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Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

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Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#251

Post by yibg »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #161
yibg wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that's feasible without introducing a lot of friction. Near my house, almost the entire trip from the freeway to my house is via a single lane with parked cars on the side. I would have to drive 10 MPH the entire way (speed limit is 25, so 2.5x as long).

It's hard to consider it "lots of friction" in a vehicle where you press a button to go faster and another button to slow down. A single lane residential street with zero visibility seems like an obvious time to slow down. And that's what the Waymo did.

That's why the speed limit is 25 (lower when children are present in some areas) and not 35 or 40 etc. It's not reasonable to expect people to drive at 40% of the posted speed limit the entire way. We're also not talking about zero visibility (e.g. heavy fog). We're talking about blind spots behind parked cars, which in dense areas of a city is a large part of the city. If we think as a society in those situations the safe speed is 10 mph, then the speed limit should be 10mph.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#252

Post by cucumber3732842 »

samrus wrote: post #157
Dlanv wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With above-average human reflexes, the kid would have been hit at 14mph instead of 6mph. About 5x more kinetic energy.

But would a human be driving at 17 in a school zone during drop off hours? Id argue a human may be slower exactly because of this scenario

Depends on the school zone. The tech school near me is in a 50 zone and they don't even turn on the "20 when flashing" signs because if you're gonna walk there, you're gonna come in via residential side streets in the back and the school itself is way back off the road. The other school near me is downtown and you wouldn't be able to go 17 even if you wanted to.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#253

Post by spockz »

fennecbutt wrote: post #185
jakewins wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye, and to always look for feet under and by the front wheel of vehicles like that. Stopped buses similarly, people get off the bus, whip around the front of them and straight into the streets, so many times I’ve spotted someone’s feet under the front before they come around and into the street. Not to take away from Waymo here, agree with thread sentiment that they seem to have acted exemplary

You can spot someone's feet under the width of a bus when they're on the opposite side of the bus and you're sitting in a vehicle at a much higher position on the opposite side that the bus is on? That's physically impossible.

In normal (traditional?) European city cars, yes, I look for feet or shadows or other signs that there is a person in the other side. In SUVs this is largely impossible but then sometimes you can see heads or backpacks.

Or you look for reflections in the cars parked around it. This is what I was taught as “defensive“ driving.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#254

Post by tintor »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #196
koolba wrote: post #168

> Waymo said its robotaxi struck the child at six miles per hour, after braking “hard” from around 17 miles per hour. The young pedestrian “suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle’s path,” the company said in its blog post. Waymo said its vehicle “immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle.” As this is based on dete…

These systems don't discriminate on whether the object is a child. If an object enters the path of the vehicle, the lidar should spot it immediately and the car should brake.

It is more complicated than that. Deepends on size of object and many other factors.

The object could be a paper bag flying in the wind, or leaves falling from the tree.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#255

Post by fwip »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #247
jsrozner wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the waymo was speeding! All the dumbasses on here defending waymo when it was going 17 > 15. Oh also, that video says "kid ran out from a double parked suv". Can you imagine being dumb enough to drive over the speed limit around a double parked SUV in a school zone?

> Can you imagine being dumb enough to drive over the speed limit around a double parked SUV in a school zone? Can you imagine being dumb enough to think that exceeding a one size fits all number on a sign by As if 2mph would have fundamentally changed this. Pfft. A double parked car, in an area with chock full street parking (hence the double park) and "something" that's a magnet for pedestrians, and probably a bunc…

The default, with good visibility in ideal conditions, should be to not exceed the speed limit.

In a school zone, when in a situation of low visibility, the car should likely be going significantly below the speed limit.

So, it's not a case of 17mph vs 15mph, but more like 17mph vs 10mph or 5mph.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#256

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

direwolf20 wrote: post #36
voidUpdate wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a success? There was still an incident. I'd argue this was them being transparent about a failure

They handled an unpredictable emergency situation better than any human driver.

Was it unpredictable? They drove past a blind corner (parked SUV) in a school zone. I'm constantly slowing down in these situations as I expect someone might run out at any second. Waymo seemed to default to the view that if it can't see anyone then nobody is there.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#257

Post by dylan604 »

dboreham wrote: post #135
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limit is 20 MPH in Washington state, in California the default is 25 MPH, but is going to 20 MPH soon and can be further lowered to 15 MPH with special considerations. The real killer here is the crazy American on street parking, which limits visibility of both pedestrians and oncoming vehicles. Every school should be a no street parking zone. But parents are going to whine they can't load and unload their kids c…

This isn't universal. The schools in our Montana town have pickup lanes and short term parking areas for pickup. Stopping on the road isn't allowed.

For a school near me, the road is no parking during pick up/drop off times. It even changes to one way traffic. The no parking windows is similar to alternate street sweeping days. There are signs posted that indicate the times.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#258

Post by boothby »

direwolf20 wrote: post #105
boothby wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, "the ledger" should record actual facts, and not whatever fictional alternatives we imagine.

Fact: This child's life was saved by the car being driven by a computer program instead of a human.

No, the fact is that the child sustained minor injuries. And, fact: no human driver made the decision to drive a vehicle in that exact position and velocity. Imagining a human-driven vehicle in the same place is certainly valid, but your imagination is not fact. I imagine that the kid would be better off if no vehicle was there. But that's not a fact, that's an interpretation -- perhaps the kid would have ended up dead under an entirely different tire if they hadn't been hit by the waymo!

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#259

Post by throwway120385 »

recursive wrote: post #240
2b3o4o wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article the car was traveling at 17 miles an hour before it began braking. Presumably this was in a 25 mph school zone, so it seems the Waymo was already doing exactly what you describe - slowing down preemptively.

This is close to a particular peeve I have. Occasionally I see signs on the street that say "Slow Down". I'm not talking about the electronic ones connected to radar detectors. Just metal and paint. Here's my problem. If you follow the instructions on the sign, it still says to slow down. There's no threshold for slow enough. No matter how slow you're going, the sign says "Slow Down". So once you become ensnared in t…

Think of it like they're saying "my children play on this street and my neighbors walk here. Please think about that when you decide how fast to go here."

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#260

Post by sandworm101 »

2b3o4o wrote: post #212
jjav wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. We'd have to see video of the full scene to have a better judgement, but I wouldn't call it likely. The car reacted quickly once it saw the child. Is that enough? But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. Are there muliple kids milling around on the sidewalk? Near a school? Is there a big truck/SUV parked th…

According to the article the car was traveling at 17 miles an hour before it began braking. Presumably this was in a 25 mph school zone, so it seems the Waymo was already doing exactly what you describe - slowing down preemptively.

A 25mph school zone? That seems fast. 15mph would be more the norm, which is in line with the 17mph the car believed itself to be traveling.

FYI, unless you are a commerical truck, a cop, or a racer, your speedometer will read slightly fast, sometimes as much as 5 to 10%. This is normal practice for cars as it limits manufacturer liability. You can check this using independant gps, ie not an in-dash unit. (Just imagine the court cases if a speedo read slower than the actual speed and you can understand why this started.)

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