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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

#741

Post by belter »

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…

>> I honestly cannot imagine a better outcome or handling of the situation.

One better than: We investigated our own system and found ourselves to be at no fault?

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

#742

Post by moktonar »

ra7 wrote: post #425
moktonar wrote: post #397

The Waymo driver tech is impressive. That said an experienced driver might have recognized the pattern where a stopped big vehicle occludes a part of the road leading to such situation, and might have stopped or slowed down almost to a halt before passing. The Waymo driver reacts faster but is not able to predict such scenarios by filling the gaps, simulating the world to inform decisions. Chapeau to Waymo anyways

There have been many instances of Waymo preventing a collision by predicting pedestrians emerging from occlusion. This isn’t new information at all for them. Some accidents are simply physically impossible to prevent. I don’t know for sure if this one was one of those, but I’m fairly confident it couldn’t have been from prediction failure. See past examples: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hubWIuuz-e4 — first save is a c…

> detects foot movement ..

That’s probably how they do it, which is again very clever stuff, chapeau. But they do it like that b/c they can’t really predict the world around them fast enough. It might be possible in the future with AI World Models though

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

#743

Post by Orygin »

youngtaff wrote: post #709
Twirrim wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. They're much safer for pedestrians than intersections. You're only crossing and dealing with traffic coming from one direction, stopping at a median, and then crossing further over. Unlike trying to navigate a crosswalk where you have to play guessing gam…

To an extent… drivers tend to accelerate when leaving roundabouts which can make crossing difficult for pedestrians

Especially bad when crossings are like 30cm from the roundabout. Some are better with at least one car's length between the two.

Otherwise you either risk getting run over by a car exiting the roundabout without seeing you; or getting run over by the car that stopped, but was rear-ended by another inside the roundabout.

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

#744

Post by mattlondon »

throw__away7391 wrote: post #558
mattlondon wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been in a waymo? It knows when there are pedestrians around (it can often see over the top of parked cars) and it is very cautious when there are people near the road and it frequently slows down. I have no idea what happened here but in my experience of taking waymos in SF, they are very cautious and I'd struggle to imagine them speeding through an area with lots of pedestrians milling around. The fact that…

You can watch the screen and see what it can detect, and it is impressive. On a dark road at night in Santa Monica it was able to identify that there were two pedestrians at the end of the next block on the sidewalk obscured by a row of parked cars and covered by a canopy of overgrown vegetation. There is absolutely no way any human would have been able to spot them at this distance in these conditions. You really ca…

Yep I've often noticed this as well - it has many many times detected humans that I can't even see (and I like to sit in the front), especially at night.

Sometimes it would detect something and I think "huh? Must be a false positive?" but sure enough it turns out that there really was someone standing behind a tree or just barely visible around a corner etc.

Sure none of those have run out in front of us, but the fact it is spotting them and tracking their movement before I am even aware they're there is impressive and reassuring.

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

#745

Post by ufmace »

Marsymars wrote: post #599
ufmace wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but note that getting much more severe on enforcement and punishment for DUI/OWI will result in an even higher prison population, more serious life consequences for poor and minorities, etc, when the US is constantly getting trashed for how bad those things are already. To be a bit snarkier, and not directed at you, but I wish these supposedly superior Europeans would tell us what they actually want us t…

I suspect you could step up enforcement in ways that don’t involve prison time simply by taking away people’s licenses, and then having a fast feedback loop to catch people driving without a license.

In addition to what the sibling said regarding the impracticality of not driving in most of the US, which I completely agree with, I'd also ask exactly what you want to do with your "fast feedback loop to catch people driving without a license". What do you do with the people who drive anyways because not driving is so impractical and get caught?

We already took their license, we can't double-take it to show we really mean it. Fining them seems a bit rough when they need to drive to get to the job to make the money to pay those fines. Or we're right back to jail time and an even higher prison population.

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

#746

Post by micromacrofoot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #197
micromacrofoot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> They have to be, as a machine can not be held accountable for a decision This logic applies equally to all cars, which are machines. Waymo has its decision makers one more step removed than human drivers. But it’s not a good axiom to base any theory of liability on.

In traditional vehicles, liability is structurally centered on the human driver, and product liability exists but is difficult to assert absent clear or systemic defects.

Autonomous driving systems disrupt this by directly assuming the driving function, forcing liability upstream (where it's significantly more difficult to navigate).

So now it's driver vs injured party. Self-driving makes it trillion dollar company vs injured party. Night and day difference.

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

#747

Post by Orygin »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #248
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Europe is much better at this than we are. Even when you have on street parking, they make sure there are clearances around cross walks and places where there are lots of pedestrians. Most US cities don't even care, even a supposedly pedestrian friendly one like Seattle.

Lol tell that to my city. They removed the cross walks and declared the zone a "shared zone" where pedestrians have right of way.

Result? No more safe places to cross, drivers are not stopping for pedestrians when no cross walk. They added parking zones right up to the old cross walks that pedestrians still use (since it were the safest places) where vans are regularly parked and obscure the entirety one side of the road. Even outside of these shared zones, there are lots lots lots of places where parking space is obscuring the crosswalk, where huge vans park right on it, even though legally you have to be 5+ meters away. Never seen a cop give a ticket for that in my life.

One day someone will get killed right there, I'm sure of it, and it'll be mainly the city's fault.

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

#748

Post by ra7 »

moktonar wrote: post #742
ra7 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been many instances of Waymo preventing a collision by predicting pedestrians emerging from occlusion. This isn’t new information at all for them. Some accidents are simply physically impossible to prevent. I don’t know for sure if this one was one of those, but I’m fairly confident it couldn’t have been from prediction failure. See past examples: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hubWIuuz-e4 — first save is a c…

> detects foot movement .. That’s probably how they do it, which is again very clever stuff, chapeau. But they do it like that b/c they can’t really predict the world around them fast enough. It might be possible in the future with AI World Models though

What do you mean “fast enough”? You can’t predict something that doesn’t exist i.e. not visible to the sensors. A Waymo wouldn’t move at all if it assumed people would always jump out of nowhere.

Even if you detect “fast enough”, there are physical limits for braking and coming to a stop.

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

#749

Post by mleo »

cwillu wrote: post #740
well_ackshually wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because now you're sounding like you're blaming the school/the city for the situation. Things are what they are. Driving situations are never perfect and that's why we adapt. The Waymo was speeding in a school zone. Did a dangerously fast overtake of a double parked car. It's engineering safety failure over engineering safety failure from Waymo's part, on nobody else.

> The Waymo was speeding in a school zone Source? The article doesn't list a speed limit, but highways.dot.gov suggests to me that the speed limit would be 25mph in the school zone, in which case the waymo was going significantly under the speed limit.

It is 15mph at this school with kids present. So percentage wise kind of high, but in absolute terms not much.

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

#750

Post by Marsymars »

ufmace wrote: post #745
Marsymars wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you could step up enforcement in ways that don’t involve prison time simply by taking away people’s licenses, and then having a fast feedback loop to catch people driving without a license.

In addition to what the sibling said regarding the impracticality of not driving in most of the US, which I completely agree with, I'd also ask exactly what you want to do with your "fast feedback loop to catch people driving without a license". What do you do with the people who drive anyways because not driving is so impractical and get caught? We already took their license, we can't double-take it to show we reall…

> I'd also ask exactly what you want to do with your "fast feedback loop to catch people driving without a license".

Unless the vehicle is stolen, seize and impound the vehicle. If the driver is the owner, auction it off and give them back the proceeds, minus costs.

I feel like I'm living in some different world where drunk driving is a-okay when I face these types of objections to actually enforcing the rules around it.

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