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Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

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Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#361

Post by philipallstar »

solid_fuel wrote: post #241
philipallstar wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you're happy that if your property ever blocks the road, you will pay for the damage too.

> As long as you're happy that if your property ever blocks the road, you will pay for the damage too. Pretty sure that's always the expectation? It's typical to tow illegally parked cars, smash windows to run hoses through cars blocking hydrants, etc. The only unusual thing here would be holding a corporation to account the way we hold individuals to account.

A broken down car isn't illegally parked.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#362

Post by tomjakubowski »

amazingman wrote: post #292
jordanb wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hey guys what are you complaining about? We didn't (directly) kill anyone!"

You're being sarcastic, but it's a valid point. I'd love to know if there were any traffic fatalities at all during the affected period. Chances are there were and that they were due to human error.

> Chances are there were and that they were due to human error.

Eh, I don't know. ~40 people die from traffic collisions each year in San Francisco, so about one every nine days. People would be driving more cautiously without traffic signals or street lights, and most collisions at intersections would occur a relatively low speed assuming drivers treat the dead signal as a stop sign. The risk of death for drivers might be higher during a power outage like that, but I doubt it would be 9x (and the outage lasted less a full day).

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#363

Post by dragonwriter »

necovek wrote: post #341
dragonwriter wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assuming there's hundreds or thousands of self-driving cars suddenly driving in environment without any traffic lights. Self-driving cars should (1) know how to handle stops, and (2) know that the rules for a failed traffic light (or one flashing red) are those for an all-way stop.

In a traffic jam situation, all-way stop is a "blocked intersection" if every vehicle obeyed it strictly (if there are cars coming from every direction, nobody has right of way and you can't apply the rule of yielding right). Humans, luckily, never follow the rules to the letter, which made it reasonable to put them down like this: some will be more impatient/aggressive, others will establish eye contact and wave one…

> In a traffic jam situation, all-way stop is a "blocked intersection" if every vehicle obeyed it strictly (if there are cars coming from every direction, nobody has right of way and you can't apply the rule of yielding right).

The first arrived rule (which applies before yield right) is usually unambiguous in a traffic jam situation (since it will also be the position where the last car went the least recently, and everyone at the intersection will have been close enough to see through the prior cycle.)

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#364

Post by catlikesshrimp »

b112 wrote: post #356
cjsplat wrote: post #193

I was driving across the east side of SF and hit a patch of lights that were out. The Waymo's were just going really slow through the intersection. It seemed that the "light is out means 4-way stop" dynamic caused them to go into ultra-timid mode. And of course the human drivers did the typical slow and roll, with decent interleaving. The result was that each Waymo took about 4x as long to get through the intersectio…

Obviously things will continue to improve, so this is a point in time criticism. One of the biggest issues with current state of tech I see is, where these cars usually are. They're in cities, and most often in very dense ones, and ones in the south. These are effectively perfect conditions. From my perspective, I wonder how these cars will behave with ice on the road, with snow, or a typical Montreal Wednesday of "I…

LIDAR can't be compared to radarless cars (yes, to Teslas) The car might have a better understanding in low visibility conditions than a person (blizzard)

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#365

Post by catlikesshrimp »

philipallstar wrote: post #361
solid_fuel wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as you're happy that if your property ever blocks the road, you will pay for the damage too. Pretty sure that's always the expectation? It's typical to tow illegally parked cars, smash windows to run hoses through cars blocking hydrants, etc. The only unusual thing here would be holding a corporation to account the way we hold individuals to account.

A broken down car isn't illegally parked.

A broken down car is also towed when needed.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#366

Post by catlikesshrimp »

animal_spirits wrote: post #249
MBCook wrote: post #93

From John Ripley on Mastodon: “Thought of the day, and I wish there were a way to get this to legislators: Come the next Big One earthquake, all of San Francisco’s emergency services will be blocked by Waymos.” I’m AMAZED they’re not designed to handle this better. This does indeed seem like a massive problem. “Oops we give up” right when things get the worst? How is this OK? I’ve been very impressed by Waymo’s more…

During Japan's 2011 earthquake, many roads were gridlocked by human drivers.

It is acceptable when the situation is so dire that most human drivers can't handle the situation. It is not acceptable when the human can handle the situation but the machine is dragging the flow back.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#367

Post by InvertedRhodium »

cjsplat wrote: post #287
markus_zhang wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious what’s the regulation in this scenario? In Canada I think light off means 4-way stop signs so everyone obeys that, or at least most of everyone. What’s the situation in SF?

Yes, that is the same law in California, but so many people drift through stop signs that the guidance is close to meaningless. In addition, there are 4-way stop signs all over SF and tourists regularly comment on how they work here. The law is clear - yield to the right, but that is a pretty slow system in congested roads. The local custom in SF is that someone is usually obviously first, rightmost, or just most agg…

I thought the US had a “FIFO” rule for 4 way stop signs? I had to drive through Nevada and Arizona last year so read up on the rules.

Keeping track of which cars entered at what time was kind of stressful and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do a good job of it.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#368

Post by scoofy »

godelski wrote: post #353
scoofy wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is super easy to program What?!? We’re talking about autonomous vehicles here.

I wouldn't say "super easy" but if an autonomous vehicle isn't programmed to handle: 1: streetlight with no lights 2: streetlight with blinking red 2.5: streetlight with blinking yellow Then they are 100% not qualified to be on the road. Those are basic situations and incredibly easy to replicate, simulate, and incorporate into the training data. That is to say, they are not edge cases. Dealing with other drivers in…

If you are just arguing that they're not qualified to be on the road, then I agree with you. I've been an autonomous vehicle skeptic for a long time, mainly because in think our automobile transportation system is inherently dangerous. It's going to be a tough sell though, considering that they are already -- generally -- better drivers than a nontrivial number of human beings.

It's a tough question. The entire reason I'm defending this shortcoming is exactly that I prefer the fail-safe shutdown to any attempt to navigate bizarre, barely conforming to traffic code, blacked out intersections that are inherently dangerous.

Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

#369

Post by scoofy »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #340
scoofy wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is super easy to program What?!? We’re talking about autonomous vehicles here.

The cars already know those are intersections with lights. I'm not talking about that part. Just the basic logic that you don't go through at speed unless there is a green (or yellow) light.

>The cars already know those are intersections with lights.

That's not how any of this works. You can anthropomorphize all you like, but they don't "know" things. They're only able to predictably respond to their training data. A blackout scenario is not in the training data.

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