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Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
41–50 of 468 posts
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#42Prior to reading the article, I assumed Waymos were stuck due to an Internet connectivity issue. However, while the root cause is not explicitly stated, it sounds like the Waymos are “confused” by traffic lights being out.
Would have hoped they trained for this but at least now they likely will be.
frankly at least at the intersection i witnessed i saw plenty of them handling it
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#43In my experience, humans respond incredibly poorly to traffic lights being out. There's no sense or reason, just people deciding to drive across the intersection when they feel like it's okay. Presumably Waymo will make sure they can handle this situation in the future, but I'm not sure there's a really satisfactory solution. The way you're supposed to handle an intersection with no lights (treat it as a stop sign in…
That wasn’t my experience, having just driven across the city and back during tonight’s outage. It was actually weirdly inspiring how well people coordinated at so many of the powerless intersections. There was a lot of confusion, and some people took advantage of it to rush through, but for the most part it was pretty orderly. Which makes sense because in many parts of the world where there are no traffic lights or…
i had essentially the opposite experience in close proximity.
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#44In my experience, humans respond incredibly poorly to traffic lights being out. There's no sense or reason, just people deciding to drive across the intersection when they feel like it's okay. Presumably Waymo will make sure they can handle this situation in the future, but I'm not sure there's a really satisfactory solution. The way you're supposed to handle an intersection with no lights (treat it as a stop sign in…
That wasn’t my experience, having just driven across the city and back during tonight’s outage. It was actually weirdly inspiring how well people coordinated at so many of the powerless intersections. There was a lot of confusion, and some people took advantage of it to rush through, but for the most part it was pretty orderly. Which makes sense because in many parts of the world where there are no traffic lights or…
>in many parts of the world where there are no traffic lights or stop signs, people get on just fine
Well, sort of. Road injuries / fatalities in countries without these kinds of regulations are about an 3-4x higher than in those that do have them.
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#45In my experience, humans respond incredibly poorly to traffic lights being out. There's no sense or reason, just people deciding to drive across the intersection when they feel like it's okay. Presumably Waymo will make sure they can handle this situation in the future, but I'm not sure there's a really satisfactory solution. The way you're supposed to handle an intersection with no lights (treat it as a stop sign in…
I've seen 4-way 1-lane intersections behave well.
But those complex multiple lanes in all directions + turn lanes...
They do break down. I think they are a breeding ground for confusion and frustration.
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#46In my experience, humans respond incredibly poorly to traffic lights being out. There's no sense or reason, just people deciding to drive across the intersection when they feel like it's okay. Presumably Waymo will make sure they can handle this situation in the future, but I'm not sure there's a really satisfactory solution. The way you're supposed to handle an intersection with no lights (treat it as a stop sign in…
I've been through long blackouts.
My own experience has given me a somewhat more-nuanced take.
At first, it's akin to the path of evil. Way too many people just zoom through intersections with dark traffic lights like they're cruising unimpeded down the Interstate, obvious to their surroundings. Some people get grumpy and lay on the horn as if to motivate those in front of them to fly through themselves.
But many people do stop, observe, and proceed when it is both appropriate and safe.
After awhile, it calms down substantially. The local municipality rounds up enough stop signs to plant in the middle of the intersections that people seem to actually be learning what to do (as unlikely as that sounds).
By day 2 or 3, it's still somewhat chaotic -- but it seems "safe" in that the majority of the people understand what to do (it's just stop sign -- it may be a stop sign at an amazingly-complex intersection, but it's still just a stop sign) and the flyers are infrequent-enough to look out for.
By day 5 or 6, traffic flows more-or-less fine and it feels like the traffic lights were never necessary to begin with. People stop. They take turns. They use their turn signals like their lives depend on it. And the flyers apparently have flown off to somewhere else. It seems impossible to behold, but I've seen it.
But SF's outage seems likely to be a lot shorter than that timeline, and I definitely agree with Waymo taking the cautious route.
(but I also see reports that they just left these cars in the middle of the road. That's NFG.)
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#47In my experience, humans respond incredibly poorly to traffic lights being out. There's no sense or reason, just people deciding to drive across the intersection when they feel like it's okay. Presumably Waymo will make sure they can handle this situation in the future, but I'm not sure there's a really satisfactory solution. The way you're supposed to handle an intersection with no lights (treat it as a stop sign in…
That wasn’t my experience, having just driven across the city and back during tonight’s outage. It was actually weirdly inspiring how well people coordinated at so many of the powerless intersections. There was a lot of confusion, and some people took advantage of it to rush through, but for the most part it was pretty orderly. Which makes sense because in many parts of the world where there are no traffic lights or…
> with 3 of them blocking traffic in both directions — in the path of both the 7 and 22 bus lines.
wow, cascading failures. I'll bet this is the tip of the iceberg.
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Germany most traffic lights have a full set of traffic signs that are in effect in the rare occasion that the light is out.
Same setup in the Netherlands, there are right of way signs everywhere that apply when the lights don't work. One interesting effect is that there are also often pedestrian crossings that have priority over everyone. Normally those are limited by lights, but without lights a steady stream of pedestrians stops all traffic. Seen that happen in Utrecht near the train station recently, unlimited pedestrians and bikes, so…
Except in NL you guys actually have someone sit and think about the flow of traffic, in most other countries the design is usually pretty much random. In my parents' city in Poland they decided to turn off the traffic lights at night and the result is much higher number of accidents. Funnily, my father failed to yield the right of way exactly when talking about the issue. Yes, theoretically all intersections do have full set of signs, but in practice the visibility of those signs is extremely limited.
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same setup in the Netherlands, there are right of way signs everywhere that apply when the lights don't work. One interesting effect is that there are also often pedestrian crossings that have priority over everyone. Normally those are limited by lights, but without lights a steady stream of pedestrians stops all traffic. Seen that happen in Utrecht near the train station recently, unlimited pedestrians and bikes, so…
Except in NL you guys actually have someone sit and think about the flow of traffic, in most other countries the design is usually pretty much random. In my parents' city in Poland they decided to turn off the traffic lights at night and the result is much higher number of accidents. Funnily, my father failed to yield the right of way exactly when talking about the issue. Yes, theoretically all intersections do have…
> Same setup in the Netherlands, there are right of way signs everywhere that apply when the lights don't work.
Most places in Poland have this exact setup. And I say most because I have not seen one that does not, but I am guessing they exist. Maybe some of them have bad visibility even?
If one does not respect the yield sign that does not seem a signaling problem.
Re: Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
That wasn’t my experience, having just driven across the city and back during tonight’s outage. It was actually weirdly inspiring how well people coordinated at so many of the powerless intersections. There was a lot of confusion, and some people took advantage of it to rush through, but for the most part it was pretty orderly. Which makes sense because in many parts of the world where there are no traffic lights or…
>in many parts of the world where there are no traffic lights or stop signs, people get on just fine Well, sort of. Road injuries / fatalities in countries without these kinds of regulations are about an 3-4x higher than in those that do have them. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241565684
Number of traffic accidents went down by 50% in this town.