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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

#401

Post by eurleif »

resolutebat wrote: post #377
talldatethrow wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're making a classic is-ought fallacy here. Drunk, high, sleep deprived or "crazy wild aggressive reckless" human drivers ought not to exist, but they do, and thus it's absolutely fair to compared autonomous drivers against them.

If GP's mother switches from driving for herself to having Waymo drive for her, her risk of injury will increase. Therefore, if her goal is to avoid injury, it would be counterproductive for her to make that switch. That conclusion does not require any is-ought fallacy.

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

#402

Post by littlestymaar »

darkwater wrote: post #381
talldatethrow wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe in theory, but then you have a bigger social/psychological/economic problem because these populations are necessarily the ones that are going to be compatible with the business model for autonomous cars.

And if you get a bigger proportion of “good drivers” in autonomous cars than there is in the overall population, you're on fact increasing the overall number of accidents.

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

#403

Post by zilti »

teekert wrote: post #334
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’m happy that in the Netherlands it’s ALWAYS the car driver’s responsibility (she always pays).

No, that is absolute bullshit. So so often, it is obviously the reckless cyclist's fault.

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

#404

Post by zilti »

vlz wrote: post #397
flakes wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with most laws that impose absolutes. The courts exist to deal with grey areas. A large number of pedestrians struck by cars each year (at least in North America), are themselves intoxicated, and not fit to walk along roadways. There are many cases where the driver should not reasonably be at fault for a pedestrians erratic behavior. There's also the "hit-to-kill" phenomenon in China, where it can be fi…

I call bullshit on "unfit to walk along roadways". This is victim blaming from people who want to go fast, fast, fast. The one moving a ton of metal is the one to pay attention. And the US needs to build roadways actually usable by pedestrians.

Pay some fucking attention in traffic, even if you are on two feet instead of on wheels, for fuck's sake!

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

#405

Post by SllX »

undersuit wrote: post #197
nerdponx wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harder to do when the driver of the vehicle is not a human being you can make eye contact with, and the human operator isn't interested in maintaining safe and attentive authority over the vehicle that they are responsible for.

I feel like I'm the only person in my town without tinted windows. I never see other drivers faes whether I'm driving, biking, or walking.

Is your town in California? Cuz that would be hella illegal for their front windows and windshields to be tinted to the point you can’t even see their faces.

https://www.californiacarlaws.com/window-tint/

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

#407

Post by zilti »

teekert wrote: post #356
flakes wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with most laws that impose absolutes. The courts exist to deal with grey areas. A large number of pedestrians struck by cars each year (at least in North America), are themselves intoxicated, and not fit to walk along roadways. There are many cases where the driver should not reasonably be at fault for a pedestrians erratic behavior. There's also the "hit-to-kill" phenomenon in China, where it can be fi…

You mean laws that forbid pedestrians from crossing roads? It’s just a matter of where you put your priorities. Here we prioritize our bike based transportation. Drivers just have to be careful, also insurance is obligatory so drivers don’t really feel it financially. They just pay collectively for all the other traffic participants they hit. We have a very different system, nobody goes bankrupt from causing an accid…

I am a cyclist myself, and let me tell you... cyclists are the fucking worst. Many of them drive so recklessly, like going full-speed through an intersection while their traffic light is red. There is just no way in many cases for a car driver to avoid hitting such idiots, no matter how much attention they pay. Neither cars nor bicycles can just stop on a whim, they need a couple meters to do so.

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

#408

Post by slg »

Fricken wrote: post #336
slg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just proving my point. You are pro-autonomous vehicle so you are interpreting the few facts we know in way that benefits your side of the debate. Referencing the cyclist not being seriously hurt is the most obvious example. It doesn't take much for a car to seriously injure a cyclist. It often just comes down to luck of the cyclists physical position and where they fall. Onto the hood of the car is safest, bu…

I'm not pro-autonomous vehicles. Under the hypothesis that they worked well enough that they proliferated widely and people came to rely on them, they would be the most enshittifiable service ever. Also I ride a bicycle everywhere, I don't own a car. I've had many crashes while cycling, a handful of which involved another moving vehicle. Speed is a good predictor of how much harm a moving vehicle can cause to a cycli…

>I'm not pro-autonomous vehicles.

Maybe not, but you are clearly coming from an anti-anti-autonomous vehicle stance. That likely plays into why you are downplaying this collision despite admitting "we don't know" basic details about what happened here. You are able to recognize that this issue is politicized, but like everyone you are considering your own political bias as the neutral position when in actuality the neutral position here is to wait until we have more details on what actually happened.

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

#409

Post by SllX »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #338
smt88 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have no reason to release it to the public. The public is allowing them to borrow govt-built roads to test their products and potentially endanger the public. That's more than enough reason for Waymo to be transparent here.

No, the regulators (who are indirectly appointed through the public) are allowing them to use govt-built roads to test their products. They don't have a direct obligation to you or any other citizen. I'd like them to release the video, but just be clear what you want, and best not to act like it is required of them.

You are 100% correct.

Waymo reports to the DMV, they do not report to you or me.

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

#410

Post by slg »

wyre wrote: post #340
slg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just proving my point. You are pro-autonomous vehicle so you are interpreting the few facts we know in way that benefits your side of the debate. Referencing the cyclist not being seriously hurt is the most obvious example. It doesn't take much for a car to seriously injure a cyclist. It often just comes down to luck of the cyclists physical position and where they fall. Onto the hood of the car is safest, bu…

I think at the very least we can interpret the situation as car hits cyclist in a blind spot and the cyclist was not seriously injured. Sources say there were 49,000 vehicle-cyclist injuries and 846 fatalities [1] and there were 3.2 trillion vehicle miles traveled [2] in 2019. So my math comes to around .015 injuries and .00003 fatalities per 1 million vehicle miles traveled. Waymo’s traveled 20 millions miles by 202…

This is the same type of math that Tesla uses to suggest that their Autopilot is safer than humans, but the problem with this approach is that not all miles driven are equal. I guarantee that the injury rate per mile is much higher on the road in which this collision took place than the 0.015 national average. There are obviously roads in which collisions with cyclists are incredibly rare like interstate highways in which a cyclist even using the road is rare. That means there needs to be roads which greatly exceed the national average and those are often city streets with heavy cyclist traffic like this one where the collision occurred.
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