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They they are being very transparent about it.
As every company should, when they have a success. Are they also as transparent about their failures?
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/28/22906513/waymo-lawsuit-ca...
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It depends on the situation, and we need more data/video. But if there are a bunch of children milling about an elementary school in a chaotic situation with lots of double parking, 17 mph is too fast, and the Waymo should have been driving more conservatively.
Whoa! You're allowed to double park outside a school over there?!
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Yup. And to add > Waymo said in its blog post that its “peer-reviewed model” shows a “fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.” It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. With a distracted driver (a huge portion of human drivers) it could've been catastrophic.
I think my problem is that it reacted after seeing the child step out from behind the SUV. An excellent driver would have already seen that possible scenario and would have already slowed to 10 MPH or less to begin with. (It's how I taught my daughter's to drive "defensively"—look for "red flags" and be prepared for the worst-case scenario. SUV near a school and I cannot see behind it? Red flag—slow the fuck down.)
At least it was already slowed down to 17 mph to start. Remember that viral video of some Australian in a pickup ragdolling a girl across the road? Most every comment is "well he was going the speed limit no fault for him!" No asshole, you hit someone. It's your fault. He got zero charges and the girl was seriously injured.
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…
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17 mph is way too fast near a school if it's around the time children are getting out (or in).
The limit is 20 MPH in Washington state, in California the default is 25 MPH, but is going to 20 MPH soon and can be further lowered to 15 MPH with special considerations. The real killer here is the crazy American on street parking, which limits visibility of both pedestrians and oncoming vehicles. Every school should be a no street parking zone. But parents are going to whine they can't load and unload their kids c…
Who is legally responsible in case a Waymo hits a pedestrian? If I hit somebody, it's me in front of a judge. In the case of Waymo?
Bad any other car been there, probably including Tesla, the poor kid would have been hit with 4-10x more force.
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I usually take extra care when going through a school zone, especially when I see some obstruction ('behind a tall SUV', was the waymo overtaking?), and overtaking is something I would probably never do (and should be banned in school zones by road signs). This is a context that humans automatically have and consider. I'm sure Waymo engineers can mark spots on the map where the car needs to drive very conservatively.
I appreciate your sensible driving, but here in the UK, roads outside schools are complete mayhem at dropping off/picking up times. Speeding, overtaking, wild manoeuvres to turn round etc. When reading the article, my first thought was that only going at 17mph was due to it being a robotaxi whereas UK drivers tend to be strongly opposed to 20mph speed limits outside schools.
I'm not sure how much of that Waymo's cars take into account, as the law technically takes into account line of sight things that a person could see but Waymo's sensors might not, such as children present on a sidewalk.
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Is this a success? There was still an incident. I'd argue this was them being transparent about a failure
Being transparent about such incidents is also what stops them from potentially becoming a business/industry-killing failures. They're doing the right thing here, but they also surely realize how much worse it would be if they tried to deny or downplay it.
Indeed. Waymo is a much more thoughtful and responsible company than Cruise, Uber, or Tesla.
"Cruise admits to criminal cover-up of pedestrian dragging in SF, will pay $500K penalty" https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/cruise-fine-criminal-cov...
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It depends on the situation, and we need more data/video. But if there are a bunch of children milling about an elementary school in a chaotic situation with lots of double parking, 17 mph is too fast, and the Waymo should have been driving more conservatively.
Exactly. That’s why I’ve always said the driving is a truly AGI requiring activity. It’s not just about sensors and speed limits and feedback loops. It’s about having a true understanding for everything that’s happening around you: Having an understanding for the density and make up of an obstacle that blew in front of you, because it was just a cardboard box. Seeing how it tumbles lightly through the wind, and formi…
IMO, the bar should be that the technology is a significant improvement over the average performance of human drivers (which I don't think is that hard), not necessarily perfect.