Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

sfgate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 750 posts

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#201

Post by thereisnospork »

babl-yc wrote: post #58
xianshou wrote: post #7

If Waymo is truly as much better than Cruise as the statistics claim, this is a perfect opportunity to release the full video of the incident. Most collisions are avoidable, but a few are the result of a perfect storm of conditions that would be difficult to navigate for even the most skilled human driver. To know whether the truck's occlusion of the cyclist is one of those cases requires the actual footage.

I agree it would be good to share video if possible, but Waymo cannot realistically expect that there will never be an accident where they look bad. There are 43,000 US road deaths per year. If all driving was autonomous, even if autonomous driving was 100x safer than humans, that would still be 430 deaths per year. And some of those accidents will be failures that a human would not make (sensor failure, bad software…

Seriously -- automated cars are going to kill a lot of people[0] yet by every objective measure that is a good thing. There's a cognitive dissonance here that needs to be overcome else society will pay to the tune of tens of thousands of lives per year.

[0]captured in multi-angle 4k, replete with gore and blood splatter. leaked to the press, compiled into tic Tok reaction videos, etc.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#202

Post by triceratops »

elwebmaster wrote: post #135
lmm wrote: post #79

Earlier 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…

> As a driver, it took me many years to get into the habit of shoulder checking when turning right from the right lane

If you weren't already doing it all along, that's kind of on you. It's literally on the driving test. I've been hit walking in a crosswalk by a driver who didn't check over their shoulder as I came up behind them while they were stopped. No injuries luckily.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#203

Post by ra7 »

causal wrote: post #196
ra7 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s enough to establish public trust with their voluntary release of safety data and regulators closely overseeing their operations. 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.

Not to mention that no matter how compelling the footage, people will argue who is at fault.

Yup. Also people using edited footage out of context for nefarious purposes. Really zero benefit for Waymo to release footage, only things to lose.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#204

Post by soraki_soladead »

Agree that's not a great look for the supervisor.

Cyclists have a bad rep in SF because many (not all) ride quite dangerously. It's a common sight to see cyclists running four-way stop signs and lights without even yielding. I live adjacent to a four-way stop and there's an incident where a cyclist fails to yield nearly hourly.

Meanwhile, Waymo has millions of incident-free miles and of all the self-driving car companies generally takes safety seriously, even if they will act to protect their interests here.

Until more evidence comes out I'll be taking Waymo's side here. I want safer vehicles and Waymo is currently the best bet.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#205

Post by occz »

pb7 wrote: post #49
nerdponx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also arguably safer for the cyclist to do so. Bikes typically accelerate much slower than cars.

No, it's safer to follow the rules of the road. Stop at stop signs and red lights or risk winding up on someone's windshield without anyone's pity.

What an absolutely deranged comment to make.

Are you of the opinion that anyone going even ever so slightly over the speed limit deserves their fate if they happen to crash and get injured or killed?

Car drivers do after all break the rules of the road far more often than cyclists do, with further-reaching consequences.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#206

Post by jiveturkey »

asah wrote: post #23

the 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.

As a pedestrian, I've been struck (once) by non-automated vehicles and yes, walked away on my own and that was that. We do already accept this kind of risk and you're just unfairly picking on AVs with that comment. Bicyclists accept huge risk, period. Simple things like people parked and opening the car door without looking, right into a cyclist, happen all the time. I bet every single day.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#210

Post by cozzyd »

pavon wrote: post #177
Retric wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we sure the Waymo was turning instead of the cyclist? The only description is Waymo entered an intersection after a complete stop. “The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle’s path.”

Yeah the ways I can interpret that are 1) The cyclist entered from a cross street going straight as soon as the truck partially cleared the intersection. 2) The cyclist was following behind the truck and then turned in front of the Waymo. 3) The cyclist was following behind the truck and the Waymo turned into it. To me "crossing into the Waymo vehicle's path" is a pretty weasel-worded way to say (3), but it is techni…

1) is hard to imagine given that neither of the streets are one-way (a crossing cyclist would not be occluded by the truck on the right and would not be able to go straight when the truck partially cleared the intersection from the left, unless they were traveling in the wrong lane.

2) doesn't make much sense to me... a cyclist with so little sense would have been hit by a car long ago.

Looking at streetview, I see bike lanes so there is also another possibility:

4) The cyclist was parallel to the truck on a bike lane, but the truck overtook the cyclist while in the intersection while the Waymo turned left after the truck cleared. This would be a similar situation as if there were pedestrians in the crosswalk.

edit: according to https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-... , the truck was turning? That opens up a number of other possibilities...

Post reply on HN