Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by andsoitis » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 7:24 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #288

andsoitis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Does it matter > Yes. OP is inferring Waymo's internal processes from this meltdown. ("Makes me think there are likely other obvious use cases they haven’t thought about proactively either.") No, I'm not inferring internal processes. I'm guessing level of critical thinking. When you are creating autonomous vehicles, one of the things that you want to risk assess and have mitigation for is what you want the vehicl…

> I'm not inferring internal processes…I'm guessing level of critical thinking Genuine question: how do these differ? Isn’t the level of critical thinking of Waymo’s employees internal to it? (What’s the mens rea analogue for a company?)

Are you asking what's the difference between critical thinking and an organizational process?

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

#412

Post by jrmg » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 7:29 PM UTC

ssl-3 wrote: post #385

lazystar wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have they implemented a cat-friendly update since the incident a few months ago?

I mean: I haven't implemented a cat-friendly update to my own driving, and it isn't clear to me how I would ever begin to attempt to do so.

I’d bet you already have a mode that would’ve prevented what happened to the cat. From NYT reporting on the actual incident:

A human driver, she believes, would have stopped and asked if everything was OK after seeing a concerned person kneeling in front of their car and peering underneath.

“I didn’t know if I should reach out and hit one of the cameras or scream,” she said of the perilous moment. “I sort of froze, honestly. It was disorienting that Waymo was pulling away with me so close to it.”

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

#413

Post by ithkuil » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 7:35 PM UTC

adrianmonk wrote: post #197

rwoll wrote: post #3

Prior 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.

I wonder how Waymos know that the traffic lights are out. A human can combine a ton of context clues. Like, "Well, we just had a storm, and it was really windy, and the office buildings are all dark, and that Exxon sign is normally lit up but not right now, and everything seems oddly quiet. Evidently, a power outage is the reason I don't see the traffic light lit up. Also other drivers are going through the intersect…

I recently had a broken traffic light in my city, it was daylight and I didn't notice any other lights that should be on during the day to be off.

My approach was to get closer into the intersection slowly and judge whether the perpendicular traffic would slow down and also try to figure out what was going on or if they would just zip through like if they had green.

It required some attention and some judgement. It definitely wasn't the normal day to day driving where you don't quite think consciously what you're doing.

I understand that individual autonomous vehicles cannot be expected to be given the responsibility to make such a call and the safest thing to do for them is to have them stop.

But I assumed there were still many human operators that would oversee the fleet and they could make the call that the traffic lights are all off

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

#414

Post by grayhatter » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

potato3732842 wrote: post #389

smugma wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failed pretty badly but no reported injuries or even accidents so not that badly. And if you’re Waymo, it’s a short-term reputation hit but great experience to learn from and improve.

>Failed pretty badly but no reported injuries or even accidents so not that badly. Just because no integer lives were wasted doesn't mean we can't sum the man hours and get a number greater than 1

Using that math it would be better if they were faster even if they killed somebody.

That's a repulsive argument... Just because some argument is logically sound doesn't mean it's rational or reasonable.

Also, when attempting that math, make sure you account for the buffer that everyone already builds into their life. No sense in double counting the extra 10m I'm angry in traffic, instead of angry sitting at home because I'm doom scrolling some media feed with that extra 10m I saved because the robotaxi was faster.

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

#415

Post by NetMageSCW » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 7:44 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #326

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…

>I’m AMAZED they’re not designed to handle this better. This has been the MO for "tech companies" for the past 20 years. Meanwhile I'm told I'm paranoid when the industry of "move fast or break things" decides to move into mission/safety critical industries and use its massive wealth to lobby for deregulation to maintain its habits. We certainly have BS regulations done to constrain competition. But I'd wager a good…

I wouldn’t wager past 50%, especially since laws don’t have expiration dates.

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

#416

Post by scoofy » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 7:55 PM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #404

scoofy wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the affected neighborhood. There were hundreds of drivers that did not know how to handle a power outage... it was a minority of drivers, but it was a nontrivial, but nominally large number. I even saw a Muni bus blow through a blacked out intersection. The difference is the Waymos failed in a way that prevented potential injury , whereas the humans who failed, all fail in a way that would create potential…

> The difference is the Waymos failed in a way that prevented potential injury No one was injured this time but that's a huge assumption on your part

I mean, yes, if the Waymo's could safely pull over, or even know how to handle every emergency situation, I think that would be better. I'd say that's a big ask though. Training autonomous vehicles for blackouts, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hail storms, landslides, sinkholes, tsunamis, floods, or even just fog is not really feasible given that most humans won't even navigate the properly. I'll keep saying it: I'm glad the cars were set to fail-safely when they encountered a situation they couldn't understand.

I honestly wish the human drivers blowing through intersections that night would have done the same. It's miracle no one was killed.

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

#417

Post by GuinansEyebrows » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 7:59 PM UTC

mmmlinux wrote: post #394

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…

Its either people complain that they go slow and are too careful, or they will video and complain about every small traffic infringement that they make. Humans never driver 100% within the law and no one really cares. The second a single one of those things steps out of line and its an uproar. they have to drive ultra conservatively. How long have people been complaining about that one cat.

the fact that there's practically no visible regulatory response to autonomous/remote-controlled vehicles that violate traffic laws or put people/pets/property at risk is a big part of why i'm personally not okay with these vehicles being allowed to use public rights-of-way.

when a waymo can get a traffic ticket (commensurate with google's ability to pay, a la the new income-based speeding ticket pilot programs in LA and SF), and when corporate officers down to engineers bear responsibility for failures, i think a lot more people will stop seeing these encroachments onto our commons as a nuisance.

story time: i've literally had one of those god awful food delivery robots run straight into me on a sidewalk. once, one of them stopped in my way and would not move, so i physically moved it myself and it followed me to my apartment. i'm about to start cow-tipping them (gently, because i don't want a lawsuit alleging property damage, even though they're practically just abandoned tech scrap without a human operator nearby to take responsibility).

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

#418

Post by ssl-3 » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 8:54 PM UTC

jrmg wrote: post #412

ssl-3 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean: I haven't implemented a cat-friendly update to my own driving, and it isn't clear to me how I would ever begin to attempt to do so.

I’d bet you already have a mode that would’ve prevented what happened to the cat. From NYT reporting on the actual incident: A human driver, she believes, would have stopped and asked if everything was OK after seeing a concerned person kneeling in front of their car and peering underneath. “I didn’t know if I should reach out and hit one of the cameras or scream,” she said of the perilous moment. “I sort of froze, h…

I watched the video and read the article. (I wish I didn't; I love cats. I've known some wonderful bodega cats myself.)

But I'll bet I already have a mode that makes me want to drive away from people I don't know who are acting weird around my car.

I mean: I've got options. I can fight, flee, or hang out and investigate.

But I'm human -- I'm going to make what ultimately turn out to be poor decisions sometimes. I will have this condition until the day I die, and there isn't a single thing I can do about it (except to choose to die sooner, I guess).

So to posit an example: I'm already behind the wheel of my fleeing-machine with an already-decided intent to leave. And a stranger nearby is being weird.

I've now got a decision to make. It may be a very important decision, or it may instead be a nearly-meaningless decision.

Again, I've got options. I may very well decide that fighting isn't a good plan, and that joining them in exploring whatever mystery or ailment they may perceive is also not a great idea, and thereby decide that fleeing is the best option.

This may be a poor choice. It may also be the very best choice.

I don't know everything, and I can't see everything, and I do not get to use a time machine to gain hindsight for how this decision will play out.

(But I might speculate that if I stopped to investigate every time I saw a nearby stranger act weird at night in neighborhoods with prominent security gates that I might have fewer days remaining than if I just left them to their own devices.)

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

#419

Post by mint5 » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 8:55 PM UTC

will4274 wrote: post #164

Zambyte wrote: post #11

We should put self driving cars on tracks so they are always out of the way and have easily predictable behavior. Maybe we can even link the cars together for efficiency or something like that.

It's tedious to see these same sarcastic comments on every self driving car story. Yes. Buses and trains exist. When you link the cars together, they usually switch to a hub that's a 10-15 minute walk from your destination instead of your destination and the compartments are occasionally shared with unstable and violent people, which while possibly "efficient" in some metrics, are downsides that many people would rat…

“10-15 minute walk”

A quaintly American complaint. A 10 minute walk being an issue is very a learned helplessness my fellow Americans suffer from.

But unfortunately the 10-15 min walk is only possible in a couple cities. most Americans day to day experience of public transit is spaced out buses that don’t work well for single family sprawl and strip malls parking lots where walking is treated as undesirable. Car oriented rather than people oriented urban planning (or lack thereof) is the original cause.

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

#420

Post by NetMageSCW » Mon, Dec 22, 2025, 9:03 PM UTC

Zambyte wrote: post #11

We should put self driving cars on tracks so they are always out of the way and have easily predictable behavior. Maybe we can even link the cars together for efficiency or something like that.

How long do you think it will take you to get across town if you have to wait through a stop on every block?

Better leave now for you doctor’s appointment tomorrow and I hope you scheduled three days off from work.