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Waymo Safety Impact

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Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#131

Post by casta »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #124
jjmarr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo saved my life in LA. When I visited LA, I rode in a Waymo going the speed limit in the right lane on a very busy street. The Waymo approached an intersection where it had the right of way, when suddenly a car ignored its stop sign and drove into the road. In less than a second, the Waymo moved into the left lane and kept going. I didn't even realize what was happening until after it was over. Most human drivers…

How ironic that an Alphabet company, Waymo, only works with a competitor streaming music service, Spotify, and not their own, YouTube Music. I guess that shows how separate they are.

In January YouTube music worked fine when I took Waymo in Menlo Park.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#132

Post by ok_dad »

Analemma_ wrote: post #107
georgemcbay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was listening to an advertisement at the time of my near-death experience. You'll probably never forget that advertisement, which is an exciting business opportunity for Waymo. They could partner with Spotify and other media content partners so that the Waymo can generate an adrenaline-rush near crash experience when a premium advertiser's ad is playing. /s (hopefully)

This is one of those comments that made me laugh nervously. It's straight out of Ubik or another PKD novel, which probably means it's less than 5 years away from being real.

If there’s a torment nexus to be built they’ll build it.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#133

Post by jedberg »

motbus3 wrote: post #128
jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

When it happens, who will go to jail?

When a piece of construction equipment falls over and kills someone, the person or company who owns the equipment is liable. I image it would be the same thing here.

Sometimes that person then counter-sues the manufacturer of the equipment if they think it was faulty. I image that would also happen here if there were personal ownership of self driving cars.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#134

Post by maxerickson »

Retric wrote: post #82
jeffbee wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo's software has crossed multiple generations of sensors and vehicles over almost two decades. It does not seem to be tightly coupled to a particular device.

Not tightly coupled in obvious ways, but as I understand it they aren’t putting it on pickup trucks, convertibles, or anything toeing a boat etc. Their vehicles don’t have aftermarket suspension systems dramatically changing handling characteristics, or turned one into a stretched limo etc. Which means the software can safely assume the vehicle will behave within a relatively narrow operating range.

I suppose owners will be motivated to have the thing do the driving (and so seek defeat devices and such), but at least the software can have "do nothing" as a safety mode if it manages to detect that the vehicle is not configured as expected.

And maybe the software can be designed to be coupled to a vehicle dynamics model that can be updated.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#135

Post by freetime2 »

altruios wrote: post #71

Car centric design is ruining this country. The great deal: let's redesign our cities to be car free. Consider the economic boom that amount of renovation would produce. Consider the increased economic activity from happier and more productive people. Consider the increased space for nature, parks, real estate, development. Cars are the worst thing to have been invented. Optimizing the personal automobile leads to op…

> Optimizing the personal automobile leads to optimizing for a horrible living experience in the city. Let us reconsider all of this. This is bad. We can do better. We must.

I agree with you insofar as I am always in support of making cities more friendly for pedestrians and cyclists, and like the idea of closing off parts of cities to cars.

But to not even acknowledge the benefits to society of a technology which can reduce serious traffic accidents by 90% just feels hopelessly extreme to me.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#136

Post by jedberg »

_p1l9 wrote: post #97
spankalee wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing no one blamed the kid.

I was probably a bit too harsh on the OP. The OP was probably not blaming the kid. But if Waymo isn't being sued and the city isn't being sued, then society has collectively placed blame on the kid and their parents.

What you're talking about has nothing to do with Waymo at all though. It's ostensibly off topic here. You're talking about car culture in general.

Yes, I blame the parents or the adults that were supposed to supervise the child (but not the child). I teach my kids not to run into the street. I also watch them like a hawk near streets because kids are dumb.

I agree with you that we have too strong of a car culture. But we do. So until that changes, we need to teach our kids and adults to be vigilant.

But while we do that, I'd still rather have Waymos around than human drivers.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#137

Post by Underphil »

ellieh wrote: post #33

as a motorcyclist I often feel more comfortable riding near waymos at this point I trust that they have seen me, know that I'm there, and won't behave unpredictably

Also a motorcyclist. I've seen perhaps 6 or 7 Waymos whilst riding. One pulled out of curbside parking space right in front me.

It wasn't life or death or anything like that, but I was close enough that it was a real "dick move" and I had to get on the anchors a lot harder than I'd have liked. Not sure what sensor or whatever it was missing for that to happen, but I can assure you it did.

(I'm not suggesting my anecdotal evidence says anything particularly worthy around autonomous vehicle safety, just sharing a surprising incident)

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#138

Post by selimthegrim »

Analemma_ wrote: post #107
georgemcbay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was listening to an advertisement at the time of my near-death experience. You'll probably never forget that advertisement, which is an exciting business opportunity for Waymo. They could partner with Spotify and other media content partners so that the Waymo can generate an adrenaline-rush near crash experience when a premium advertiser's ad is playing. /s (hopefully)

This is one of those comments that made me laugh nervously. It's straight out of Ubik or another PKD novel, which probably means it's less than 5 years away from being real.

Might be Orhan Pamuk or JG Ballard's mantle to be picked up

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#139

Post by thebigman433 »

motbus3 wrote: post #126

If someone drives badly they might go to jail if they hurt or kill someone. If a machine does it who pays? I want to see waymo and other CEO for decades for each mistake.

I feel like an important thing here is that we are very much not good at imprisoning bad drivers at all, even if they injure or kill multiple people. We rarely even take away their licenses!

The only type of car crash that consistently gets some level of enforcement is drunk driving, basically everything else is written off as an accident

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#140

Post by [deleted] »

jjmarr wrote: post #53
jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

Waymo saved my life in LA. When I visited LA, I rode in a Waymo going the speed limit in the right lane on a very busy street. The Waymo approached an intersection where it had the right of way, when suddenly a car ignored its stop sign and drove into the road. In less than a second, the Waymo moved into the left lane and kept going. I didn't even realize what was happening until after it was over. Most human drivers…

[deleted]
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