A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles • Hacker News Board

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#331

Post by iknowstuff » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:04 PM UTC

futureshock wrote: post #304

rglullis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be needed if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure.

Many cities in Europe still have their Roman era street plans. The street layout of a city is incredible sticky. Once you have a city built around cars and all the private property and infrastructure that goes with it, you are basically stuck with it for 1000 years. And American city layouts are horrible for public transit and walking. We can look at international cities with longing and jealousy, but LA, Houston, Mi…

LA is densifying around transit. It’ll end up with islands of dense areas connected by trains.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#332

Post by Etheryte » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:04 PM UTC

mindvirus wrote: post #79

I think insurance prices will drive adoption of self driving very quickly. Consider: if a non-self driving car is in an accident with a self driving car, it'll almost always be the non-self driving car at fault. And with the telemetry from the self-driving car, they can prove it too, so accidents that would have been no-fault or shared fault become fully the non-self driving cars fault. And so I think insurance for n…

This is not really how accident liability is sorted. Most countries have a clause in their traffic law that states that even if you're in the right, you must still do everything feasible to prevent an accident. If anything, I would imagine that self-driving cars would be held to a higher standard here, not humans.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#333

Post by fragmede » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:05 PM UTC

necovek wrote: post #242

f1shy wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>did we exclude drivers who were not eligible to drive (under the influence, no valid driving permit, cars with issues [braking broken]...)? now THAT would be massaging statistics! Just take the best drivers, that had enough sleep, no drink, perfect car conditions... No. You have to compare with the whole world, "as it is"

What's the guarantee we'll have only fully up-to-date, safety-checked self-driving vehicles in the future with no messed up sensors or controls (there'll be impaired people doing the checks, right? :))? This is simple with a small, experimental fleet — so we are looking at the best case scenario for these vehicles, but the question is what does it fall down to in a realistic commercial application? That would also be…

If you've used Google Chromecast or Google Chrome, a Tesla, or an Xbox, keeping software up to date isn't the chore it once was. Or you have to update to go online/have the car drive. The "guarantee" is that the other players who were too aggressive and did bad had to exit the industry. Uber killed a woman and exited the industry. Cruise dragged a woman 20 feet and lied about having footage of it, and exited the industry.

So you ask what's the guarantee, and the guarantee is the same as when Google came out with Gmail, and everyone said that's stupid because how are you going to read your email when that website is down, so then they made it so that website doesn't go down.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#334

Post by returningfory2 » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:06 PM UTC

mstade wrote: post #105

mulmen wrote: post #56

I rode in a Waymo recently and was amazed at how good it was. It was easily in the top 5 best drivers I have ridden with. Really really impressive. It wasn’t nearly as cautious or timid as I expected it to be. But it also wasn’t reckless. I would describe it as assertive, but I’m sure some people would call it aggressive. It knows the rules and what’s going on around and acts accordingly. This really should be the no…

I was just in CA for a few weeks and drove in SF quite a bit. There are Waymo cars everywhere and from the perspective of a driver I was more than a little cautious driving behind or next to one of them. I would rate their driving as quite good, but their signaling of intent was terrible. More than once did I see them use turn signals, only to never actually turn. Turn the signals on, then off again, then on again, e…

The Waymo failure mode of false positives (signals but doesn't turn) seems much better than the human failure mode of false negatives (doesn't signal but turns)!

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#335

Post by zamadatix » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:06 PM UTC

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #297

zild3d wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why should DUIs be excluded? There are regular human drivers out there at various levels of intoxication. I do want to know waymo vs all population. But yes it should be compared in the same areas during the same period.

Maybe DUI's should be included, but a paper drawing the conclusion that "Waymo is safer because its computer drivers aren't drunk" suggests very different policy actions.

Unless we really can finally stop drunk driving overnight after all these years of trying I don't agree the comparison should result in significantly different policy. I want to know how Waymo statistically compares to all of all the actual drivers when setting policy, not how Waymo compares to what we wish real drivers would have been like. The only mistake would be to compare solely to drunk drivers, which is what you comment makes it sound like.

I would like to see the data sets filtered to match driving areas though. I.e. Waymo drives almost exclusively in urban environments so per mile data should be compared almost exclusively to urban driver data.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#336

Post by returningfory2 » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:09 PM UTC

dgan wrote: post #324

Remember kids: everything that can, eventually, will be turned against you! Some fun predictions, gathered from other comments + my own: - You ll have to dispute a dead family member against a faceless company that conveniently deleted crucial logs. - They will make you wear wireless tags every time you cross a street, and fine & shame you, if you don't. -Tags will contain your real identity, so that you ll get a bon…

> - You ll have to dispute a dead family member against a faceless company that conveniently deleted crucial logs.

On the contrary, of all my negative experiences biking in NYC over 10 years, the _only_ time I was able to hold a driver accountable was when they were riding a Revel scooter in which case the "faceless company" took them off their platform. This comment seems to significantly overestimate how easy it to hold human drivers accountable.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#337

Post by yieldcrv » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #86

mulmen wrote: post #56

I rode in a Waymo recently and was amazed at how good it was. It was easily in the top 5 best drivers I have ridden with. Really really impressive. It wasn’t nearly as cautious or timid as I expected it to be. But it also wasn’t reckless. I would describe it as assertive, but I’m sure some people would call it aggressive. It knows the rules and what’s going on around and acts accordingly. This really should be the no…

The whole thing with self-driving cars is that it feels like the story of NASA's space pen. All this money being poured into a technology that would not be needed if the richest country in the world had the common sense of simply getting rid of its car dependency and developed proper public transit infrastructure.

And just like the NASA space pen story, the private sector is developing them on their own at their own risk, with maybe some indirect grants or subsidies, but not a direct contract specifically for the government to be a beneficiary.

Way more money is being wasted on the grifts surrounding developing public transit infrastructure. LA County for example is 88 different municipalities and it will never get resolved.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#338

Post by crazygringo » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #136

kiba wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impressive and all, but my reaction to self driving cars are completely different. It's a great technical feat, but it's not ever going to be efficient as public transportation. The form factor of the car works against it.

Make a self driving bus then. I take Ubers to bus stops today. Doesn’t seem like much of a leap.

This is definitely going to be coming.

You'll be able to pay more to take a single dedicated vehicle the whole way, or less that includes a self-driving bus or two for most of the middle segment of your journey.

But the bus "routes" will be totally dynamic based on demand, and will only stop occasionally, and you won't have to wait long.

It's going to be a complete revolution in public transit.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#339

Post by unshavedyak » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #335

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe DUI's should be included, but a paper drawing the conclusion that "Waymo is safer because its computer drivers aren't drunk" suggests very different policy actions.

Unless we really can finally stop drunk driving overnight after all these years of trying I don't agree the comparison should result in significantly different policy. I want to know how Waymo statistically compares to all of all the actual drivers when setting policy, not how Waymo compares to what we wish real drivers would have been like. The only mistake would be to compare solely to drunk drivers, which is what…

> ..not how Waymo compares to what we wish real drivers would have been like.

I want to see "all the things", but in specific reply to this point, i want to see this because i have no intention to commit a DUI myself. So the bar for me personally is how well it'll do compared to safe drivers.

Lots of stats are useful, but i don't think we should undersell the various "ai vs me" comparisons that individuals could use. Since those are the ones that will help people decide if they themselves can/should/shouldn't take a Waymo or w/e.

Re: A comparison to Waymo’s auto liability insurance claims at 25M miles

#340

Post by f1shy » Fri, Dec 20, 2024, 3:11 PM UTC

necovek wrote: post #242

f1shy wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>did we exclude drivers who were not eligible to drive (under the influence, no valid driving permit, cars with issues [braking broken]...)? now THAT would be massaging statistics! Just take the best drivers, that had enough sleep, no drink, perfect car conditions... No. You have to compare with the whole world, "as it is"

What's the guarantee we'll have only fully up-to-date, safety-checked self-driving vehicles in the future with no messed up sensors or controls (there'll be impaired people doing the checks, right? :))? This is simple with a small, experimental fleet — so we are looking at the best case scenario for these vehicles, but the question is what does it fall down to in a realistic commercial application? That would also be…

The study is about today. I would bot ever think to extrapolate that to “forever in the future” also is only one vendor. That is what the statistic shows and I think is fair comparison against human drivers currently on the street.