This page is old, but they just refreshed the data shows Waymo is 13x safer than human drivers (in the cities it operates in).
Waymo Safety Impact
61–70 of 424 posts
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are you saying that so confidently? Waymos respond to traffic cops directing traffic manually
Unlike the traffic cops directing traffic that would likely require special programming, "proceed if the other car flashes its lights at you" is completely the kind of thing that could just accidentally fall out of a neural network learning to imitate humans.
Hopefully if they ever go to Sri Lanka they get localised tuning because I was surprised to find out flashing your lights over there doesn't mean "go ahead", it means "if you don't get out of my way I will ram you"
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#63My question is: is safer than average human good enough?
When I drive I have the option to choose to be safe or not. When a computer drives I lose that option. So for 49% of the people, safer than the average human is less safe than before.
I think we need to reach "Safer than the safest 10% of humans".
Also these reports should be done by a government agency.
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#64I live in LA and Waymos are the only cars I don't have to play chicken with when crossing the street. Even the drivers that see you will just give you a "sorry, I'm in a rush" wave as they nearly run you over.
Make sure to never be in a hurry to get anywhere because you might then get stuck behind a fleet of them going exactly the speed limit, grid locking you in.
Being forced to drive the speed limit isn't that big of a deal
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#65I've been observing their behavior in Atlanta for about the past year. Our roads here are fairly curvy, hilly, and lacking of expected markings, yet I haven't seen a driverless Waymo vehicle make a single odd move. One thing that brought a smile to my face was when I came to a 4-way stop at the same time as a Waymo vehicle at night & I flash my brights to tell the other vehicle to go ahead (southern hospitality) and…
It definitely does not respond to flashing headlights in that manner. You’re observing its default behavior when at a 4 way stop with other vehicles not moving.
A quaint, positive anecdotal comment?? On MY internet?!?!
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#66I'd love to cycle more outdoors, but I'm always wary of the risks. How cool would it be if you could hire a waymo as a "team car" and have it follow you around? It could also carry extra equipment...and act as a ride home in case of emergencies.
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Autonomous cars will solve the problem much faster than redesigning roads or changing driving habits will.
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#67I live in LA and Waymos are the only cars I don't have to play chicken with when crossing the street. Even the drivers that see you will just give you a "sorry, I'm in a rush" wave as they nearly run you over.
Make sure to never be in a hurry to get anywhere because you might then get stuck behind a fleet of them going exactly the speed limit, grid locking you in.
Is this something that I’m too European to understand? How do you get “stuck” behind someone doing the speed limit?
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are you saying that so confidently? Waymos respond to traffic cops directing traffic manually
Unlike the traffic cops directing traffic that would likely require special programming, "proceed if the other car flashes its lights at you" is completely the kind of thing that could just accidentally fall out of a neural network learning to imitate humans.
That's not how Waymo works, though. Waymo doesn't imitate humans. Waymo is trained to obey traffic laws and avoid collisions.
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#69“Safer” == “Safer than all other human drivers in the same city.” By their own admission, this is not a straightforward comparison. If they could do the math for the same routes, times of day, and conditions … maybe I’d believe it. Otherwise, this data is trivial to cherrypick, and they have every reason to present it as well as possible. I believe Waymos are pretty safe, and that’s a great thing. “Safer than humans…
I appreciate the skepticism. While I suspect motor vehicles that cannot be distracted would be safer than motor vehicles that can be, it shouldn't be claimed without real evidence.
If I were Google, I'd partner with some insurance carriers to compare the number of claim events normalized to the number of drivers on the road (approximated with Android data) in a city (same time of year, etc) before and after introducing Waymo. If claims per driver decreases, then I would be more inclined to support the claim that they're actually safer and that they don't just "seem safer"
Re: Waymo Safety Impact
#70Even the most visible academic skeptic of Waymo (Phil Koopman) had to throw in the towel and admit that they've cleared every conceivable statistical hurdle to conclusively demonstrating that they are better than humans on injuries and airbag deployments. They have moved the goalposts to aesthetic arguments, for example: if it's so safe why does it sometimes do weird stuff? But to principled systems thinkers they have already shown what needed to be shown. It's safer.