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Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

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Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#81

Post by dcanelhas »

aaomidi wrote: post #73
dcanelhas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound like a good outcome for automation. Though I suppose an investigation into the matter would arguably have to look at whether a competent human driver would be driving at 17mph (27km/h) under those circumstances to begin with, rather than just comparing the relative reaction speeds, taking the hazardous situation for granted. What I would like to see is a full-scale vehicle simulator where humans are tes…

17 mph is pretty slow unless it’s a school zone

Indeed, 15 or 25 mph (24 or 40 km/h) are the speed limits in school zones (when in effect) in CA, for reference. But depending on the general movement and density and category of pedestrians around the road it could be practically reckless to drive that fast (or slow).

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#82

Post by direwolf20 »

dylan604 wrote: post #74
direwolf20 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As every company should, when they have a success. Are they also as transparent about their failures?

How is hitting a child not a failure? And actually, how can you call this a success? Do you think this was a GTA side mission?

Immediately hitting the brakes when a child suddenly appears in front of you, instead of waiting 500ms like a human, and thereby hitting the child at a speed of 6 instead of 14 is a success.

What else to you expect them to do, only run on grade–separated areas where children can't access? Blare sirens so children get scared away from roads? Shouldn't human–driven cars do the same thing then?

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#83

Post by pastage »

gensym wrote: post #78
anovikov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most humans in that situation won't have reaction speed to do shit about it and it could result in a severe injury or death.

Yeah. I'm a stickler for accountability falling on drivers, but this really can be an impossible scenario to avoid. I've hit someone on my bike in the exact same circumstance - I was in the bike lane between the parked cars and moving traffic, and someone stepped out between parked vehicles without looking. I had nowhere to swerve, so squeezed my brakes, but could not come to a complete stop. Fortunately, I was going…

Building on my own experience I think you have to own that if you crash with someone you made a mistake. I do agree that car and road design for bicycles(?) makes it almost impossible to move around if you do not risk things like that.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#84

Post by dylan604 »

whynotminot wrote: post #79
dylan604 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be one hell of a convoluted route to avoid school zones. I wonder if it would even be possible for a large majority of routes, especially in residential areas.

It might not be possible for a lot of places — I don’t really know. But I know when I drive, if it’s a route I’m familiar with, I’ll personally avoid school zones for this very reason: higher risk of catastrophe. But also it’s annoying to have to slow down so much. Maybe this personal decision doesn’t really scale to all situations, but I’m surprised Waymo doesn’t attempt this. (Maybe they do and in this specific sce…

Most people prefer the shortest ride. Circling around school zones would be the opposite of that. Rides are charged based on distance, so maybe this would interest Waymo, but one of the big complaints about taxi drivers was how drivers would "take them for a ride" to increase the fare.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#85

Post by mlyle »

pastage wrote: post #80
mlyle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if there are a bunch of children milling about an elementary school in a chaotic situation with lots of double parking, 17 mph is too fast Hey, I'd agree with this-- and it's worth noting that 17^2 - 5^2 > 16^2, so even 1MPH slower would likely have resulted in no contact in this scenario. But, I'd say the majority of the time it's OK to pass an elementary school at 20-25MPH. Anything carries a certain level of…

Swedish schools still have students who walk there. I live near one and there are very few cars that exceed 20km/h during rush hours. Anything faster is reckless even if the max over here is 30 km/h (19 mph).

The schools I'm thinking of have sidewalks with some degree of protection/offset from street, and the crossings are protected by human crossing guards during times when students are going to schools. The posted limits are "25 (MPH) When Children Are Present" and traffic generally moves at 20MPH during most of those times.

There are definitely times and situation where the right speed is 7MPH and even that feels "fast", though, too.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#86

Post by whynotminot »

dylan604 wrote: post #84
whynotminot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be possible for a lot of places — I don’t really know. But I know when I drive, if it’s a route I’m familiar with, I’ll personally avoid school zones for this very reason: higher risk of catastrophe. But also it’s annoying to have to slow down so much. Maybe this personal decision doesn’t really scale to all situations, but I’m surprised Waymo doesn’t attempt this. (Maybe they do and in this specific sce…

Most people prefer the shortest ride. Circling around school zones would be the opposite of that. Rides are charged based on distance, so maybe this would interest Waymo, but one of the big complaints about taxi drivers was how drivers would "take them for a ride" to increase the fare.

Seems like a solvable problem: make it clear on the app/interior car screens that a school zone is being avoided — I think most riders will understand this.

You also have to drive much more slowly in a school zone than you do on other routes, so depending on the detour, it may not even be that much longer of a drive.

At worst, maybe Waymo eats the cost difference involved in choosing a more expensive route. This certainly hits the bottom line, but there’s certainly also a business and reputational cost from “child hit by Waymo in school zone” in the headlines.

Again, this all seems very solvable.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#87

Post by maerF0x0 »

Meanwhile the news does not report the other ~7,000 children per year injured as pedestrians in traffic crashes in the US.

I think the overall picture is a pretty fantastic outcome -- even a single event is a newsworthy moment _because it's so rare_ .

> The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation is investigating “whether the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the elementary school during drop off hours, and the presence of young pedestrians and other potential vulnerable road users.”

Meanwhile in my area of the world parents are busy, stressed, and on their phones, and pressing the accelerator hard because they're time pressured and feel like that will make up for the 5 minutes late they are on a 15 minute drive... The truth is this technology is, as far as i can tell, superior to humans in a high number of situations if only for a lack of emotionality (and inability to text and drive / drink and drive)... but for some reason the world wants to keep nit picking it.

A story, my grandpa drove for longer than he should have. Yes him losing his license would have been the optimal case. But, pragmatically that didn't happen... him being in and using a Waymo (or Cruise, RIP) car would have been a marginal improvement on the situation.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#88

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

torginus wrote: post #39
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. And to add > Waymo said in its blog post that its “peer-reviewed model” shows a “fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.” It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. With a distracted driver (a huge portion of human drivers) it could've been catastrophic.

I usually take extra care when going through a school zone, especially when I see some obstruction ('behind a tall SUV', was the waymo overtaking?), and overtaking is something I would probably never do (and should be banned in school zones by road signs). This is a context that humans automatically have and consider. I'm sure Waymo engineers can mark spots on the map where the car needs to drive very conservatively.

I appreciate your sensible driving, but here in the UK, roads outside schools are complete mayhem at dropping off/picking up times. Speeding, overtaking, wild manoeuvres to turn round etc.

When reading the article, my first thought was that only going at 17mph was due to it being a robotaxi whereas UK drivers tend to be strongly opposed to 20mph speed limits outside schools.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#89

Post by maerF0x0 »

WarmWash wrote: post #52
alkonaut wrote: post #11

And before the argument "Self driving is acceptable so long as the accident/risk is lower than with human drivers" can I please get that out of the way: No it's not. Self driving needs to be orders of magnitude safer for us to acknowledge it. If they're merely as safe or slightly safer than humans we will never accept it. Becase humans have a "skin in the game". If you drive drunk, at least you're likely to be in the…

If waymo is to be believed, they hit the kid at 6mph and estimated that a human driver at full attention would have hit the kid at 14 mph. The waymo was traveling 17mph. The situation of "kid running out between cars" will likley never be solved either, because even with sub nanosecond reaction time, the car's mass and tire's traction physically caps how fast a change in velocity can happen. I don't think we will eve…

> The situation of "kid running out between cars" will likley never be solved

Nuanced disagree (i agree with your physics), in that an element of the issue is design. Kids running out between cars _on streets that stack building --> yard --> sidewalk --> parked cars --> driving cars.

One simple change could be adding a chain link fence / boundary between parked cars and driving cars, increasing the visibility and time.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#90

Post by criddell »

alkonaut wrote: post #63
criddell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orders of magnitude? Something like 100 people die on the road in the US each day. If self-driving tech could save 10 lives per day, that’s wouldn’t be good enough?

"It depends". If 50 people die and 50 people go to jail, vs. 40 people die and their families are left wondering if someone will take responsibility? Then that's not immediately standing out as an improvement just because fewer died. We can do better I think. The problem is simply one of responsibility.

If the current situation was every day 40 people die but blame is rarely assigned, would you recommend a change where an additional 10 people are going to die but someone will be held responsible for those deaths?
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