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Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

sfgate.com

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Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#361

Post by CityOfThrowaway »

zx8080 wrote: post #346
ehsankia wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more impressively, even in this seemingly worst case scenario where everything lined up as poorly as it could have, the car was still able to react quite aggressively and the situation ended only with minor scratches it seems? Honestly, if anything, this is probably proof that self-driving is the future, as I would bet any human would've most definitely done much worse in the same scenario.

Thare's a, probably not very obvious, situation when human could have no such accident in the same scenario. At all. Preventing an accident does not leave any trace. No one knows about the scenario if there's no accident. How many similar (and others) accidents are being prevented by human drivers daily, and no one knows about them, at all? We just don't know. That's why I take any stats of "human vs AI" driving with…

We can compare this statistically by looking at accidents per 1,000,000 miles driven of autonomous cars vs humans. Over long mileage, the rate of prevented accidents shows up in the data as a lower overall accident rate.

I don't have the stats at hand but Waymo does great on this stat.

Now, that's not to say that Waymo would avoid any specific accident better than a human. But from a public health standpoint, that's not really the right way to think about it anyways.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#362

Post by incompatible »

repeekad wrote: post #293
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #185

I'm disappointed in all the folks immediately blaming the cyclist without further information, and I'm similarly disappointed in all the folks blaming Waymo for the same reason. But, unless they somehow have extra information we're not privy to, I'm much more disappointed in the S.F. Supervisor quoted in the article, Shamann Walton, for immediately going online to say "so much for safety." Us internet weenies are alw…

Based on waymos description, it seems pretty cut and dry that this was literally an “accident” where the biker maybe should have waited until the lane cleared and any car would have hit them in the same situation. If anything they can use this data to see how it maybe could be prevented in the future. Maybe waymo was still in the wrong for some reason? Sadly the article that goes in depth after we have more details a…

I'd like to see a video. If a car is turning, it would presumably be travelling slowly, and wouldn't be trying to cut right behind a passing truck when there's no visibility.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#363

Post by godelski »

7e wrote: post #335
philistine wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't give them the time of day. I never understood why cyclists acted the way they act until I started commuting to work. I felt unsafe at intersections when stopped. I felt unsafe at intersections when starting slowly. I read online about some road rules making my trips more dangerous for ME, not the cars. Now I know what I can do that's totally illegal that's keeping me safer.

Cycling is dangerous when mixed with cars, for sure. But blazing through at an intersection full of cars which are expecting you to stop is even more dangerous. Stop sign rules exist for a reason (to slow vehicles down enough that everyone can see and negotiate everyone else) and it's safer for all if you obey them. This is an example of the rationalization I alluded to earlier. Cyclists lie to themselves. Next you w…

[dead]

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#364

Post by armada651 »

7e wrote: post #335
philistine wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't give them the time of day. I never understood why cyclists acted the way they act until I started commuting to work. I felt unsafe at intersections when stopped. I felt unsafe at intersections when starting slowly. I read online about some road rules making my trips more dangerous for ME, not the cars. Now I know what I can do that's totally illegal that's keeping me safer.

Cycling is dangerous when mixed with cars, for sure. But blazing through at an intersection full of cars which are expecting you to stop is even more dangerous. Stop sign rules exist for a reason (to slow vehicles down enough that everyone can see and negotiate everyone else) and it's safer for all if you obey them. This is an example of the rationalization I alluded to earlier. Cyclists lie to themselves. Next you w…

> Next you will be telling me that changing lanes without signaling or looking, swerving through traffic, ignoring stop signs on bike paths, riding while looking at one's phone, riding the wrong way, riding without a helmet, or at night without lights (all of which I observe all the time from cyclists) are evolved safety behaviors.

You've just described the average cyclist in Amsterdam. They'll do all of that at the same time with a passenger sitting on the rear baggage carrier.

Yet the Netherlands has one of the lowest mortality rates per mile cycled and the US has one of the highest. Despite the US having very strict full stop laws for cyclists.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#365

Post by viraptor »

petre wrote: post #352
gnicholas wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a human driver would have (for better or worse) swerved to avoid hitting the cyclist. That is, the Waymo might be programmed to only execute certain types of evasive maneuvers, whereas a human would instinctively do other things as well. Of course, if there were someone in the vehicle's blind spot, it's possible this would have resulted in a worse accident, since there would have been no time for a human…

In a recent accident that happened in my country, a human driver swerved to avoid a cyclist that was quickly switching lanes without signaling in order to cross from one side to another. The swerving car went over the sidewalk and killed a pedestrian. You should draw your own conclusions.

This is my pet peeve with people being so sure online about their abilities of avoiding things on the road. Yeah, maybe you could avoid it with your super human reflexes, but there physically no way you could check that side of your car, register what's there, decide whether you can move that way and then did it. The kneejerk avoidance reaction may be extremely dangerous on its own.

(Also in Oz, rolling your car when you try to swerve to avoid a kangaroo is so common that you're normally taught to just break instead)

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#366

Post by living_room_pc »

I've almost been killed before as a cyclist, a semi with two trailers did not check his mirrors before merging into me while speeding. Being this close to death was honestly traumatizing. I think it about it way too often. What would have happened to my kids, would I have been killed instantly and so on. I only accepted this event because the road is inherently dangerous.

People get hit by cars all of the time, and are usually not reported on unless there is a fatality. The cyclist in this case wasn't severely injured, why does it need to be reported? Is it clickbait? Or does SFG want to stir up fears around self driving cars like they are cyclist murder machines?

Regardless, I feel like this is not very interesting news until its clear that Waymo or who else has a overall worse track record than the average human. Going back to my near accident, I am excited for self driving cars because they have the potential to be better than humans in the future.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#367

Post by mlyle »

jtriangle wrote: post #158
Terr_ wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm far less interested in the footage than I am the telemetry [...] how long was it from detection to action It sounds like you're making a deeply unreasonable assumption that no human could have detected or anticipated the cyclist faster than the computer did. Given the current state of the art, those times are frequently not the same, and the difference cannot be answered without seeing the human-consumable vide…

I'm assuming nothing. I'm simply posing a question, not answering it. It's your post that is nonsense, as it appears you've read about half of what I wrote before you replied.

The issue that people have is you stated that you'd compare time from detection to action.

What most people want to compare is time from when the bicyclist could have reasonably been detected to action. This requires looking at the video frames to decide when we think a human would have figured it out.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#368

Post by illirik »

petesergeant wrote: post #215
lex-lightning wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s such a low bar though. Zero is achievable. Part of it is to slow cars down and take more cars off the road rather than changing who drives. Invest in public transit, redesign problematic infrastructure, and create mixed use urban areas so people don’t feel the need to travel through a city. A city should be a safe place. More deaths in a slower zone than on freeways is preposterous. I understand the reasons wh…

> A city should be a safe place Is that a fundamental attribute of a city?

Of course; that's why our ancestors first built walls around granaries.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#369

Post by rob74 »

repeekad wrote: post #293
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #185

I'm disappointed in all the folks immediately blaming the cyclist without further information, and I'm similarly disappointed in all the folks blaming Waymo for the same reason. But, unless they somehow have extra information we're not privy to, I'm much more disappointed in the S.F. Supervisor quoted in the article, Shamann Walton, for immediately going online to say "so much for safety." Us internet weenies are alw…

Based on waymos description, it seems pretty cut and dry that this was literally an “accident” where the biker maybe should have waited until the lane cleared and any car would have hit them in the same situation. If anything they can use this data to see how it maybe could be prevented in the future. Maybe waymo was still in the wrong for some reason? Sadly the article that goes in depth after we have more details a…

Maybe the accident could have been avoided completely if the Waymo car drove more defensively? The article doesn't mention how fast it was travelling before it applied the brakes, but maybe it would be better to drive extra slowly while it can't "see" to the left because of a truck when driving through an intersection? Or not proceed into the intersection at all before it has a clear field of view?

Of course there is also a balance between safety and practicality here. Above a certain level of traffic congestion, I assume even Waymo cars have to be a bit "assertive", otherwise they would wait for hours at a stop sign...

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#370

Post by esoterica »

cma wrote: post #317
DeRock wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It definitely raises my eyebrows more if cars do it (rare but sadly increasingly less rare) It is extremely common, the default really, for cars to roll through 4-way stops.

A rolling stop is not blowing through which he was talking about I think.

When cars do a “rolling stop” what they are really doing is slowing down to 10-15mph, which is the same speed as a cyclist “blowing” through a stop sign at full speed.
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