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Waymo Safety Impact

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Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#351

Post by 0x3f »

necovek wrote: post #274
0x3f wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the countries that do this because it doesn't even make sense as a signal. We already have a horn. They are wasting a channel!

At highway speeds, engine, road and wind noise usually make horns inaudible. In Serbia, on top of get-out-of-my-way, it's also used to signal go-ahead, but also "police with speed radars ahead" to incoming traffic.

I think we're not interpreting the original comment in the same way.

In most places, I think, when driving on the highway, flashing your lights when behind someone means basically 'I would like to overtake you'. Same here in the UK. But that's very specific to that context. You would never see a 'go ahead' context that would mean 'get out of my way', right?

But what the original comment means is there are some countries where you'd think it was 'go ahead' but it really means 'get out of the way'. Like if you're both on a main road, and you are signaling to turn into a side road, the opposing car flashes the lights and that means you can turn. I assume the same in Serbia.

But in some places that can actually mean don't turn, I'm going first. Which I think is what the parent is describing.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#352

Post by everyday7732 »

socalgal2 wrote: post #322
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…

I can almost guarantee, given the way no traffic laws are enforced anymore in LA and so many cars are breaking them that cutting off a waymo car in dangerous ways, because you know it has the attention and reflexes to yeild, will be a new thing.

If it becomes a new thing, it would be fairly trivial for Waymo to respond by sending footage of incidents involving reckless driving to local authorities.

To prevent over-reporting, they could even make a system which logs number plates and only reports it if (for example) the same car is involved in incidents 3+ times in a week.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#353

Post by ericpauley »

jojobas wrote: post #343
bryanlarsen wrote: post #88

13X is way more impressive than it seems at first glance. Let's take a simplistic model of accidents: that the average driver is at fault in an accident 50% of the time. So a perfect driver would only halve the number of accidents -- they only eliminate the accidents where they would otherwise have been at fault. But Waymo's numbers are better than the "perfect" driver above. How is that possible? Because in most acc…

Most accidents are caused by drunk drivers, distracted drivers, jackass drivers and others, who together still constitute a minority, and there are plenty single-vehicle crashes. 13x improvement over average may still constitute diminished safety for a diligent sober driver.

Yes, but Waymo also has to drive on the road with those drivers, and these stats include crashes that are their fault. Diligent drivers get hit by drunk/distracted drivers all the time.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#354

Post by madaxe_again »

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #301
madaxe_again wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The common mistake is people swerve and brake , which is a terrible combination - you should accelerate through a sudden manoeuvre, as it maintains control through it, much as you should accelerate through corners in general.

Wunibald Kamm begs to differ. For his circle, it doesn't matter if the additional force that causes the friction to be insufficient is forward or backwards on top of the side force. In critical situations either use your friction for lateral xor longitudinal action, never both at the same time. Brake hard, but then sail through the curve. You want that vector to move along the circle and never leave it. As that is ve…

True if we all drove unicycles - but in the real world, tyre wear is uneven, brake wear is uneven, loading is uneven, the surface is uneven, and those differential forces are what modern ABS seeks to control.

The key difference between braking and accelerating is that in the former case, independent, potentially differentially worn brakes, apply force unevenly, making the chance of a loss of traction on one or more wheels higher. With acceleration, that force is applied through a differential, meaning it will be far more likely to be appropriately distributed.

If you want to decelerate while swerving it can be done, but it should be done through engine braking - and the tricky bit there is matching revs as you drop the clutch back in, otherwise you have too much retarding force and overcome the coefficient of friction, resulting in a skid.

Easier for those of us who grew up with double de-clutching and no synchromeshes, but when you’re in a critical situation, it’s still an awful lot easier to apply acceleration.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#355

Post by rafaelmn »

gozucito wrote: post #221
rafaelmn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13x compared to what ? The average driver is such a bullshit statistic - accidents are highly correlated with stuff like alcohol/drugs/lack of sleep/lack of experience/physical issues, then the other huge behavioral factor distraction and driving style, and on top of that car performance matters a lot too. I don't see any attempt to correct for that in their "human benchmark". Heck the least they could have done is c…

Is it a bullshit stat though? it's not like you or I can go to a different dimension where all drivers are healthy, fully awake, undistracted, sober, competent, etc.

If you're arguing to the regulator that "look these cars are not as bad as humans overall" I guess that's fine, but if you're trying to sell me on using self-driving by comparing to something that's completely unrelated to my use-cases that's just BS.

Unless their message is "if you're drunk turn on self driving" which I could get behind, I sincerely doubt current self driving is better than humans - simply because of the data they chose to compare to. If they were better than professional taxi drivers I'm sure they would tout that data widely.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#356

Post by tjoff »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #333
tjoff wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... no? That children, animals etc. acts differently everyone knows. But what about a self-driving car that looks the same as every other car? Anyway, it was Waymos own findings when they started out. They got into more accidents, none of which where their own fault, than expected and realized that they had to make it behave more like a human to not confuse human drivers.

> ... no? Which part are you confused about? > what about a self-driving car that looks the same as every other car? My Aussie friends, when they visit America, don't put up a sign in their window saying they're Aussie and will occasionally try to turn left at a red. > They got into more accidents, none of which where their own fault, than expected and realized that they had to make it behave more like a human to not…

Nothing.

Yeah? I thought that was a given...

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#357

Post by dzonga »

there was a startup I saw once here on HN selling driverless kits that could be added to general cars.

if Waymo can do the same - then partner with insurance companies - they can easily be a $1 trillion dollar company even if they just reduce accidents by 5X.

The insurance market or cost thereof is their market.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#358

Post by Zigurd »

sagarm wrote: post #227
epolanski wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy several cities lowered the maximum speed from 50 to 30 km/h. There was a huge fight over it, car drivers in those cities were mad. Plenty of politicians opposed it. One year later stats were super clear: streets got way safer and the number of fatal accidents dropped to near 0. Time to traverse cities didn't change much, as it was already limited mostly by traffic and lights.

I believe you, but do you have a citation?

Search for the phrase "Vision Zero"

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#359

Post by bryanlarsen »

jojobas wrote: post #343
bryanlarsen wrote: post #88

13X is way more impressive than it seems at first glance. Let's take a simplistic model of accidents: that the average driver is at fault in an accident 50% of the time. So a perfect driver would only halve the number of accidents -- they only eliminate the accidents where they would otherwise have been at fault. But Waymo's numbers are better than the "perfect" driver above. How is that possible? Because in most acc…

Most accidents are caused by drunk drivers, distracted drivers, jackass drivers and others, who together still constitute a minority, and there are plenty single-vehicle crashes. 13x improvement over average may still constitute diminished safety for a diligent sober driver.

13x better than an average that includes drunk, fatigued and distracted drivers would not be very impressive on a closed course.

On a real world course where the only way to achieve those kind of numbers is to avoid getting hit by those drunk, fatigued and distracted drivers? Very impressive.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#360

Post by Filligree »

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 want whatever causes fewer deaths and injuries total.
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