Why the snark? It seems it was a hard call, something that a human driver would not have caught and potentially caused a deadlier accident. As I see it there wasn't an investigation from the cyclists p.o.v.
Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
161–170 of 750 posts
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only way that happens is if the cyclist signs a boatload of paperwork to waive his right to litigation. And on top of that, I'm far less interested in the footage than I am the telemetry. What was the state of the gas and brake, what was the steering angle, how long was it from detection to action. Those things concretely answer the question of "would a human have done better or worse in this situation?", which is ul…
> And on top of that, I'm far less interested in the footage than I am the telemetry. What was the state of the gas and brake, what was the steering angle, how long was it from detection to action. Those things concretely answer the question of "would a human have done better or worse in this situation?" You absolutely cannot answer that question without looking at the video and considering how easy or hard it would…
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rolling through stop signs while cycling is generally appropriate (and is the law in more enlightened places). In California it may be illegal, but so is a car exceeding the speed limit, and few would excuse Waymo for hitting one of those.
Cyclists are just dangerous and until we look at statistics we can’t assume that AI does worse than humans in protecting cyclists. As a driver, it took me many years to get into the habit of shoulder checking when turning right from the right lane. I always have my turning signal but to cyclists it doesn’t mean much, they will always try to pass me on the right on the intersection. Cyclists sometimes behave as though…
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
A computer doesn't need a multi million dollar marketing campaign convincing it not to text while driving or drive drunk. >I don’t need to wait for the kid to be in the street to start reacting and prepare for different possibilities. Neither does a computer.
> A computer doesn't need a multi million dollar marketing campaign convincing it not to text while driving or drive drunk. A human doesn't get random bugs every week from OTA updates. The human mind is not a viable target for hackers. The risks of human drivers are individual. The risks of computer drivers are systemic and massive. One bad bug or hack could kill millions if self driving cars become ubiquitous.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope regulators watch video from the vehicle and think, “damn I would not have been able to react that fast. Sure we can make these things even safer but it would be immoral to block waymo’s operations as it would certainly increase harm.”
> damn I would not have been able to react that fast. i apply my own standard of driving to it: I wouldn't get in that position in the first place.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have no reason to release it to the public. They don’t want to set a precedent. They will show the video to the regulators (CA DMV) and if they’re not happy, they will take action. It’s regulation working as intended.
Public trust is a pretty good reason.
Setting a precedent for releasing footage means fault is automatically assumed when they don’t voluntarily release it.
It’s a problem if they’re not even releasing it to the regulators, but that’s not happening here.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What I hope Waymo learbx for this, as well applies as similar scenarios: never cross through these zones of high bike traffic when the obstruction from another vehicle prevents a wide enough view to brake before this zone. This might be fair, but at some point, if you are applying this consistent level of caution, there isn't going to be anywhere in the real world left to actually drive
Yes. I appreciate the political reasons for wanting zero accidents, but fewer, less deadly accidents than if a human were behind the wheel is what the goal really should be.
Part of it is to slow cars down and take more cars off the road rather than changing who drives.
Invest in public transit, redesign problematic infrastructure, and create mixed use urban areas so people don’t feel the need to travel through a city.
A city should be a safe place. More deaths in a slower zone than on freeways is preposterous. I understand the reasons why this is true, but the deeper reasons for the reasons are that we gave up.
Fewer, less deadly automobiles is what the goal really should be.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#168the cyclist left the scene “reporting only minor scratches.” I'd never considered it before, but perhaps the endgame is humans getting used to automated taxis like potholes, animals, nails and other road hazards ? And then learning to judge the risk and accepting occasional small crashes like this.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#169I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.
This is a complete aside, but woah, is this common in SF? They simply aren't used here where I am (roundabouts are used instead)
Like they're uncommon enough that theres a news article on it in a different state: https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/fourw...
A four way stop sign seems like an absolute downgrade compared to a roundabout, but thats my local bias showing.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that, but fine-tuning is cumulative. Test situations can be created and tested against forever. Lessons can be learned and applied across the whole fleet. This is radically different from sharing the roads with a bunch of Sunday drivers, some of which might be distracted or impaired.
Yes, it totally makes sense for bike commuters to be run over and sent to the hospital by robotic driverless vehicles while billionaire entrepreneurs refine the AI models powering them — it’s a beta test after all, you can’t actually expect it to work on public streets. And I bet those cyclists weren’t even paying their road tax. The needs of the 95th percentile that the model was tuned for outweigh the needs of ever…
To be clear, I don't know that I necessarily think that driverless cars currently are better than human drivers. I'm just pointing out that the logic changes if they are.