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Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

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Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#271

Post by cheschire »

proee wrote: post #258
mmmlinux wrote: post #28

I was in SF a few weekend ago and rode both Waymo and normal Lyft style taxi cars. the Waymo was a better experience in every single way. One of the Lyfts i was in drove on the shoulder for a while like it was a lane. The Waymos were just smooth consistent driving. No aggressive driving to get you dumped off so they can get to the next fair.

So it might come down to how many "9s" you're comfortable with. The experience is really good 99.999% of the time until it's not, and that "not" could be catastrophic. I suppose the data engineers are quite confident in the 9s.

Lyft is 99.99999% with 1.02 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled[0].

Waymo is 100% with zero fatalities.

But then again, the Concorde was the safest airplane ever built for nearly 30 years, until its first crash and then it was the most dangerous passenger jet ever with 12.5 fatal events per million flights.[1]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.[2]

0: https://assets.ctfassets.net/vz6nkkbc6q75/3yrO0aP4mPfTTvyaUZ...

1: https://www.airsafe.com/journal/issue14.htm

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist...

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#272

Post by lo_zamoyski »

throwup238 wrote: post #113
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize it's technically illegal to drive faster than the speed limit, right? In the eyes of the law, it's doesn't matter whether everyone else is doing it or not.

It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit. It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed li…

> It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed limit is really the prevailing speed of traffic plus X mph, where X adjusted for the state.

A lot of laws aren't enforced consistently in practice, sure. The implicit point is that while that may be so, it is nonetheless enforceable and nonetheless the law. So while individual people may be comfortable about being flexible in following traffic laws, having that behavior encoded or permitted by software is basically a declaration of broad intent to violate the law made by a company.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#273

Post by boulos »

vasusen wrote: post #92

I am really excited for this. Once going home with my family via Uber in SFO we realized on the freeway that our driver was high and driving at 80-85 mph. It was a really scary experience and I couldn’t do much about it in the moment.

Make sure to do whatever "express interest" is required inside the app. We've often done a first-come, first-served approach for getting people off of waitlists, so get in now :).

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#274

Post by boulos »

lumens wrote: post #41
NullHypothesist wrote: post #2

This is a huge sign of confidence that they think they can do this safely and at scale... Freeways might appear "easy" on the surface, but there are all sorts of long tail edge-cases that make them insanely tricky to do confidently without a driver. This will unlock a lot for them with all of the smaller US cities (where highways are essential) they've announced plans for over the next year or so.

Perhaps more a reaction to pressure from Tesla; the latest FSD builds show full autonomy is coming very soon. Without highway driving, Waymo would quickly be seen as a distant second in the race when the safety driver is removed from Robotaxis in Austin (supposedly before EOY 2025).

Not at all. We've been working on this for a while, and we're now comfortable with the reliability bar we've hit to begin a gradual rollout to the public. As people said, this has been years in the making.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#275

Post by wagwang »

s1mon wrote: post #10

How will Waymos handle speed limits on highways? In the city, they seem to stick to the rules. A large percentage of drivers in the bay area, including non-emergency police, drive well above the legal limit regularly. Unless Waymo sticks to the slow lane, it's going to be a weird issue.

going the speed limit is actually a good thing, even on the 101

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#276

Post by SoftTalker »

mikestew wrote: post #155
throwup238 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit. It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed li…

It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. No they don’t, you’ve misinterpreted what was written. “Not impeding traffic” is not codified as “exceed the speed limit if everyone else is, or get a ticket”. Or perhaps you have a documented counter-example.

The rule in Indiana is that on a multilane highway you must move to the right to allow overtaking traffic to pass. You are not there to enforce the speed limit; the fact that another car that is passing you might be speeding does not give you the right or duty to block them.

"a person who knows, or should reasonably know, that another vehicle is overtaking from the rear the vehicle that the person is operating may not continue to operate the vehicle in the left most lane"

With of course some reasonable exceptions.

https://law.justia.com/codes/indiana/title-9/article-21/chap...

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#277

Post by AtlasBarfed »

mmmlinux wrote: post #28

I was in SF a few weekend ago and rode both Waymo and normal Lyft style taxi cars. the Waymo was a better experience in every single way. One of the Lyfts i was in drove on the shoulder for a while like it was a lane. The Waymos were just smooth consistent driving. No aggressive driving to get you dumped off so they can get to the next fair.

Oh great! Doing life-threatening activities is now verified by anecdotal evidence.

I get there. Basically isn't any laws for corporations anymore, is there any way I can see anything in regards to the safety of this at a statistical level?

Where is NHTSA? Oh right, no federal agencies exist anymore except for those that maintain the oligarchy.

And I don't give a crap if Uber has really good statistics and studies and evidence. We are talking about one of the least ethical companies in the last 20 years.

I want independent Federal testing.

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#279

Post by phainopepla2 »

dekhn wrote: post #213
pa7ch wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say the term pivot like its a startup founder who has every option in life. You should feel bad for anyone who would struggle for a basic job.

the history of humans on earth has been pivots, even amongst people who had few options. I don't subscribe to feeling guilty every time somebody loses a job. I feel empathy, but telling people to "feel bad" is not constructive.

"Feel bad for" is not the same as "feel bad". The former is the same as feeling empathy, in colloquial English

Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

#280

Post by denimnerd42 »

This makes Dallas much more viable. I'm not sure if I'd have a usecase for waymo other than going to the airport. The other use cases such as going to work when my car is in the shop require the freeway too. Only non freeway thing I'd use it for otherwise is coming home from a neighborhood party or local restaurant/bar when I've been drinking and I don't really drink.
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