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Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

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Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#201

Post by wiml »

dmix wrote: post #186
themafia wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps they haven’t fully thought through the ramifications of it though. There is a chorus of voices here on HN that have tried to do this openly, obviously, myself included. It seems to be almost universally derided by people who apparently assume that we're just trying to hurt a start up out of anti-environmental sentiment and jealousy. There are more ways to get "self-driving cars" wrong than there are to get…

What was the better solution here then? Assuming there's hundreds or thousands of self-driving cars suddenly driving in environment without any traffic lights. In the pictures you can see six Waymo cars at a single intersection. Assuming some of them had passengers should they all try to turn at the intersection anyway, when their LIDAR says the lane is likely free and pull over to the side? Is that the safest option…

We already have a solution, it's written down in the traffic laws. If the signals fail, treat the intersection roughly like a four-way stop. Everybody learns this in drivers' ed. It's not obscure. If the cars can't follow traffic rules maybe they're not ready to be on the streets unsupervised.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#202

Post by MBCook »

sefrost wrote: post #160
MBCook wrote: post #93

From John Ripley on Mastodon: “Thought of the day, and I wish there were a way to get this to legislators: Come the next Big One earthquake, all of San Francisco’s emergency services will be blocked by Waymos.” I’m AMAZED they’re not designed to handle this better. This does indeed seem like a massive problem. “Oops we give up” right when things get the worst? How is this OK? I’ve been very impressed by Waymo’s more…

Surely if the Big One hits then all of the metropolitan areas on the West Coast would be gridlocked in scenes reminiscent of zombie apocalypse movies anyway? I guess we won't know until it happens for sure, but I can't imagine it would be easy for emergency services to get around with or without Waymo.

It’s not gonna be good. But you want it to be a gridlock because the cars can’t get out fast enough because there’s too many cars on the road.

Not because a bunch of cars that are perfectly capable of moving are just sitting there blocking things purposefully waiting for the driver in the sky to take over.

And what if, due to $BIG_DISASTER they won’t be able to for a week?

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#203

Post by moregrist »

scoofy wrote: post #183
moregrist wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a fail-safe. It’s a different failure mode. Jamming up traffic, including emergency traffic, creates systemic problems. It’s a bit like designing an electronic lock that can’t be opened if the power goes out. If your recourse to exiting a dangerous situation becomes breaking the door, then the lock is unsafe.

Fail-safe means "in a situation where the function fails, fail in a way that doesn't cause injury" -> the cars didn't know how to proceed, so they stopped, with their lights on, in a way that any attentive driver could safely navigate... which is a failing safe. The alternative here, is a protocol that obviously hasn't been tested. How on earth are you going to test a Waymo in blackout conditions? I would rather have…

> Fail-safe means "in a situation where the function fails, fail in a way that doesn't cause injury"

In a very local sense, this is true. In terms of the traffic system, this can create a systemic problem if the stoppage causes a traffic jam that creates problems for emergency vehicles.

Thus it is a _different_ failure mode.

If someone stops in the middle of traffic because they’re lost, their GPS went out, or they realized that they’re unsafe to drive, we don’t celebrate that as the driver entering a fail-safe mode. We call that “bad judgment” and give them a ticket.

If it precipitates a larger problem where lives are lost, they may be in considerable legal or financial trouble.

I don’t see why we should treat Waymo any differently.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#204

Post by lokar »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #109

Neither a lack of traffic lights nor cell service should cause the Waymos to stop in the middle of the road, that’s really troubling. I can understand the system deciding to pull over at the first safe opportunity, but outright stopping is ridiculous.

What makes you think it was either?

AIUI, it was the irregularity of the uncontrolled intersections combining with the “novel” (from the POV of the software) driving style of the humans. In dense areas during outages signaled intersections don’t actually degrade to 4 way stops, drivers act pretty poorly.

The normal order and flow of traffic broke down. The software determined it was now outside its safe parameters and halted.

Certainly not ideal, and the should be a very strong regulatory response (the gov should have shut them down), and meaningful financial penalties (at least for repeat incidents).

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#205

Post by jazzyjackson »

fragmede wrote: post #78
cr125rider wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all the power could just come from a few large centralized facilities that are super efficient. We could just use thin strands of metal to get it to the vehicles over head…

Of course, the maintenance on those wires outside of the city means that you'd make electric trains with large batteries on them instead. https://evmagazine.com/articles/tesla-launches-first-all-ele...

Expense is correlative to scale, likely it's cheaper to deploy pantographs than battery factories.

Why did India build a high speed freight corridor with overhead power when they could have used batteries instead? Because the quantity of battery to power the trains doesn't exist, and overhead wires do.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#206

Post by scoofy »

moregrist wrote: post #203
scoofy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fail-safe means "in a situation where the function fails, fail in a way that doesn't cause injury" -> the cars didn't know how to proceed, so they stopped, with their lights on, in a way that any attentive driver could safely navigate... which is a failing safe. The alternative here, is a protocol that obviously hasn't been tested. How on earth are you going to test a Waymo in blackout conditions? I would rather have…

> Fail-safe means "in a situation where the function fails, fail in a way that doesn't cause injury" In a very local sense, this is true. In terms of the traffic system, this can create a systemic problem if the stoppage causes a traffic jam that creates problems for emergency vehicles. Thus it is a _different_ failure mode. If someone stops in the middle of traffic because they’re lost, their GPS went out, or they r…

Traffic doesn’t cause injury. Why are we concerned about traffic flow in a blackout situation. The cars stopped at intersections, EMS could use the oncoming lanes. I’m not seeing how it’s not a fail safe, you’re describing it as not being fail-ideal, and I would agree.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#207

Post by bink »

pinnochio wrote: post #194
dmix wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the better solution here then? Assuming there's hundreds or thousands of self-driving cars suddenly driving in environment without any traffic lights. In the pictures you can see six Waymo cars at a single intersection. Assuming some of them had passengers should they all try to turn at the intersection anyway, when their LIDAR says the lane is likely free and pull over to the side? Is that the safest option…

Uh, how about having their remote driver staff take over? > but an explicit choice was made not to do so for safety. You know this how?

This only works if they have cell service and enough human drivers to handle all of their cars.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#208

Post by scoofy »

MBCook wrote: post #188
scoofy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fail-safe means "in a situation where the function fails, fail in a way that doesn't cause injury" -> the cars didn't know how to proceed, so they stopped, with their lights on, in a way that any attentive driver could safely navigate... which is a failing safe. The alternative here, is a protocol that obviously hasn't been tested. How on earth are you going to test a Waymo in blackout conditions? I would rather have…

Simulate them on a test course? There are absolutely places with street lights and everything that you could test something. Hell since they don’t need to work you can just have some put up in a parking lot to test with. Who cares. You don’t need to wait for a city blackout to actually test this kind of scenario. The thing still has cameras. And LIDAR. It should be fully capable of pulling over on its own safely. Why…

> Simulate them on a test course?

Yes, what’s the worst that could happen… oh wait… people literally getting killed.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#209

Post by jazzyjackson »

Zambyte wrote: post #141
rcxdude wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're happy to put those tracks on every road, sure. I wonder why no-one's bothered with that before.

Sorry if you're playing in to the joke, I can't tell. Streetcars / trams were widely deployed before they were ripped out for the car, driven by lobbyists interested in selling cars. Wondering why no one has bothered with that is starting from a false premise, because people have bothered with that.

There are car lobbyists of course but the streetcars in LA at least were put there by housing developments to sell suburban homes before most people owned cars. Once the homes were sold the corporation that built the rails had no incentive to maintain them, and eventually they were spun off and went bankrupt (of course competing with cars didn't help)

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#210

Post by scoofy »

MBCook wrote: post #189
scoofy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An intersection without power is supposed to be treated as a 4-way stop. An unfortunately high, nontrivial number of drivers last night were not following that rule.

And yet the humans managed. Even at a normal four-way stop with stop signs people sometimes blow through it. The Waymo has to handle it. That’s part of driving. It can creep through at 3 miles an hour if it thinks that’s what’s safe. All it has to do is get out of the intersection.

The outrage people would rightly have at Waymo allowing a number of its vehicles to blow the lights would be huge. People running blacked out lights is unacceptable.
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