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

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

#381

Post by darkwater »

talldatethrow wrote: post #372
CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

IMO these are a slightly fake stat. You're comparing to overall stats, that include the drunk, the high, the sleep deprived, and the crazy wild aggressive wreckless. If you compare to my mother driving, the injuries per mile are higher in autonomous. You can argue that I'm making an unfair distinction since those people exist, but I'd say the people driving under those conditions are commiting a crime and shouldn't b…

But one of the points of self-driving cars is to remove those bad drivers from the driving seat.

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

#382

Post by qwertox »

ehsankia wrote: post #225
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…

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.

Yet it makes me wonder how the car would react if it came to a stop on top of the leg of the cyclist or in some situation where a normal driver would notice that he should get into the car again and back up a couple of feet.

I'm not against Waymo.

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

#383

Post by Terr_ »

jtriangle wrote: post #323
Terr_ wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's not what you intended in your mind, but it's what you happened to type out in ASCII. In this quote, you are asserting that something is true:: > What was the state of the gas and brake, what was the steering angle, how long was it from detection to action. Those things concretely answer the question of "would a human have done better or worse in this situation?" Unfortunately it is not true: "Those thing…

Did I at any point say the video wasn't important? I don't recall doing so. I did assert that the telemetry was more interesting than the video, but the telemetry being more interesting than the video feed doesn't mean the video, itself, is not interesting. You missed that in favor of being pedantic, that says something about you, and if I thought it had any chance of helping, I'd tell you to take a long look in the…

Imagine an alternate universe where everything was cut short by: "Oops, yeah, video would be important for that case, I was focused on a different failure-mode."

> Did I at any point say the video wasn't important?

Sounds like Motte and Bailey time.

The expansive Bailey: "We don't need raw video to concretely answer whether the machine did better or worse than a human, the telemetry is sufficient."

The defensible Motte: "I never said the video was unimportant..."

> pedantic [...] detailed analysis

Step 1: Casually dismiss the other person as having not read your post.

Step 2: When they lay it out in detail, whine that they read your post too closely.

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

#384

Post by cycomanic »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #361
zx8080 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem will all of these stats (although some like Waymo are better than others like Tesla), is that the bare number is quite misleading because they compare apples to oranges. Firstly Waymo (and others don't often don't operate in places that they have excluded or they don't know. Humans drive in unfamiliar places (which I'd bet changes the chances of accidents). Moreover, waymo might decide to not operate in some places at all because they deem the traffic/road conditions to dangerous (and I think that's a good thing), however human accidents in those areas (which are by the condition are more accident prone) still go into those statistics.

It's similar for weather, self driving cars might refuse to operate in some weather conditions (I don't think it's by accident that most companies mainly operate in the relatively warm and sunny places of the US), human accidents under bad conditions are still part of the statistics.

And again drunk/impaired drivers also go into the statistics, if we disregard them and humans become safer, than this is not an argument that self driving is safer than humans, but an argument that there isn't enough enforcement around riving impaired.

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

#386

Post by godelski »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #332
anon373839 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> count the number of cars that come to a complete stop You’re conflating two different phenomena, perhaps purposefully. California drivers do often fail to come to a technical stop at intersections, but they first slow to a near-zero speed that very nearly accomplishes the same purpose. In contrast, a large number of cyclists do not slow at all, and blast through red lights at full speed.

I've lived in San Francisco for over 4 years. I cycle, walk, drive, and take public transport. If I were about to cross at an intersection with a stop sign, the sight of an approaching car would create more fear and caution in me, than would the sight of an approaching bicycle. > California drivers do often fail to come to a technical stop at intersections, but they first slow to a near-zero speed that very nearly ac…

> Then I remember it's the behavior of drivers that has conditioned pedestrians to yield even when they have right of way.

I similarly have mixed mode of transportation. I'll admit that when walking I will frequently fully stop in the middle of crossing an intersection. Many people do come to abrupt stops at stop signs and from the perspective of a pedestrian it is difficult to differentiate, especially when it is unclear that a driver sees you. I sure am not going to risk it, so I stop, and am sure to make sure that driver sees me. But similarly, it makes me more sympathetic to pedestrians and cyclists and I will approach intersections differently when they are around and do my best to make sure they know I see them. When driving, walking, and cycling you are operating in very different environments despite being in the same place. People tend to do things for reasons and if an action is common within a group it would be naive to not consider why this behavior develops.

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

#387

Post by Aloisius »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #359
Aloisius wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't started enforcing it because you can only issue warnings if people park close to the crosswalk until next year - specifically because most drivers don't know about the law. And the law actually states that local authorities can come up with their own distance rules instead.

> They haven't started enforcing it because you can only issue warnings if people park close to the crosswalk until next year - specifically because most drivers don't know about the law. OK, I see that now: (4) Prior to January 1, 2025, jurisdictions may only issue a warning, and shall not issue a citation, for a violation unless the violation occurs in an area marked using paint or a sign. But honestly I often see…

I doubt the bar is particularly high and the onus is on the city to create signs/paint curbs to indicate if it's longer or shorter.

As it stands, if there's a red curb or parking prohibition sign already next to a crosswalk, it dictates distance - whether longer or shorter - and there are a lot of intersections with those already that are much shorter than 20 feet - like where fire hydrants often are. If SF doesn't repaint/resign those, then nothing happens.

It's only for unpainted/unsigned areas where the 20 ft rule comes into place.

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

#388

Post by purplejacket »

soraki_soladead wrote: post #65
topkai22 wrote: post #5

I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.

Cyclists do this all the time in SF. Afaik an "Idaho stop" is not legal here, despite it being common and often unsafe for obvious reasons.

I've always heard it called a "California stop."

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

#389

Post by armada651 »

7e wrote: post #333
0xfaded wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fix is really quite simple, develop separate routes for cyclists and motor vehicles. Where those routes unavoidably cross have proper intersections. The person you are replying to is right, four-way-stops are a travesty, both for cyclists and cars.

Sure, have fewer stops. But even if you separate the routes, cyclists will eventually have to stop somewhere (even for other cyclists), and they won’t want to.

You'll see a lot more cyclists acting safely if it's actually safe to cycle. Dangerous cycling infrastructure scares away safe cyclists, so all you're left with are the daredevils who won't stop for anything.

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

#390

Post by roenxi »

al_borland wrote: post #288
aetch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The computers don’t need you to do captchas anymore. The captchas are just solved problems being used to slow down bots and spammers these days.

Are they though? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37160744

You're linking to discussion of an article that explains bots are solving CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA faster and more accurately than humans.

I don't understand what you are trying to say, but I don't think it aligns with the evidence you're providing.

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