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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

#371

Post by flutas »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #48
random_duck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They they are being very transparent about it.

as far as we know

even as far as we know they aren't

The Waymo blog post refused to say the word "child", instead using the phrase "young pedestrian" once.

The Waymo blog post switches to "the pedestrian" and "the individual" for the rest of the post.

The Waymo blog post also consistently uses the word "contact" instead of hit, struck, or collision.

The Waymo blog post makes no mention of the injuries the child sustained.

The Waymo blog post makes no mention of the school being in close proximity.

The Waymo blog post makes no mention of other children or the crossing guard.

The Waymo blog post makes no mention of the car going over the school zone speed limit (17 in 15).

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

#372

Post by pjscott »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #54
Filligree wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waymo hits a kid? Ban the tech immediately, obviously it needs more work. > Waymo hits a kid? Well if it was a human driver the kid might well have been dead rather than bruised. These can be true at the same time. Waymo is held to a significantly higher standard than human drivers.

> Waymo is held to a significantly higher standard than human drivers. They have to be, as a machine can not be held accountable for a decision.

Slowing the adoption of much-safer-than-humans robotaxis, for whatever reason, has a price measured in lives. If you think that the principle you've just stated is worth all those additional dead people, okay; but you should at least be aware of the price.

Failure to acknowledge the existence of tradeoffs tends to lead to people making really lousy trades, in the same way that running around with your eyes closed tends to result in running into walls and tripping over unseen furniture.

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

#373

Post by rpdillon »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

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.

This exact scenario happened with my dad 50 years ago when a little girl ran out to the street from between some parked cars. It's an extremely difficult scenario to avoid an accident in.

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

#374

Post by smohare »

jjav wrote: post #154
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.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. We'd have to see video of the full scene to have a better judgement, but I wouldn't call it likely. The car reacted quickly once it saw the child. Is that enough? But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. Are there muliple kids milling around on the sidewalk? Near a school? Is there a big truck/SUV parked th…

Anecdote, but I live next to an elementary school and also on a route frequented by Waymos. Human drivers routinely cruise down the 25mph roads at 40+ and blow stop signs, even during school intake and release. Waymo vehicles always seem a lot more cautious.

When thinking about these things you have to factor in the prior probability that a driver is fully attentive, not just assume they are.

If you’ve ever been in a Waymo you quickly realize their field of view is pretty good. You often see the vehicle sensing small pets and children that are occluded to a passenger or driver. For this reason and my experience with humans near aforementioned school, I doubt a human would out perform the Waymo in this particular incident and it’s debatable they even have more context to inform their decisions.

All that said, despite having many hours in a Waymo, it’s not at all clear to me how they factor in sidewalk context. You get the sense that pedestrians movement vectors are accounted for near intersections, but I can’t say I’ve experienced something like a slow down when throngs of people are about.

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

#375

Post by jerlam »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #180
jerlam wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On street parking is so ingrained into the American lifestyle that any change to the status quo is impossible. Cars have more rights on public property than people. Every suburban neighborhood has conflicts over people's imagined "ownership" of the street parking in front of their house. People rarely use their garages to store their car since they can just leave it on the street. There are often laws that prevent pe…

> On street parking is so ingrained into the American lifestyle that any change to the status quo is impossible Plenty of American cities regulate or even eliminated, in various measures, on-street parking.

Impossible is probably the wrong word. But where I live, a superficially "progressive" area, many of these traffic calming, road diet, etc. measures are met with regular opposition.

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

#376

Post by hn_user82179 »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

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.

multiple children in my area have died due to being hit by distracted drivers driving near schools. One incident resulted in 2 children being dragged 60 yards. Here's a snippet from an article about the death I was referencing:

> The woman told police she was “eating yogurt” before she turned onto the road and that she was late for an appointment. She said she handed her phone to her son and asked him to make a call “but could not remember if she had held it so face recognition could … open the phone,” according to the probable cause statement.

> The police investigation found that she was traveling 50 mph in a 40 mph zone when she hit the boys. She told police she didn’t realize she had hit anything until she saw the boys in her rearview mirror.

The Waymo report is being generous in comparing to a fully-attentive driver. I'm a bit annoyed at the headline choice here (from OP and the original journalist) as it is fully burying the lede.

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

#377

Post by yesfitz »

themafia wrote: post #312
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have contradicting data I'd be glad to see it >It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. Is based off the source I gave in my comment, the peer-reviewed model > a huge portion of human drivers Is based on my experience and bits of data like 30% of fatal accidents involving alcohol Like I said, if you have better data I'm glad to see it

> based on my experience The data completely disagrees with you. > Like I said, if you have better data I'm glad to see it We all have better data. It's been here the entire time: https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-report...

What data completely disagrees with them and what does it disagree with them about?

The "Persons Killed, by Highest Driver Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) in the Crash"[1] report shows that in 2023, 30% of fatal crashes involved at least one driver with a BAC > 0.08 (the legal limit), and 36% involved a BAC > 0.01.

Interesting that "Non-motorist" fatalities have dropped dramatically for everyone under the age of 21, but increased for everyone between 21 and 74.[2] Those are raw numbers, so it'd be even more interesting to display them as a ratio of the group's size. Are less children being killed by drivers because there are less children generally? Changes in parents' habits? Backup cameras?

1: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Trends/TrendsAlcohol.aspx 2: https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Trends/TrendsNonMotorist.aspx

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

#378

Post by dfxm12 »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

Waymo driver? The vehicles are autonomous. I otherwise applaud Waymo's response, and I hope they are as cooperative as they say they will be. However, referring to the autonomous vehicle as having a driver is a dangerous way to phrase it. It's not passive voice, per se, but it has the same effect of obscuring responsibility. Waymo should say we, Waymo LLC, subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc., braked hard...

Importantly, Waymo takes full ownership for something they write positively: Our technology immediately detected the individual.... But Waymo weasels out of taking responsibility for something they write about negatively.

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

#379

Post by Nition »

recursive wrote: post #356
Nition wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of clickbait headlines have the same problem. "You're using too much washing powder!" Everyone's replying to you as if you truly don't understand the sign's intention but I'm sure you do. It's just annoying to be doing everything right and the signs and headlines are still telling you you're wrong. There was a driving safety safety ad campaign here: "Drive to the conditions. If they change, reduce your speed."…

Yes. You have understood precisely the spirit in which I intended it. In advertising: "Treat yourself. You deserve it!" Me: What if someone who didn't deserve it heard this message. How can you possibly know what I deserve? Do all people deserve to treat themselves? Is the notion of deserving or treating really so vacuous? Normies: jfc

There's a mental health awareness campaign going on around here at the moment with all the generic messages like that. "You're doing great" is completely devalued by the sign giving the same message to everyone, and the best one says something like "Don't push yourself too hard. If you want to rest, rest." Wondering if I can tell my boss the sign told me it's okay not to get any work done.

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

#380

Post by 10000truths »

Veserv wrote: post #244
maerF0x0 wrote: post #87

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 eleme…

Err, that is not the desirable statistic you seem to think it is. American drivers average ~3 trillion miles per year [1]. That means ~7000 child pedestrian injurys per year [2] would be ~1 per 430 million miles. Waymo has done on the order of 100-200 million miles autonomously. So this would be ~2-4x more injurys than the human average. However, the child pedestrian injury rate is only a official estimate (it is pos…

I suspect that highway miles heavily skew this statistic. There's naturally far fewer pedestrians on highways (lower numerator), people travel longer distances on highways (higher denominator), and Waymo vehicles didn't drive on highways until recently. If you look only at non-highway miles, you'll get a much more accurate comparison.
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