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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

#501

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rsch wrote: post #491

A human driver travelling at the same speed would have hit that child at exactly 17 mph, before their brain even registered that child was there. If that driver would also have been driving a large SUV that child would have been pushed on the ground and ran over, so probably a fatality. And also functionally nobody would have given a shit apart from some lame finger pointing at (probably) the kid’s parents. And it is…

> And it is not the child’s or their parents’ fault either: Once you accept elementary school aged children exist, you have to accept they will sometimes run out like this. Children just don’t have the same impulse control as adults.

I get what you are trying to say and I definitely agree in spirit, but I tell my kid (now 9) "it doesn't matter if it isn't your fault, you'll still get hurt or be dead." I spent a lot of time teaching him how to cross the street safely before I let him do it on his own, not to trust cars to do the right thing, not to trust them to see you, not to trust some idiot to not park right next to cross walk in a huge van that cars have no chance of seeing over.

If only we had a Dutch culture of pedistrian and road safety here.

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

#502

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #500

Waymo failed to stop and hit a child. Normal person would drive carefully around blind spots. I wonder what would comments be if Tesla hit a child.

> Normal person would drive carefully around blind spots.

I can't tell if you are using sarcasm here or are serious. I guess it depends on your definition of normal person (obviously not average, but an idealized driver maybe?).

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

#503

Post by eszed »

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…

Two things:

I've read studies saying that most drivers don't brake at max effort, even to avoid a collision. This may be at least one of the reasons that Waymo predicted that an attentive human would likely have been going faster than their car at the moment of impact. I've got a good idea of my fun-car's braking performance, because I drive it hard sometimes, but after reading that I started practicing a bit with my wife's car on the school run, and... Yeah: it's got a lot more braking power than I realized. (Don't worry, I brake hard on a long straight exit ramp, when no one's behind me, a fast slow-down is perfectly safe, and the kiddo loves it.) I've now got an intuitive feel for where the ABS will kick in, and exactly what kind of stopping distance I have to work with, which makes me feel like a safer driver.

Second, going off my experience of hundreds and hundreds of ride-share rides, and maybe thirty Waymo journeys, I'd call the best 10-15% of humans better drivers than Waymo. Like, they're looking further up the road to predict which lane to be in, based on, say, that bus two blocks away. They also drive faster than Waymos do, without a perceptual decrease in safety. (I realize "perceptual" is doing some work in that sentence!) That's the type of defensive and anticipatory urban driver I try to be, so I notice when it's done well. Waymo, though, is flat-out better, in every way, than the vast majority of the ride-share drivers I see. I'm at the point where I'll choose a Waymo any time it'll go where I'm headed. This story reinforces that choice for me.

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

#504

Post by altairprime »

altairprime wrote: post #390
trollbridge wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not like the phase "it's the kid's fault" for a kid being hit by a robot-car. It is never a 6 year old's fault if they get struck by a robot.

At some point children are capable of pursuing Darwin Awards. Parents may enable this, but ultimately if one’s child does something stupid contrary to one’s guidance and restrictions, they may end up with a Darwin for it. Two hundred years ago the child mortality rate was half , as in you lost one child per two , and most of those were not the fault of the child or parents. Society for quite some years has been pushi…

*tickets

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

#505

Post by TylerE »

sandworm101 wrote: post #437
tastyfreeze wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a different wheel diameter than the speedometer was calibrated with and you will have a larger difference between actual velocity and speedometer reading. The odometer will also not record actual distance traveled.

It depends. I had a honda motorcycle where the speedo was 10ish % fast (not unussual on bikes due to tire shape) but the odo was accutrate. Same sensor, but the computer just counted wheel rotations slightly differently for each use.

Virtually all speedos read fast. The federal standards have a fairly high margin for being allowed to read high, and a zero margin for reading low. Thus speedos are more or less universally calibrated to read at least 5% high.

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

#506

Post by mikepurvis »

reddalo wrote: post #497
tombert wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that that is why roundabouts are safer than their alternatives: counterintuitively, they're safer because they're less safe, forcing the user to pay more attention as a result.

>they're safer because they're less safe Roundabouts are safer. They're safer because they prevent everybody from speeding through the intersection. And, even in case of an accident, no head-on collisions happen in a roundabout.

They're safer specifically for vehicles, as they convert many conflicts that would be t-bones (worst for passengers) into getting rear-ended (maximum crumple zone on both vehicles).

Roundabouts are worse for land use though, which impacts walkability, and the safety story for pedestrians and bike users with them is decidedly not great as well.

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

#507

Post by Noumenon72 »

belorn wrote: post #469
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.

If you drive in Sweden you will occasionally come up to a form of speed reduction strategy that may seem counterintuitive. They all add to make driving harder and feel more dangerous in order to force attention and lower speed. One is to merge opposite directional roads into a single lane, forcing drivers to cooperate and take turn to pass it, one car at a time. For a combined car and pedestrian road (max speed of 7k…

It's a runaway process of prioritizing safety over convenience -- and it's wrecking their road base just before self-driving cars would allow them to have both.

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

#508

Post by xvector »

mmooss wrote: post #486
aimor wrote: post #150

The school speed limit there is 15 mph, and that wasn't enough to prevent an accident. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/child-struck-waymo-near-... https://maps.app.goo.gl/7PcB2zskuKyYB56W8?g_st=ac

We are responsible for the consequences of our actions. The speed limit is almost irrelevant; drive slowly enough so you don't hit anyone - especially in a school zone.

So drive at 0mph?

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

#509

Post by eszed »

elzbardico wrote: post #480
loeg wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion of "most humans" is vastly overinflated. The median human driver would be going 5 over the speed limit, on their cell phone, and paying fuck all attention. Humans never drive as slow as 17 mph, even in the context of being directly in front of schools with visible children.

You're describing the median driver in America or India. This is not universal.

True, but it seems fair to evaluate Waymo against the median American driver. If they expand to whatever other countries you're thinking of, then it will be fair recalibrate accordingly.

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

#510

Post by [deleted] »

jsrozner wrote: post #203

So many tech lovers defending waymo. If you drive a car, you have a responsibility to do it safely. The fact that I am usually better than the bottom 50% of drivers, or that I am better than a drunk driver does not mean that when I hit someone it's less bad. A car is a giant weapon. If you drive the weapon, you need to do it safely. Most people these days are incredibly inconsiderate - probably because there's little…

[deleted]
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