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Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

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Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#141

Post by zamalek »

dastbe wrote: post #132
zamalek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Cars are objects that have an extreme amount of kinetic energy. The point isn't to avoid getting pulled over, the point is to avoid dying or killing. > 60mph in a 55mph Air resistance increases at a squared rate. The amount of fuel you use (and your emissions) is not linearly associated with your speed. So does your kinetic energy. Going at 25, 5 over is not the s…

> All the time, but it's not annoying because I don't care about being in front of everyone - I have left for my destination with ample time to make my appointment. I'm on the road to reach a destination, not to win the race. I don't care if people cut in front of me, because I have chosen not to and give them the safe room to do so. > Driving aggressively is stressful, you [not specifically you] are fighting with ev…

> in what sounds like nonstandard manners

Not moving into the shoulder, that's illegal and dangerous.

Once I've overtaken traffic that is _actually_ slow, I move to the right lane. There is nothing nonstandard about letting traffic pass me on the left when multiple lanes are available. Because I am not tailgating, they have ample room to safely move in front of me (5 seconds at highway speeds is a very large distance).

> both of these increase the likelihood of accidents occurring

Speeding and tailgating is a process that occurs all the way to a destination - it is a consistent threat. Lane switching doesn't need to occur frequently and can be done well in advance when it is generously safe to do so - it is a momentary threat.

> by driving slower than other cars, you're impeding the ability for traffic to flow evenly

By tailgating or anything between safe following distance, you are not giving adequate room for people to merge into traffic. Traffic that is entering is forced to come to a near-stop because they can't find an opening, slowing down or stopping traffic behind them when they do eventually enter the highway.

Everyone traveling at an agreed speed, with ample room for traffic to enter and leave is traffic flowing evenly.

> slow driving

Driving at the speed limit is not slow.

> which doesn't really fit the adjective "courteous"

You have _moved_ that word completely out of the context that it was used in. "Courteous" is letting people in (which aids traffic flow, especially in gridlock).

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#142

Post by marssaxman »

cozzyd wrote: post #140
marssaxman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we want other vehicles to follow speed limits? Then everyone would be stuck moving slowly. On the other hand... if everyone were to obey all of the impractically-low speed limits at once - like a "work-to-rule" strike - perhaps that would create enough political pressure to get them raised up to a more reasonable level.

If anything, speed limits are usually too high for non-grade-separated roads in populated areas.

Too high according to what?

According to community consensus, as expressed in everyday common practice, legal speed limits are usually set too low.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#143

Post by Animats »

Waymo has a long-standing problem with being rear-ended at entry to an intersection. Read their California DMV accident reports. This is because their system, quite properly, insists on seeing the absence of cross traffic before entering an intersection. So, when the view to the side is obstructed, the vehicle will advance slowly into the intersection to get a better view, detect cross traffic, and stop.

There's one intersection in Mountain View where Google self-driving vehicles have logged two accidents of that type. There's a tree in the median. At human driver height for cars (but not for trucks) the cross street can be seen. At roof height, where the scanner is, the tree blocks a side view. So the vehicle has to advance past it to see cross traffic.

This just needs a convention. Perhaps blinking the brake lights rapidly in such situations.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#144

Post by amanaplanacanal »

cozzyd wrote: post #140
marssaxman wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would we want other vehicles to follow speed limits? Then everyone would be stuck moving slowly. On the other hand... if everyone were to obey all of the impractically-low speed limits at once - like a "work-to-rule" strike - perhaps that would create enough political pressure to get them raised up to a more reasonable level.

If anything, speed limits are usually too high for non-grade-separated roads in populated areas.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between posted speed, design speed, and speeds that are safe in areas with pedestrians, scooters, and bicyclists. Engineers have been designing for highway speeds everywhere. It's going to take a long time to get everything adjusted so that the three things match up.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#145

Post by cozzyd »

marssaxman wrote: post #142
cozzyd wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, speed limits are usually too high for non-grade-separated roads in populated areas.

Too high according to what? According to community consensus, as expressed in everyday common practice, legal speed limits are usually set too low.

Yeah, people also don't eat healthily, don't comment their code and have terrible taste in music. Speed limits are often set at unsafe speeds that are dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists, or people trying to turn onto a road.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#146

Post by guiomie »

cgriswald wrote: post #95
guiomie wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, technically he doesnt have anything to learn, because he is right. The person behind him should always keep enough distance to stop according to the speed he is driving. The person who rear-ended him is in wrong and is responsible for the damages.

Given that in California a yellow light has no meaning other than as an indicator of a pending red light, a competent lawyer could argue that he has partial liability in this case. The driver's handbook suggests stopping if it is safe to do so, otherwise proceeding with caution; but this is neither legally binding nor was it safe for him to stop by slamming on his brakes either time. But the legality of it is orthogo…

My country of origin treats a yellow light legally as if it's a red light.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#147

Post by dwighttk »

snowwrestler wrote: post #49
zamalek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who attempts to follow the letter of the law, I experience quite a few incidents of aggressive driving. The complaints here are really just demonstrating how bad humans are at driving - the frustration probably arises due to the fact that they are unable to intimidate the driver in front of them with aggressive behavior. > One woman said that she almost hit one of the company's minivans because it suddenly…

Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Not even traffic officers follow the letter of the law; it's rare to get pulled over for going 60mph in a 55mph zone, for example. Do you ever find yourself on a road getting passed by all the other cars? Isn't that annoying? Why not just speed up a few mph and join the herd? I'm honestly asking; I just do not get the appeal.

>Do you ever find yourself on a road getting passed by all the other cars?

Yes, often.

>Isn’t that annoying?

No, it is much less stressful when everyone else is passing me than it was when I was driving about 5 mph over and always coming up behind cars trying to find space and time to pass them. (Or even now, the few times I come up on someone who is going under the speedlimit and I have to safely pass them.)

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#148

Post by EpicEng »

zamalek wrote: post #79
snowwrestler wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Not even traffic officers follow the letter of the law; it's rare to get pulled over for going 60mph in a 55mph zone, for example. Do you ever find yourself on a road getting passed by all the other cars? Isn't that annoying? Why not just speed up a few mph and join the herd? I'm honestly asking; I just do not get the appeal.

> Why do you attempt to follow the letter of the law? Cars are objects that have an extreme amount of kinetic energy. The point isn't to avoid getting pulled over, the point is to avoid dying or killing. > 60mph in a 55mph Air resistance increases at a squared rate. The amount of fuel you use (and your emissions) is not linearly associated with your speed. So does your kinetic energy. Going at 25, 5 over is not the s…

So instead of going with the flow of traffic you force people to go around you (yes, force, because few people actually stick right at the speed limit, and why would you?) and cause traffic congestion. And you think you're being a good driver. Going the same general speed as everyone else doesn't make you an aggressive driver; it makes you a reasonable one.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#149

Post by snowwrestler »

cptskippy wrote: post #83
gizmo686 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safe is relative. If he almost got rear ended, it probably wasn't safe. Of course, the other driver should have given ample distance himself and have been paying attention, but people often don't do that. At the margin, I think it is safer to err on the side of running a yellow then stopping abrubtly. I have never seen someone run a yellow and think they were being unsafe (even when the yellow turned red), but have s…

So what you're saying is that drivers should endanger themselves by taking risky maneuvers to spare the person driving behind, who are endangering them by following too closely, from an accident?

It's not risky to go through an intersection when the light is yellow. If your light is yellow, the cross light is red. Proceeding through a yellow is no riskier than a green.

Traffic lights originally only had red and green. Municipalities added yellow specifically to prevent brake-slamming stops that led to crashes. Slamming the brakes on yellow is contrary to its purpose.

Re: Locals reportedly frustrated with Waymo's self-driving cars

#150

Post by EpicEng »

zamalek wrote: post #141
dastbe wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the time, but it's not annoying because I don't care about being in front of everyone - I have left for my destination with ample time to make my appointment. I'm on the road to reach a destination, not to win the race. I don't care if people cut in front of me, because I have chosen not to and give them the safe room to do so. > Driving aggressively is stressful, you [not specifically you] are fighting with ev…

> in what sounds like nonstandard manners Not moving into the shoulder, that's illegal and dangerous. Once I've overtaken traffic that is _actually_ slow, I move to the right lane. There is nothing nonstandard about letting traffic pass me on the left when multiple lanes are available. Because I am not tailgating, they have ample room to safely move in front of me (5 seconds at highway speeds is a very large distance…

>Driving at the speed limit is not slow.

Yes it is, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority goes ~5mph over and are constantly overtaking you.

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