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Waymo Safety Impact

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Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#311

Post by kqr »

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…

> when suddenly a car ignored its stop sign and drove into the road.

I vaguely recall reading at some point that this is something human drivers learn to do around robot cars because the robots are so timid. Is that still the case, was it never the case, or has it stopped being the case?

If it's still the case, one could argue that if you were not in a robot, the situation would never have occurred in the first place! (On the other hand, if you were both in robots, maybe it also wouldn't have...)

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#312

Post by srini »

tjoff wrote: post #57
snewman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In essentially all cases where a Waymo and a human-driven car have collided, the human driver has clearly been at fault. This seems definitive and not susceptible to cherry picking.

That could just be, and seems to be in some cases at least, because Waymo doesn't behave like a human would, and people gets tripped up. I don't doubt Waymos are very safe, but I always irk at these comparisons. Majority of human accidents are due to gross negligence and/or driving under some influence or serious fatigue. A system incapable of alcohol etc. is better than that? Well that is a substantially lower bar t…

I think the other way to think about it is that Waymo is probably in the 99th percentile for not being distracted and 99th percentile for reaction time, always, just from a pure sensor and computation standpoint.

Even the best human can't say that, at all times?

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#313

Post by srini »

sonofhans wrote: post #78
probabletrain wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were choosing between getting into a Waymo or a car driven by a human driver (where Waymo operates, for a route that Waymo would do), the data shows that the Waymo is safer.

No, it does not. For one thing, we don’t have access to all the data, just what’s being told us. For another, it at best shows that Waymo is safer than average. Safer than an attentive London Cabby? I bet not.

London cabbys can be hangry or have broken up with their partners that day. What makes you so sure they're fully attentive on any given day?

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#314

Post by cjk »

efavdb wrote: post #279
cjk wrote: post #267

I was recently in a Waymo in SF. It was turning right from a busy street onto a narrow street. Mid-turn, the car slammed on the brakes. I sat there for a couple seconds like “???” wondering if we'd hit something. Then a dude on an e-bike _flies_ past the car in the bike lane. The car saw this dude coming from way down the street, flying, and was like “yeah, better stop.” Probably saved the biker from serious injury,…

The tldr for me from the report was Waymo is great and SF is a dangerous place to drive.

I would largely agree with that assessment, yeah. Dangerous place to bike, too. I've even seen pedestrians get clobbered by bikers because they stepped into the bike lane not realizing a bike was barreling toward them at 20mph+. This is part of why Waymo and Uber warn you when the dropoff is next to a bike lane.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#315

Post by Mawr »

taneq wrote: post #161
rootusrootus wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you are misremembering. Swerving is most often the wrong choice, and I would be disappointed if Waymo were opting for that. By far the best option is to panic stop. Human or robot, physics is a harsh mistress and swerving is more likely to make you lose control and end up in a much more unforgiving wreck.

This depends a huge amount on car, driver and situation. It was the right advice for a learner driver in the 90s with no stability control, no experience and no side airbags, because if you’re going to hit something, hitting it front on is the least risky way. I’m not convinced it’s the right advice for a competent driver in a modern vehicle.

In theory, it depends. In practice, slamming on your brakes is the correct call 99% of the time. To a large extent that is because of the "competent driver" part. I'd expect 80%+ of drivers to consider themselves just that, whereas the truth is of course the opposite.

So, the correct advice is to say "brake, don't swerve", so that drivers internalize that their first thought and reaction in any emergency should be to brake. Teach them to actually brake—fully press on the pedal—while you're at it.

A slightly more nuanced advice would be "brake first, swerve as needed as a follow-up".

But I would never in good conscience be able to give anyone advice to swerve instead of braking.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#316

Post by pfannkuchen »

hattmall wrote: post #250
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…

> Only a robot could've safely swerved into another lane and avoid the crash entirely. Do you drive a lot? I feel like humans take evasive actions like this all the time.

Yeah I have done similar evasive maneuvers a bunch of times. Also people run stop signs constantly, a competent defensively driving human may have just not started driving forward yet when they saw the other car driving towards the stop sign with some speed. I’m not sure of the exact timing in the story but I’ve waited at a stop sign when I saw another car driving towards the intersection many, many times, and a small percent of the time they don’t stop.

Which isn’t to say that the average driver wouldn’t have hit it, it’s just not obviously superhuman.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#317

Post by Mawr »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #45
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…

I ride my bike and rollerblade around Austin. If only Waymo's were on the road I wouldn't worry about bike path dividers at all. I sometimes pace them to act as a moving shield. Nothing else comes close, not even eye contact and being waved on by a human. The other autonomous cars that have been introduced are at least just as scary to be around as people.

> I sometimes pace them to act as a moving shield.

Yep, similar concept to using pedestrians crossing the road as shields. Cars reliably yield for them, not so much for cyclists.

> not even eye contact

Okay, DO NOT rely on eye contact. Look at what the vehicle and particularly its wheels, are doing.

> being waved on by a human

That's a potential death trap too. Just because one vehicle is yielding to you doesn't mean every other vehicle you're supposed to yield to is.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#318

Post by Mawr »

DuckConference wrote: post #253
EdwardDiego wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did find the Waymos in SF disconcerting as they approached pedestrian crossings while I was waiting - with a human driver there's many different cues that they've seen you and noticed you - whether it be looking directly at you, or slowing down in preparation for you to cross. I'm sure if I had just started walking across the crossing it would have reacted perfectly, but I wasn't willing - based on the lack of obse…

The lights up on top will show a walk sign when it's waiting for a pedestrian to cross before proceeding.

That combined with the parent's post is, perhaps counterintuitively, somewhat concerning.

The proper technique for yielding to pedestrians wishing to cross is to start slowing down early, as if you were planning to stop before the crossing. That sends a clear signal to the pedestrian they're good to start crossing. Then you're free to speed back up. This is very comfortable for the pedestrian and the vehicle never needs to stop, so the slowdown is minimal.

That Waymos apparently don't act this way and seem to need to send an explicit signal to pedestrians sounds concerning to me, even if its ultimately safe.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#319

Post by Toutouxc »

rootusrootus wrote: post #181
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you get “stuck” behind someone doing the speed limit? "Only 46.5 percent of U.S. drivers consider going more than 15 miles per hour over the speed limit on the freeway to be "extremely" or "very" dangerous — with 40.6 percent openly admitting to doing it at least "a few times" in the last 30 days" [1]. [1] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2023/11/30/why-so-many-u-s-drive...

We have a lot of freeway speed limits that are holdovers from the last oil crisis decades ago. Cars have gotten quieter, smoother, more capable, to the point where 55 mph is kind of hilariously slow. When the legal speed limit does not reflect what most drivers think is reasonable, then we can stamp our feet and insist that the law must be right, or we could redesign the road or adjust the speed limit to more closely…

Where do you guys have 55 mph where it's not appropriate? A LLM is telling me that 55 mph is your random urban interstate. The equivalent where I live is 80 km/h on motorways inside city/town limits, which is 50 mph, and it feels very appropriate, cars make a ton of noise and you don't want the full motorway speed in the city. And that's basically the fastest you'll ever go in a city, when it's an actual motorway (often elevated, ramps, sound barriers). Other roads (even big and important) are ~43 mph and the general urban speed limit is ~31 mph.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#320

Post by Dylan16807 »

zx8080 wrote: post #207
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…

> 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. > ... > Unfortunately, the Waymo only supported Spotify and did not work with my YouTube Music subscription, so I was listening to an advertisement at the t…

Do you not like people being funny, or is there something else you're reacting so strongly to?
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