more minutes to arrive. (And it wouldn't have been an authentic NYC experience) My hot take is that people who "use all of the paved surface" because their whiny passenger is "in a rush" (which of course everyone stuck in traffic i…

[flagged]

"People should break traffic laws" is a very strange position to take.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#118

Post by GloamingNiblets »

xnx wrote: post #39
embedding-shape wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Freeways might appear "easy" on the surface, but there are all sorts of long tail edge-cases that make them insanely tricky to do confidently without a driver Maybe my memory is failing me, but I seem to remember people saying the exact opposite here on HN when Tesla first announced/showed off their "self-driving but not really self-driving" features, saying it'll be very easy to get working on the highways, but th…

Highways are on average a much more structured and consistent environment, but every single weird thing (pedestrians, animals, debris, flooding) that occurs on streets also happens on highways. When you're doing as many trips and miles as Waymo, once-in-a-lifetime exceptions happen every day. On highways the kinetic energy is much greater (Waymo's reaction time is superhuman, but the car can't brake any harder.) and…

I don't have any specific knowledge about Waymo's stack, but I can confidently say Waymo's reaction time is likely poorer than an attentive human. By the time sensor data makes it through the perception stack, prediction/planning stack, and back to the controls stack, you're likely looking at >500ms. Waymos have the advantage of consistency though (they never text and drive).

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#119

Post by __s »

circuit10 wrote: post #54
s1mon wrote: post #10

How will Waymos handle speed limits on highways? In the city, they seem to stick to the rules. A large percentage of drivers in the bay area, including non-emergency police, drive well above the legal limit regularly. Unless Waymo sticks to the slow lane, it's going to be a weird issue.

As someone who doesn’t drive but has done a UK theory test - aren’t you supposed to stick to the “slow lane” (no matter how fast you’re going) unless you’re overtaking? And that’s why it’s not actually called the “fast lane” but the “passing lane”. So I don’t see why you would be in the passing lane unless you’re going faster than others anyway. And there are plenty of lorries and coaches (trucks and buses in US term…

In Ontario we have lots of 3 lane highways (we'll ignore Toronto area, where speed is limited by traffic anyways). What happens is that trucks & people getting on/off exits are in right most lane. Middle lane is everyone else, going 10-20 km/h over speed limit. Leftmost lane is people passing, or the maniacs going over 150 km/h while relying on their map system to alert them of highway patrol

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#120

Post by junon »

whimsicalism wrote: post #95
vasusen wrote: post #92

I am really excited for this. Once going home with my family via Uber in SFO we realized on the freeway that our driver was high and driving at 80-85 mph. It was a really scary experience and I couldn’t do much about it in the moment.

high on what?

Does it matter? Can't think of a single substance that's safe for driving a car.
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