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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

#251

Post by jerlam »

MBCook wrote: post #246
lubujackson wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "coinciding problems" should be an assumption, not a edge case we reason away. Because black swan events are always going to have cascading issues - a big earthquake means lights out AND cell towers overloaded or out, not to mention debris in streets, etc. What they need is a "shit is fucked fallback" that cedes control. Maybe there is a special bluetooth command any police or ambulance can send if nearby, like c…

> Or maybe the doors just unlock and any human can physically enter and drive the car up to X distance. Do the even have physical controls to do that at this point? I’ve never been in one so I don’t know how different they are from normal cars today.

The Waymos still have all their normal driver controls. There is a process where law enforcement can enter the vehicle, call Waymo and verify their law enforcement status, and then switch the vehicle into manual mode and drive it as normal.

Here is their instructions for law enforcement in the Waymo Emergency Response Guide:

https://storage.googleapis.com/waymo-uploads/files/first%20r...

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

#253

Post by ncruces »

anal_reactor wrote: post #233
namibj wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the words critical? As a German I read that as "you are not the priority road; you may only go left or right, but not straight"?

The words sum up to "don't go straight unless you have business being there" but still, it really sums up the approach to signaling. Nobody in the whole command chain sat and thought "that might be a tiny bit difficult to parse".

I mostly read those signs as “don't go there unless you already know you can” which as a “tourist” I just assume can't (unless I'm a local, and figure it out).

What I've recently found troubling is the places that use similar signs for emissions controls. With a rental you usually have a recent enough car that you can ignore those.

Being able to distinguish between “low emissions zone, but any car from this decade can go in” and “local traffic only, you need to live in this neighborhood to enter” in a foreign language, bit me a couple of times while traveling.

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

#254

Post by ethanwillis »

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…

The better solution? To not fetishize technology.

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

#255

Post by shuckles »

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…

In case of a natural disaster, it’s guaranteed that human drivers will abandon their cars on the road and cause gridlock. It happens all the time. Emergency vehicles are built to handle it.

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

#256

Post by scoofy »

MBCook wrote: post #247
scoofy wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simulate them on a test course? Yes, what’s the worst that could happen… oh wait… people literally getting killed.

When did a Waymo kill someone on a closed test course?

I'm suggesting that, perhaps, the vehicle will not preform the same way in a dangerous, real world scenario as it would in a training exercise.

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

#257

Post by scoofy »

olyjohn wrote: post #245
scoofy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One way roads exist.

I'm confused, is your concern that enough Waymos shut themselves down on a one way road, at the same intersection, so as to block the intersection? Yes, I could see that as being a concern. I suspect it would be reported almost immediately, and would be at the top of the list of for the folks at Waymo to address. The cars weren't abandoned. They eventually moved. Though, I suspect they had to be manually driven (virtually or otherwise), out of the way. I can see how this could be a problem, but considering it would likely be at the top of the list of problems for Waymo -- again, during an emergency -- that I suspect it's not a serious concern in the long run.

Would I preferred that they had a light turn on that was flashing "An unknown emergency is occurring, please park me"? Yes, I think that would be a better solution. I would have preferred better performance from Waymo. My entire point here is that I'm happy that in my neighborhood, the Waymos were acting in a fail-safe manner, rather than just winging it.

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

#258

Post by scoofy »

MBCook wrote: post #248
scoofy wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who said “blow through”? Waymos know how to handle 4 way stops.

You're anthropomorphizing. Waymos "know" how to handle the 4-way stops that they've been trained to handle.

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

#259

Post by scoofy »

nerdsniper wrote: post #119
alistairSH wrote: post #91

Anybody on the ground confirm if it was the traffic lights or lack of cellular that cussed the stoppages?

I didn’t notice a lack of cellular. Though it did get down to like 6Mbps, which was certainly degraded service.

I was in the affected area and we effectively lost all but messaging. Not the whole time, but definitely while I was ordering takeout at a place with power. I couldn't get an image to send to a friend.

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

#260

Post by suzzer99 »

cjsplat wrote: post #193

I was driving across the east side of SF and hit a patch of lights that were out. The Waymo's were just going really slow through the intersection. It seemed that the "light is out means 4-way stop" dynamic caused them to go into ultra-timid mode. And of course the human drivers did the typical slow and roll, with decent interleaving. The result was that each Waymo took about 4x as long to get through the intersectio…

I got stuck behind a Zoox in SF trying to cross the street from an alley. There was an endless stream of stop & go traffic and the Zoox refused to push itself into traffic, despite other cars deliberately giving it space. I wasn't sure if honking at it would help or hurt the situation.
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