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

Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 642 posts

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#231

Post by joecool1029 »

rcpt wrote: post #226
joecool1029 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a pilot program in NJ for them, they were universally hated. People would slam brakes on and be hanging over the edge into intersection and throw their car into reverse panicking to avoid the ticket, ended up causing a ton of new accidents so the program was never continued. In newark people shot at the cameras: https://www.nj.com/news/2012/08/shoot_out_the_red_lights_2_t...

Hitting the brakes and getting rear ended is barely even a crash compared to T-boning someone or plowing over pedestrians

I didn't say that. I said they'd panic and throw their vehicle into reverse. Cars/trucks can take the hit, motorcycles/bicycles not so much.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#232

Post by xnx »

meagher wrote: post #201
xnx wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pedestrianizing more of the city Replacing dangerous, dirty, noisy cars with safe, clean, and quiet ones seems like a huge pedestrianizing step. What's a "low traffic neighborhood"? Does that allow busses or deliveries?

It’s a step in the right direction, but they still pollute (heavy electric vehicles have a lot more tire dust) and take up a lot space (could close roads and build housing or just have more space for the millions of city residents that don’t have/use cars). LTN still allow buses, emergency vehicles, deliveries, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Traffic_Neighbourhood

> heavy electric vehicles have a lot more tire dust

It would be interesting to know the fleet-level statistics for this. Driven by humans, EV might wear tires faster because of fast starts and the extra weight during stops. It's possible that the Waymo Driver accelerates and decelerates more smoothly, resulting in less tire wear than a human-driven ICE vehicle.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#233

Post by Scoundreller »

NewJazz wrote: post #206
meagher wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a step in the right direction, but they still pollute (heavy electric vehicles have a lot more tire dust) and take up a lot space (could close roads and build housing or just have more space for the millions of city residents that don’t have/use cars). LTN still allow buses, emergency vehicles, deliveries, etc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Traffic_Neighbourhood

EVs usually produce much less brake dust, not more, than combustion vehicles.

More tire dust on EVs tho cuz of the added weight and ability to accelerate a lot faster. EVs can really chew through tires.

Brake dust composition is improving tho: https://www.epa.gov/npdes/copper-free-brake-initiative

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#234

Post by kibwen »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #221
kjkjadksj wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does tesla pretend to be autonomous? My friends with tesla fsd use it fully autonomously. It even finds a spot and parks for them.

If I can't use the center console to pick a song on Spotify without the car yelling at me to watch the road, it's not autonomous.

No, rather, if the manufacturer of the self-driving software doesn't take full legal liability for actions taken by the car, then it's not autonomous. This is the once and final criterion for a self-driving vehicle.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#235

Post by xnx »

mritterhoff wrote: post #43
xnx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most respects, Waymo is the modern version of reliable and frequent public transit, with a lot of additional benefits.

Not in terms of throughput though. Buses and trains still have em beat.

This is true for intersection throughput, but I bet full travel throughput (walking to the bus, waiting for the bus/train, walking to your destination) is the same or better with Waymo.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#236

Post by tencentshill »

massung wrote: post #52

I haven’t lived in NYC, but I have lived in Boston. Isn’t the real concern winter? Has Waymo (or any other self driving tech company) shown that it can handle the snow well: non-visible lanes, downshifting to avoid braking, etc.? Definitely interested in how this turns out.

GM and Ford do quite a lot of self-driving testing in Michigan.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#237

Post by lysace »

rahkiin wrote: post #67
chrisshroba wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using t…

In europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.

Sweden: Their locations are public. There is even an official API.

They are mostly located in sane places.

Apps like Waze consume this API and warn drivers if they’re at risk of getting caught. It’s the deterrence/slowdown at known risky spots they’re after, not the fine, I guess.

I heard that apps warning drivers this way are illegal in Germany?

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#238

Post by mlsu »

thfuran wrote: post #100
freeone3000 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we had dedicated lanes for giant Waymos, that could hold dozens of people. The future of transport.

You need to think bigger. Once we have separate lanes just for the waymos, we don't need them to be regular roadways. We can scale up the waymo even more and size the lane exactly to the vehicle, maybe even radically redesign the road surface for lower rolling resistance. What a future it will be.

This is surely impossible. Such a thing has never been tried, it could never work.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#239

Post by afcool83 »

I live in one of the areas they are actively testing/training in. Their cars consistently behave better and more safely than most human drivers that I’m forced to share the road with.

As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

Re: Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

#240

Post by pverheggen »

mothballed wrote: post #146
rahkiin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.

In most the USA, or at least Arizona, you have to serve someone. Just dropping something in a mail box doesn't mean dick. The very people that invented the traffic cameras up in Scottsdale were caught dodging the process servers from triggers from their own camera. Another words, you have to spend hundreds of dollars chasing someone down, by the time you add that on to how easy it is to jam up the ticket in court by…

Arizona also did stakeouts to try and catch this guy:

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32806142

Post reply on HN