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Waymo Safety Impact

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Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#341

Post by rcxdude »

Retric wrote: post #26
jedberg wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, both from riding in them and walking/driving next to/around them, this feels obvious. They never get distracted. Sure, they sometimes make mistakes, but the mistakes are never "I didn't see that". They see better than humans in all cases (where they operate). They react faster than humans. The one case where they hit a child, it was because the child jumped in front of the car. And they showed that they…

Waymo as a system has crossed the threshold where I trust them more than average driver, but all this hardware is relatively new, well maintained, and their software is closely tied to it. I’m way less confident of self driving in the hands of the general public when differed maintenance often results in people and even companies driving with squealing breaks and balding tires etc.

It's not obvious that will exist in the near future, anyway. Waymo aren't planning on selling their cars, and the economics and liability structure of self-driving strongly bias towards just running a taxi service.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#342

Post by Milner08 »

haspok wrote: post #332
socalgal2 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo supporting music services at all is stupid to me. They should just let you bluetooth your phone and play your own music. I don't want any of those services. I want my own music.

Why do you even want music? There is a large group of people (maybe even the majority?) who, as soon as they get in a car, MUST immediately turn on the radio or some kind of extra noise source. Is this some kind of a Pavlovian reflex? I'm always amazed by this, as my car is one of the few places where I have actual control over my environment (unlike on public transport, or at my workplace, or even in my home - neigh…

It maybe a surprise to you, but many people actually enjoy 'music' and don't find it to be just noise.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#343

Post by jojobas »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #88

13X is way more impressive than it seems at first glance. Let's take a simplistic model of accidents: that the average driver is at fault in an accident 50% of the time. So a perfect driver would only halve the number of accidents -- they only eliminate the accidents where they would otherwise have been at fault. But Waymo's numbers are better than the "perfect" driver above. How is that possible? Because in most acc…

Most accidents are caused by drunk drivers, distracted drivers, jackass drivers and others, who together still constitute a minority, and there are plenty single-vehicle crashes. 13x improvement over average may still constitute diminished safety for a diligent sober driver.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#344

Post by jojobas »

srini wrote: post #304
fc417fc802 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to. You just need to be in good condition yourself and actually paying attention. Professional delivery drivers routinely achieve seemingly absurd mileages per incident.

Yes, but I don't actually trust most folks to be in a "good condition". Even the best drivers have their off days.

Well, if we were talking about forcing people to stop driving and transition to current waymos it's plausible that diligent sober drivers would be facing greater risk. Would that be acceptable to improve average statistics?

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#345

Post by 0x3f »

hmartin wrote: post #145
0x3f wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are second order effects though. Once Waymo kills the Uber driver/taxi jobs, what are the chances your Waymo is attacked by a roving band of jobless drivers? It's surely nonzero.

Using "second order effects" because big words sound cool without understanding the whole point of "second order"...

Which of 'second', 'order', and 'effects' is the big word?

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#346

Post by 0x3f »

whyenot wrote: post #160
0x3f wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are second order effects though. Once Waymo kills the Uber driver/taxi jobs, what are the chances your Waymo is attacked by a roving band of jobless drivers? It's surely nonzero.

This seems a little silly. Did mobs of jobless taxi drivers attack the Uber drivers who took their jobs? No. No offense, but if you have a girlfriend, wife, or female friend, you might want to ask them about safety and security of ride sharing services. I suspect their answer will be an eye opener for you.

> This seems a little silly.

Yes probably because it's obviously a joke

I despair

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#347

Post by 0x3f »

sublinear wrote: post #183
0x3f wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some benefit to talking to weird Uber drivers I've yet to discover that's comparable with 'going outside at all'?

Yes. "Weird" people are somewhat rare opportunity to build certain social skills. I enjoy the challenge of finding creative ways to guide the discussion and understand their headspace for a little while. I am not even trying to control the level of weirdness, but just keep them talking and comfortable. Unfortunately, most of the time they're not even weird people and it was just a weird first impression. They vent fo…

I mean, I do talk to them and I do have this skill, but it's a skill that I only ever seem to employ in talking to Uber drivers, so I'm not sure it's of any great benefit.

If anything the fact that most of them are immigrants puts the conversation on easy mode if you're a native speaker. They're doing twice the mental work you are so it's easy to orchestrate the conversation.

Not really transferrable to native-speaking workers. Like speaking to a barista is very different. Speaking to a construction worker different again.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#348

Post by sokoloff »

rootusrootus wrote: post #147
jjmarr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo saved my life in LA. When I visited LA, I rode in a Waymo going the speed limit in the right lane on a very busy street. The Waymo approached an intersection where it had the right of way, when suddenly a car ignored its stop sign and drove into the road. In less than a second, the Waymo moved into the left lane and kept going. I didn't even realize what was happening until after it was over. Most human drivers…

I hope you are misremembering. Swerving is most often the wrong choice, and I would be disappointed if Waymo were opting for that. By far the best option is to panic stop. Human or robot, physics is a harsh mistress and swerving is more likely to make you lose control and end up in a much more unforgiving wreck.

There are many cases where swerving will avoid an accident that braking cannot and cars unexpectedly pulling out from the side are often among these. It’s not a majority, but it’s not at all rare.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#349

Post by pferde »

kirubakaran wrote: post #38
Retric wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo as a system has crossed the threshold where I trust them more than average driver, but all this hardware is relatively new, well maintained, and their software is closely tied to it. I’m way less confident of self driving in the hands of the general public when differed maintenance often results in people and even companies driving with squealing breaks and balding tires etc.

The self-driving software could detect that the unmaintained car isn't responding correctly to the controls and refuse to drive.

We all know it would end up just as rigged and as useless as Google's Play Integrity system for Android phones.

Re: Waymo Safety Impact

#350

Post by mort96 »

svat wrote: post #238
ElijahLynn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How ironic that an Alphabet company, Waymo, only works with a competitor streaming music service, Spotify, and not their own, YouTube Music. I guess that shows how separate they are.

I think it's also a privacy thing; you have to go into the Waymo app and “connect” your YouTube Music account (even though both have the same @gmail.com address), because otherwise the terms of service of one do not allow sharing data with the other without user consent. (Contrary to popular perception Google is very finicky about privacy, at least privacy as defined as conforming to the terms of service.)

Couldn't it just be a Bluetooth audio device? That way you could play anything you want, be it from YouTube, Spotify or your own music collection.
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