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

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

#421

Post by NetMageSCW »

MBCook wrote: post #135
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymos rely on remote operators to take over when the vehicle doesn't know what to do, and obviously if the remote connection is gone then this is no longer available, and one might speculate that the cars then "fail safe" by not proceeding if they are in a situation where remote help is called for and inaccessible. Perhaps traffic lights being out is what caused the cars to stop operating autonomously and try to pho…

That’s clearly unacceptable. It needs to gracefully handle not having that fallback. That is an incredibly obvious possible failure. Things go wrong -> get human help Human not available -> just block the road??? How is there not a very basic “pull over and wait” final fallback. I can get staying put if the car thinks it hit someone or ran over something. But in a situation like this where the problem is fully extern…

How is it going to pull over at a four way stoplight intersection? Drive on the sidewalk?

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

#422

Post by NetMageSCW »

lelanthran wrote: post #25
raldi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a citywide blackout isn’t that uncommon.

> But a citywide blackout isn’t that uncommon. I think too many people talk past each other when they use the word common , especially when talking about car trips. A blackout (doesn't have to be citywide) may not be periodic but it's certainly frequent with a frequency above 1 per year. Many people say "common" meaning "frequent", and many people say "common" meaning "periodic".

I think your power company needs to be replaced if the frequency is above 1 per year.

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

#423

Post by NetMageSCW »

jeffbee wrote: post #180
scoofy wrote: post #165

I live in SF in an area that was affected by the blackout. I saw four different Waymos stopped. Three were in the middle of the street. One was along the curb. My personal opinion. With number of cars I saw flying through blacked out intersection -- major intersections -- I'm very happy that Waymo had a fail safe protocol for such a "white swan"-style event (that is extremely rare, but known-to-happen event). I saw a…

Pretty much no aspect of this event was "extremely rare". PG&E spends the whole year smoking $100 bills and laughing their assess off, then as soon as it rains even a little bit their junk explodes and they pretend they could not have foreseen water existing on Earth. This is not even the first, or second time that this specific substation has burned in living memory. It already burned in 1996 and 2003.

Every 20 years seems extremely rare to me.

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

#424

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

philipallstar wrote: post #212
blibble wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if google's property is blocking the road, google can pay for the damage

As long as you're happy that if your property ever blocks the road, you will pay for the damage too.

what a way to defend google's theft of the commons

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

#425

Post by cjsplat »

cruffle_duffle wrote: post #336
cjsplat wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is the same law in California, but so many people drift through stop signs that the guidance is close to meaningless. In addition, there are 4-way stop signs all over SF and tourists regularly comment on how they work here. The law is clear - yield to the right, but that is a pretty slow system in congested roads. The local custom in SF is that someone is usually obviously first, rightmost, or just most agg…

Your local custom seems to describe 4 way intersections everywhere.

I've heard from English and German visitors that 4 way intersections are frequently disambiguated by a concept of priority roads, and they seem surprised by the relatively smaller number of intersections in SF that stop only one of the roads.

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

#426

Post by NetMageSCW »

markdown wrote: post #282

I don't understand why everyone is talking about the cars when the bigger issue is why the critical infrastructure (lights) don't have batteries for backup.

Because that would be prohibitively expensive (possibly even after the arrival of LED bulbs).

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

#427

Post by NetMageSCW »

SoftTalker wrote: post #144
casion wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsure if sarcasm, but lots of people do that. I do it every day. Some folks enjoy driving.

Yeah it was sarcasm. I enjoy driving also, actually. But I don't just go out and drive for no reason. It's always with a purposeful destination.

That implies less enjoyment than other activities.

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

#428

Post by rangestransform »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #20
terribleperson wrote: post #19

In 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 saw this recently when the lights were out at an intersection in Manhattan. People kept on driving and almost hitting pedestrians and cars. I called 911 and then directed traffic for 15 minutes until DoT came out and put up a temporary stop sign.

Odd that it was necessary, my mental model of manhattan is that it would become so slow and chaotic that it would be free reign for pedestrians to walk wherever

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

#429

Post by rangestransform »

ailurooo wrote: post #176
will4274 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

violent unstable people aren't inherent to cities.. they're inherent to places that refuse to spend any money on social work/housing/and enjoy punishing people

I would rather pick to not be subjected to them than to be subjected to them. NYC spends over 40k/homeless person and I still have to be subjected to them, even though I paid enough taxes to wash my hands of the issue morally

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

#430

Post by rangestransform »

mint5 wrote: post #419
will4274 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 orie…

It could be 10-15min where I am blasted by -10c wind in Boston or Miami torrential rains

Door to door shelter and climate control >>>>>>>>>>>

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