US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety • Hacker News Board

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#41

Post by RaftPeople » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 7:01 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #16

jmpman wrote: post #10

I’m also curious about school zones. The one near my house has a sign, “School” “Speed Limit 35” “7:00AM to 4:00PM School Days” Now, how does a robotaxi comply with that? Does it go to the district website and look up the current school year calendar? Or does it work like a human, and simply observe the patterns of the school traffic, and assume the general school calendar? I suspect it continues in Mad Max mode.

Wait, how does that work? Every person in your city needs to know the exact calendar of that school?

In the area I live, the wording is frequently "when children present" so you don't need to know school schedule.

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#42

Post by themafia » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:01 PM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #4

To be honest. I think this is one of the strengths of autonomous cars. With humans when they do this at max we can punish that individual. To increase population wide compliance we can do a safety awareness campaign, ramp up enforcement, ramp up the fines. But all of these cost a lot of money to do, take a while to have an effect, need to be repeated/kept up, and only help statistically. With a robot driver we can de…

> we can develop a fix and roll it out on all of them.

You have to know what you're fixing first. You're going to write a lot of code in blood this way.

It's not that people are particularly bad at driving it's that the road is exceptionally dynamic with many different users and use cases all trying to operate in a synchronized fashion with a dash of strong regulation sprinkled in.

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#43

Post by themafia » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:03 PM UTC

RaftPeople wrote: post #41

izacus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, how does that work? Every person in your city needs to know the exact calendar of that school?

In the area I live, the wording is frequently "when children present" so you don't need to know school schedule.

Present means "present in the school." It's not always observable while driving by if you need to obey the reduced limit or not. California does it and I find it absurd.

Many other states setup a flashing yellow light and program the light with the school schedule. Then the limit only applies "when light is flashing." Far more sensible.

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#44

Post by dangus » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

krisoft wrote: post #4

To be honest. I think this is one of the strengths of autonomous cars. With humans when they do this at max we can punish that individual. To increase population wide compliance we can do a safety awareness campaign, ramp up enforcement, ramp up the fines. But all of these cost a lot of money to do, take a while to have an effect, need to be repeated/kept up, and only help statistically. With a robot driver we can de…

As a counterpoint, a large fine or jail time as a deterrent actually has meaning.to an individual.

For a company, it's a financial calculation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimshaw_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

(Add the period to the end of the link, HN won't do it)

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#45

Post by terminalshort » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:29 PM UTC

d4mi3n wrote: post #31

whimsicalism wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the discourse around “corporations” has gotten absolutely ridiculous at this point, especially on this website.

It’s not an unreasonable take given historic behavior. Rather than decrying the cynicism, what steps can we take to ensure companies like Tesla/Waymo/etc are held accountable and incentivized to prioritize safety? Do we need hasher fines? Give auto regulators as much teeth as the FAA used to have during accident investigations? Genuinely curious to see how addressing reasonable concerns in these areas can be done.

Why isn't allowing people to sue when they get hurt and general bad PR around safety enough? Did you see what happened to Boeing's stock price after those 737 crashes?

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#46

Post by jefftk » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

themafia wrote: post #42

krisoft wrote: post #4

To be honest. I think this is one of the strengths of autonomous cars. With humans when they do this at max we can punish that individual. To increase population wide compliance we can do a safety awareness campaign, ramp up enforcement, ramp up the fines. But all of these cost a lot of money to do, take a while to have an effect, need to be repeated/kept up, and only help statistically. With a robot driver we can de…

> we can develop a fix and roll it out on all of them. You have to know what you're fixing first. You're going to write a lot of code in blood this way. It's not that people are particularly bad at driving it's that the road is exceptionally dynamic with many different users and use cases all trying to operate in a synchronized fashion with a dash of strong regulation sprinkled in.

> You're going to write a lot of code in blood this way.

Waymo has been doing a lot of driving, without any blood. They seems to be using a combination of (a) learning a lot from close calls like this one where no one was hurt even through it still behaved incorrectly and (b) being cautious so that even when it does something it shouldn't the risk is very low because it's moving slowly.

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#47

Post by terminalshort » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, we do. The problem is that you need to be physically present to catch and deal with those people, and you can only really deal with one party (others will do their thing while a police officer is dealing with the first driver they stop). Not to mention that drivers change their behavior if they see the police around, so it's harder to catch them in the act. So for a variety of reasons it's harder to solve the…

With how cheap high definition cameras are, I don’t see why society needs a person to be physically present.

I prefer the risk of death over constant surveillance

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#48

Post by jefftk » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:34 PM UTC

slavik81 wrote: post #26

izacus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, how does that work? Every person in your city needs to know the exact calendar of that school?

Yes, that's how it works in Alberta. It's particularly confusing because not all schools have the same academic calendar (e.g., most schools have a summer break, but a few have summer classes). Unlike the sibling comment, there are no lights or indications of when school is in session. You must memorize the academic calendar of every school you drive past in order to know the speed limit. In practice, this means bein…

This is another example of something where, at least if you want to get all the way to completely correct operation, it's easier for an driverless car than a human. A person can't memorize the schedules of every school district they might pass, but an automated system potentially could. Of course something like Google Maps could solve this too, for both humans and Waymo.

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#49

Post by themafia » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:42 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #46

themafia wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can develop a fix and roll it out on all of them. You have to know what you're fixing first. You're going to write a lot of code in blood this way. It's not that people are particularly bad at driving it's that the road is exceptionally dynamic with many different users and use cases all trying to operate in a synchronized fashion with a dash of strong regulation sprinkled in.

> You're going to write a lot of code in blood this way. Waymo has been doing a lot of driving, without any blood. They seems to be using a combination of (a) learning a lot from close calls like this one where no one was hurt even through it still behaved incorrectly and (b) being cautious so that even when it does something it shouldn't the risk is very low because it's moving slowly.

Waymo operates in a very limited scope and area. I would not attempt to extrapolate anything from their current performance.

Re: US probes Waymo robotaxis over school bus safety

#50

Post by warkdarrior » Thu, Oct 23, 2025, 9:44 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #46

themafia wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can develop a fix and roll it out on all of them. You have to know what you're fixing first. You're going to write a lot of code in blood this way. It's not that people are particularly bad at driving it's that the road is exceptionally dynamic with many different users and use cases all trying to operate in a synchronized fashion with a dash of strong regulation sprinkled in.

> You're going to write a lot of code in blood this way. Waymo has been doing a lot of driving, without any blood. They seems to be using a combination of (a) learning a lot from close calls like this one where no one was hurt even through it still behaved incorrectly and (b) being cautious so that even when it does something it shouldn't the risk is very low because it's moving slowly.

Waymo operates in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin, and Atlanta so I am sure they encountered school buses by now and learned from those encounters.