181–190 of 456 posts
Only ridden Waymo twice but I've been much happier with them than the average Uber driver over the past few years. I keep seeing them around my home in Menlo Park (Redwood City), but they're still in testing phase and not available for booking yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Highways are on average a much more structured and consistent environment, but every single weird thing (pedestrians, animals, debris, flooding) that occurs on streets also happens on highways. When you're doing as many trips and miles as Waymo, once-in-a-lifetime exceptions happen every day. On highways the kinetic energy is much greater (Waymo's reaction time is superhuman, but the car can't brake any harder.) and…
I don't have any specific knowledge about Waymo's stack, but I can confidently say Waymo's reaction time is likely poorer than an attentive human. By the time sensor data makes it through the perception stack, prediction/planning stack, and back to the controls stack, you're likely looking at >500ms. Waymos have the advantage of consistency though (they never text and drive).
Unlike humans they can also sense what's behind the car or other spots not directly visible to a human. They can also measure distance very precisely due to lidars (and perhaps radars too?)
A human reacts to the red light when a car breaks, without that it will take you way more time due to stereo vision to realize that a car ahead was getting closer to you.
And I am pretty sure when the car detects certain obstacles fast approaching at certain distances, or if a car ahesd of you stopped suddenly or deer jumped or w/e it breaks directly it doesn't need neural networks processing those are probably low level failsafes that are very fast to compute and definitely faster than what a human could react to
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You realize it's technically illegal to drive faster than the speed limit, right? In the eyes of the law, it's doesn't matter whether everyone else is doing it or not.
It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit. It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed li…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit. It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed li…
It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. No they don’t, you’ve misinterpreted what was written. “Not impeding traffic” is not codified as “exceed the speed limit if everyone else is, or get a ticket”. Or perhaps you have a documented counter-example.
> No person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation. [1]
Versus California:
> No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic unless the reduced speed is necessary for safe operation, because of a grade, _or in compliance with law_. [2] (underscore emphasis mine)
It’s part of the Uniform Vehicle Code but each state has its quirks in how they adopt it since theres no federal mandate.
My apologies though, this seems way less common than I thought. As far as I can tell Georgia and Oregon are the only two states left that don’t have that compliance exception.
On the other hand “in compliance with law” is it’s own barrel of monkeys because it doesn’t specify priority.
[1] https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/title-40/chapter-6/arti...
[2] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
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Haha, this is both entirely true and entirely the reason why NYC is pretty much stuck where it is. If cities were parables, NYC would be The Parable of the Tragedy of the Commons. Globally, among cities I've been to it would have to be Delhi, but NYC is certainly in that category of South Asian cities where the infrastructure is far outpaced by the population and the population is like a swarming rat king constantly…
This just sounds like an argument to ban cars for private use and invest more in transit.
New Yorkers are already incapable of non-extractive development. Like the GP they have been transformed into zero-sum zombies by their city. A cautionary tale of culture.
I am really excited for this. Once going home with my family via Uber in SFO we realized on the freeway that our driver was high and driving at 80-85 mph. It was a really scary experience and I couldn’t do much about it in the moment.
high on what?
I am really excited for this. Once going home with my family via Uber in SFO we realized on the freeway that our driver was high and driving at 80-85 mph. It was a really scary experience and I couldn’t do much about it in the moment.
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It must be interesting being an Uber driver right now and literally watching the robots that will replace you driving around with you. This has been a 15+ year process and will probably take a few more years. I don't feel too bad if they didn't manage to pivot in that time period.
"It must be interesting being an Uber driver right now and literally watching the robots that will replace you driving around with you." You mean the way taxi drivers had to watch as Uber and Lyft replaced them?
Taxis didn't lose because rideshares played the game better, they lost because rideshare companies used investor money to leapfrog their apps, ignored actual commercial transport regulations that would have made them DOA, and then exploited workers by claiming they weren't even employees, all so they could artificially undercut taxis to kill them off and capture the market before enshittifying.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You realize it's technically illegal to drive faster than the speed limit, right? In the eyes of the law, it's doesn't matter whether everyone else is doing it or not.
It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit. It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed li…
As others have mentioned, this is dead wrong.
But the actual complication is enforcement usually requires a margin of error, and in some states (e.g. Wyoming) you can go 10 mph over when passing.