S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’ • Hacker News Board

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#251

Post by jarjoura » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:36 PM UTC

pawelmurias wrote: post #91

jarjoura wrote: post #75

Laws are written and designed for humans who constantly try to push it to the limit and get away with things. These cars are all over the place and I've been caught stuck on a street in Bernal Heights because it couldn't quite fit and just froze in place. I had to back out of the street because there wasn't any room for me to go around it. Yes it may be following laws to the letter, but not only was I grumpy about ha…

We can drive people and goods around without having a human waste his time driving stuff around. Not wasting money paying people to do stupid stuff is gigantic gain.

The person the tech is replacing will still need to work and earn a wage to afford the goods the system that replaced them is delivering. It's not replacing a relatively high risk job or allowing that driver to scale themselves and improve their efficiency in any way. It's just eliminating their job, because.

As a passenger in a driverless taxi, instead of having someone in the car who might improve the journey slightly by being an interesting person to chat with, I'll likely sit in the car all alone. Worse, I'll probably be shoved ads in my face. So, this new taxi doesn't really add anything new of value to me as a consumer.

I know automated systems have replaced all kinds of jobs, and the closest analogy I can think of is self-check out lines at grocery stores, or ATM machines before that. However, those actually did free up cashiers so they could wander the store and help out in other ways, or restock, or funny enough, help someone self-check out.

Taxis are kind of an island to themselves, and not only will this impact the driver who won't have anything related to jump to, it will hurt the businesses who rely on drivers waiting for the next passenger. Then there's the urban centers these cars are zipping around in. These cars have no employee to generate business tax revenue from, so the cars are consuming infrastructure for no benefit to the cities.

Anyway, thanks for reading my random thoughts. I'm sure things will balance out in the end, but if you work in the industry and have some cool insights, feel free to share.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#252

Post by dghlsakjg » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:36 PM UTC

loandbehold wrote: post #152

paxys wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you do if you were stopped at an intersection and someone put a traffic cone in front of you? Sit there for the rest of your life blocking everyone behind you, or move it/drive around it? Same for literally every example that deviates from the happy path, no matter how minor. Construction work, something fallen on the road, a delivery van stopped on the side, temporary street closures. These cars are nowhe…

Putting cone on self driving car is vandalism and should be punished accordingly. Self driving companies have footage of people doing it. Is SFPD looking for these people? Self driving companies shouldn't need to be able to deal with criminals trying to actively disable it. These cars weren't designed to drive in a warzone. Most businesses are not able to operate when criminals try to actively interfere with its oper…

Vandalism in California requires "maliciously damaging, destroying or defacing someone else's property". A cone on a hood does none of those things.

It might be some other crime, but we can't slap people with charges that won't stick in a court of law.

The counterpoint to the argument is that you shouldn't be deploying deadly machinery on public roads with no ability to handle common issues and expecting it to be a problem for the SFPD/CHP.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#253

Post by jeffbee » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #62

cozzyd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can more easily prevent the bottom 10% from driving by more rigorous driving standards / more stringent revocation of licenses.

> According to the NHTSA, 19% of motor vehicle fatalities involved drivers with invalid licenses. Furthermore, drivers with invalid licenses comprise 13% of all drivers in fatal crashes. https://www.carinsurance.com/Articles/driving-without-licens... I'm all for more rigorous driving standards. However, the USA is car centric and people need jobs. To really do what you're suggesting, the USA would need to regulate ca…

It's much worse in SF. When the SFPD runs (ran, really, because they no longer do traffic ops at all) crosswalk stings, the majority of drivers who violate the crossing pedestrian's right of way are unlicensed. Losing your license in California has virtually no influence on whether you continue to drive.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#254

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

cashsterling wrote: post #206

throwaway9274 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely right. To situate in terms of recent events, there have been three stages of trying to delay / influence the California CPUC robotaxi expansion approval vote: 1. Tried a politician scare campaign. Failed because it was too transparent it was an attempted distraction from their terrible public safety record. 2. Tried coning and disabling the vehicles. Failed because it was too transparently astroturfed, leg…

I don't know why the other reply to this post got downvoted to hell. THe person has a point. Fully autonomous cars are cool... don't get me wrong. But electric cars and autonomous electric/gas cars are probably not the right solution to our person transport needs. using energy to move a 4000 lb vehicle to transport one or two 200 lb humans is not energy-efficient... most of the energy is spent just moving the vehicle…

E-bikes are a non-started due to theft problems. If you think coning of a robo-taxi is bad, have a few prowlers coming by every hour looking for a bike to poach, it is much worse for the e-bike crowd.

If you are going with taxis/ubers/personal transit anyways, I think autonomous makes a lot of sense. They basically allow you to optimize your road bandwidth if taken to an extreme level (which I'm sure more authoritarian countries with huge traffic problems will jump on). But you are right: the better answer is mass transit, for optimizing roadway bandwidth (and energy resources).

I for one look forward to a day where I can have my car drive us from Seattle to Yellowstone. I know I probably should have flown and rented a car onsite, it is really whimsical, but I want to try that at least once.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#255

Post by LegitShady » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #244

NickM wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". The article actually has quantitative data that shows reports of "incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year. Yeah, the city officials have to cover their asses and make disclaimers about what they can and cannot conclude, because all they know is…

The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something. That's why the "skyrocketing". They didn't count them before and now they do. If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report.

"The city actually collected data instead of trusting what it was being told"

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#256

Post by yazaddaruvala » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

addisonl wrote: post #119

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so excited for them to come to Seattle! There are many people that want them! There are even more than want 90% cheaper Ubers.

Wouldn’t get your hopes up on it being 90% cheaper—typically Waymo cost the same or slightly more than Uber for me. Obviously the economics change as time goes on but I doubt they will make it that much cheaper.

> but I doubt they will make it that much cheaper.

All other tech has gotten 10x cheaper across 10 years. No reason to doubt robotaxi fleets won’t as well.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#257

Post by stellalo » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

I’m not sure looking at the absolute number of incidents is very informative. How did the total number of miles-per-day from autonomous vehicles vary in the same timespan?

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#258

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #234

cashsterling wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why the other reply to this post got downvoted to hell. THe person has a point. Fully autonomous cars are cool... don't get me wrong. But electric cars and autonomous electric/gas cars are probably not the right solution to our person transport needs. using energy to move a 4000 lb vehicle to transport one or two 200 lb humans is not energy-efficient... most of the energy is spent just moving the vehicle…

> A 60lb e-bike can also transport a 200 lb person whilst using far less resources (both to make the vehicle and to operate it) and space. E-bikes are great for the situations, climates, and people who can use them. E-bikes are not a substitute for the majority of people’s transportation needs. I think the young, healthy people who live in moderate climates with good weather, short commutes, and little need to haul a…

> and little need to haul anything often forget

The dutch created the cargo bike for this very reason. But they have the climate and biking infrastructure to support that kind of lifestyle. We (Americans) don't, I wish we did.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#259

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

llambda wrote: post #239

geraldwhen wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My city doesn’t even have sidewalks. Bikes aren’t happening.

While I understand your point is likely that sidewalks would come before later advancements (like support for bikes) I want to make it clear that bikes do not belong on sidewalks. If you ride a bike please ride it in the street with other vehicles. This is the law in some jurisdictions (such as where I live) but frequently ignored. Failure to do this poses a serious risk to pedestrians. Please do not use sidewalks as…

Some sidewalks are designed for bikes, especially in Europe. If you are on one of those, pedestrians beware (especially in Netherlands and Germany).

I prefer bike lanes on roads or bike trails. Driving on roads with traffic for a small amount of time: OK, but all the time: hard no.

Re: S.F. says incidents by Cruise, Waymo driverless taxis are ‘skyrocketing.’

#260

Post by kelnos » Fri, Jul 14, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #244

NickM wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". The article actually has quantitative data that shows reports of "incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year. Yeah, the city officials have to cover their asses and make disclaimers about what they can and cannot conclude, because all they know is…

The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something. That's why the "skyrocketing". They didn't count them before and now they do. If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report.

> The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something

Want to provide a citation to back that up?

> They didn't count them before and now they do.

They've apparently been counting since spring of 2022; the large increase in incidents started a year later.

> If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report.

Lovely dose of whataboutism. We know that drivers do stupid things and more or less what the consequences are. It's incredibly useful -- and critical -- to find out what AVs do that are stupid, and in what ways those stupid things differ from what human drivers do. The example of the AV driving through yellow caution tape, hooking a Muni wire, and then continuing to drive another block before stopping is illustrative. We can maybe imagine an unlikely-but-possible scenario where a human driver might do the same thing, but that would be an outlier.

That also raises another point: as an example, we know that some drivers text while driving. Not all drivers do this; hopefully it's a minority. But a bad behavior that one AV does, all of them (running the same software) will do. That's a much worse problem than bad behaviors that a minority of drivers exhibit. (On the other hand, though, if fixing it in an AV is straightforward, you eliminate the problem... that sort of thing doesn't work with human drivers.)