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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

#431

Post by xorcist »

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.

I have never once heard self-driving cars sold with the argument "they're great for sleep deprived and alcoholics".

Maybe they should be.

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

#432

Post by talldatethrow »

fragmede wrote: post #427
talldatethrow wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had a new born to take home from the hospital and were 20 miles from home.. would you take an autonomous car or have you or a family member drive you home?

With emotions running high surrounding this newborn, me, or a family member, is likely to be stressed, under-slept, possibly drinking. Why wouldn't I want this hypothetical autonomous car to take us all home safely?

Because the math shows that currently it drives about as bad as a sometimes high, drunk, sleepy, angry person. If you had a family member that cared about you available to drive, they would be much safer than the typical ai car right now.

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

#433

Post by hot_gril »

girvo wrote: post #169
topkai22 wrote: post #5

I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.

> there are stop signs in all 4 directions This is a complete aside, but woah, is this common in SF? They simply aren't used here where I am (roundabouts are used instead) Like they're uncommon enough that theres a news article on it in a different state: https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/fourw... A four way stop sign seems like an absolute downgrade compared to a roundabout, but thats my local b…

I like roundabouts, but don't they require more space?

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

#434

Post by promiseofbeans »

digbybk wrote: post #9
monkaiju wrote: post #3

Cant believe these things are allowed on the road...

What’s the relative likelihood that a waymo car will hit a cyclist or pedestrian vs a human operated car? Unfortunately for us cyclists, people are hit by human drivers every day.

I'm guessing lower - the Waymo car started braking aggressively as soon as it saw the cyclist, and the cyclist escaped with only scratches. Given our slower response times, the cyclist probably wouldn't have been as lucky with a human driver.

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

#435

Post by xorcist »

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #361
zx8080 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thare's a, probably not very obvious, situation when human could have no such accident in the same scenario. At all. Preventing an accident does not leave any trace. No one knows about the scenario if there's no accident. How many similar (and others) accidents are being prevented by human drivers daily, and no one knows about them, at all? We just don't know. That's why I take any stats of "human vs AI" driving with…

We can compare this statistically by looking at accidents per 1,000,000 miles driven of autonomous cars vs humans. Over long mileage, the rate of prevented accidents shows up in the data as a lower overall accident rate. I don't have the stats at hand but Waymo does great on this stat. Now, that's not to say that Waymo would avoid any specific accident better than a human. But from a public health standpoint, that's…

That's terrible statistics. Let children drive and the self-driving cars would be, on average, even more safe!

Comparisons should be made 1) with the median, not the average, and 2) under the same conditions.

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

#436

Post by jessekv »

topkai22 wrote: post #5

I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.

Stop-as-yield for bikes is the actual law in 8 states including Washington and Oregon.

This raises the question, should the car drive differently in those states?

https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2022-03/Bicyclis...

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

#437

Post by CalRobert »

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…

As somebody who uses a bike as primary mode of transport for myself and my entire family, it's pretty normal for American officials to immediately blame people on bikes for getting killed. I would be thrilled to see them be as concerned about humans killing people with cars as about computers doing it.

Honestly I'd feel much safer if all cars were not driven by humans.

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

#438

Post by hot_gril »

eurleif wrote: post #401
resolutebat wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. I know that my odds are different from the average.

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

#439

Post by CalRobert »

flakes wrote: post #350
teekert wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m happy that in the Netherlands it’s ALWAYS the car driver’s responsibility (she always pays).

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…

A lot of pedestrians are kids, who by their nature are erratic. Saying that it's the kid's fault for getting hit because they were "erratic" is effectively banning children from walking places, which is exactly what the US has done ("WHy don't kids play outside anymore???")

The person operating the dangerous machinery where there could be people walking bears responsibility for not hitting people.

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

#440

Post by hot_gril »

kaba0 wrote: post #414
resolutebat wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In no possible future would we see an immediate change from human drivers to 100% self-driving, so self-driving ought to co-exist with human drivers, both the better than average, and the drunk ones. I’m absolutely not convinced that an AI would fair better at handling a drunk driver’s driving style compared to a competent human. The statistics help AI due to them being good at handling monotony, but that doesn’t nec…

In a few places, driving too passively (as AI cars seem to do) will cause aggressive drivers to create dangerous situations for you. They don't want to be stuck behind someone who's letting people in. I also wonder if the AI cars go the speed limit on freeways, cause sometimes that's worse than matching traffic that's speeding a bit.
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