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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

#431

Post by rangestransform »

olyjohn wrote: post #245
scoofy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic doesn’t cause injury. Why are we concerned about traffic flow in a blackout situation. The cars stopped at intersections, EMS could use the oncoming lanes. I’m not seeing how it’s not a fail safe, you’re describing it as not being fail-ideal, and I would agree.

One way roads exist.

First responders have a method of disengaging autonomy and driving the car manually out of the way, described in the waymo first responder manual. Allegedly EMS can’t actually do so due to liability issues, but that is entirely the fault of American litigiousness and not Waymo.

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

#432

Post by autoexec »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #401
autoexec wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was the better solution here then? Just pulling over and getting out of the way really would help. There's no reason a human couldn't do the same safely. Not beta testing your cards on public roads would really be ideal. Especially without human drivers ready to take over.

Is pulling over possible in most cities?

Hopefully, we need people lined up at intersections to do it all the time in order to make way for emergency vehicles.

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

#433

Post by schlauerfox »

I was in hollywood, california last night and saw a waymo come to a weird 5 way intersection, stop past the limit line on a red light in or past the crosswalk at the right turn lane and go into it's sign active attract mode. I think they have some more development to do, and don't recommend using such poorly performing software.

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

#434

Post by fragmede »

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…

There was definitely a second there where they were aggressive enough to run red lights, probably because they kept getting rear-ended by people that were expecting them to run the red light.

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

#435

Post by fragmede »

floxy wrote: post #396
mmmlinux wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. Is there a name for this (and related) effects? Obviously, in a group of several hundred thousand people, there will always be at least a few people that complain about something for the exact opposite reasons. That's not a signal of usefulness. I feel we need a name fo…

We could call it GuinansEyebrows' law, but it's definitely far from new.

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

#436

Post by Zopieux »

dmix wrote: post #186
themafia wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps they haven’t fully thought through the ramifications of it though. There is a chorus of voices here on HN that have tried to do this openly, obviously, myself included. It seems to be almost universally derided by people who apparently assume that we're just trying to hurt a start up out of anti-environmental sentiment and jealousy. There are more ways to get "self-driving cars" wrong than there are to get…

What was the better solution here then? Assuming there's hundreds or thousands of self-driving cars suddenly driving in environment without any traffic lights. In the pictures you can see six Waymo cars at a single intersection. Assuming some of them had passengers should they all try to turn at the intersection anyway, when their LIDAR says the lane is likely free and pull over to the side? Is that the safest option…

The better solution is reducing America's dependency on cars in urban centers to make room for vehicles which actually need to drive, like emergency services, while the rest of the general public uses an excellent public transportation network, whenever politicians finally grow the pair to build one.

Unfortunately HN is still not ready for that discussion despite the year being 2026 in a few days.

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

#437

Post by yunwal »

grayhatter wrote: post #414
potato3732842 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 bec…

I mean, we would all save lives if we just never used a car outside of medical emergencies, but we do, so clearly there's some time/risk tradeoff that's happening.

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

#438

Post by Zambyte »

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…

All public transit is at least an order of magnitude safer than driving a car. 10-15 minutes of walking is called being an inactive human. I promise it won't hurt you (unless you get hit by a car).

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

#439

Post by Zambyte »

rangestransform wrote: post #430
mint5 wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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 >>>>>>>>>>>

As someone who lives (and doesn't own a car!) in the Boston area, coats do wonders :)

I even got a heated jacket this year! Talk about climate control.

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

#440

Post by pdmfz »

KalMann wrote: post #407
smrtinsert wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Triggering some sort of extreme safety mode is considered failing now?

I think this was a failure. The gold standard should be that the if every human driver was replaced with an AI how well could the system function. This makes it look like things would be catastrophic. Thus, showing how humans continue to be much more versatile and capable than AI. I suppose if you lower the standards for what you hope AI can accomplish it wouldn't be considered a failure.

If every human driver was replaced with AI, this situation would have been fine. All the self-driving cars would have respected the four way stop
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