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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

#461

Post by godelski »

littlestymaar wrote: post #413
godelski wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're in the write direction but I think you don't have the right words to describe what you're trying to describe. I made a sister comment, but if I correctly understand you, then it would be more accurate to say that the averaged statistic removes important variables for making accurate conclusions. We need not look at your mother, but we can consider different environments. I think most of us would say it would b…

> why you should be suspicious when anyone discusses averages I like to say that the average human being has one testicle and half a vagina, which is not very representative of anyone around. > On that note, the median and average are always within one standard deviation of another Oh really? That's cool.

Haha yeah that is accurate. The right language is situational though haha. People are generally overconfident in their ability to mathematically describe things. There's a clique "all models are wrong" and like all cliques it is something everyone can repeat but not internalize lol

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

#462

Post by ExoticPearTree »

babl-yc wrote: post #103
FireBeyond wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most treat it as a yield (myself included) because it's a pain to start+stop at every stop sign. Sure. It's a pain for cars to start and stop at every stop sign too. So?

I drive and bike. It's more annoying on a bike to come to a complete stop.

> I drive and bike. It's more annoying on a bike to come to a complete stop.

That's a side effect of your choice, not an excuse to blow through stop signs.

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

#463

Post by ExoticPearTree »

maxwellg wrote: post #219
babelfish wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone can't follow traffic laws, they shouldn't be on the road (regardless of mode of transportation)

Insisting that a bicycle needs to follow the same procedures as a 3000lb internal combustion engine driven vehicle is madness. The vast majority of car laws are completely inappropriate for bicycles. Bicycles are much smaller, go much slower, can stop much faster, etc.

Then ride in dedicated bike lanes, but don't make up excuses why you should break the laws just because they are inconvenient to you.

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

#464

Post by godelski »

resolutebat wrote: post #379
godelski wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because coming to a full stop at a stop sign makes no sense for riders with high visibility. For anyone wondering why I give an explanation here[0]. The tldr is you need to move to be safe and it is harder to get a bike moving than it is a car. It's best to contextualize any such arguments around the operations that go into operating the vehicle and cars and bikes have a lot of differences. Those differences are wh…

The comment you link to has been flagged.

Thanks for the notice, I'm not too concerned though. I didn't violate any rules. People must be upset that I made an argument that it can be safer to not come to a full and complete stop. But I'm not making the argument that it is safe to blindly blow throw an intersection either. Given the comments I'm seeing, it appears that it is difficult to differentiate these two things.

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

#465

Post by cm2187 »

sandos wrote: post #457

Uhh.... thinking ahead of risks, and especially hidden cyclists and pedestrians is something that is taught in basic drivers ed here in Sweden. How can this not be the fault of the car? It should have realized that, yes, I am completely blind regarding whoever comes out from behind the truck, I should slow down. I guess there are some qualifications here. If there was a severely low probability of a cyclist there, an…

If I understood what happened, not in this case. When you drive through an intersection, you assume that the traffic coming in the opposite direction who wants to turn will give you priority, as I believe is the rule in every jurisdiction. It seems to me here that the cyclist made a turn without looking if cars were coming in the opposite direction.

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

#466

Post by concordDance »

I really worry reporting incidents like this will skew the stats against self driving cars.

As a cyclist I've been involved in two very minor collisions, neither of which would have been reported. If Waymo is reporting everything that results in just a scrape or bruise it's going to have a very inflated accident per mile rate.

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

#467

Post by godelski »

Terr_ wrote: post #424
godelski wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised by the content of your links, but I can say I'm disappointed. After all, surprise and disappointment are different things.

> After all, surprise and disappointment are different things. Hmmm... I think I gave it a honest try, but I'm still having trouble making that fit. I mean, both are when the unexpected occurs, one is just more-specific, where the unexpected leads to a negative emotional response. Perhaps shocked versus disappointed?

In a similar comment I gave an example and maybe that'll help. I can leave my food in the oven too long and I will not be surprised to find that it is burnt, but I will definitely be disappointment that I ruined my meal. I think this should clarify and why I was a bit snarky lol. While they often correlate they are not the same.

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

#468

Post by ExoticPearTree »

dmix wrote: post #280
genocidicbunny wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I am willing to concede that on a bike, as long as you are just slow rolling and not impinging on the right of way such that it confuses other drivers, it's fine. But I have also seen plenty of cyclists who slow roll into the middle of the lane and then act indignant when they get honked at for blocking traffic; At that point, there's very little difference from having just blown through the intersection at full…

Yes there is a hostility between drivers and bikers and bikers and cars, where they both build up resentment and settled for this hostile middle ground where they both treat the others poorly. Not to mention plenty of people in both are just dumb or ignorant of their surroundings

Just to nitpick a little, let's use the word cyclists, not bikers. I feel that bikers actually obey traffic signs more than cyclists do.

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

#469

Post by cm2187 »

willvarfar wrote: post #450
xorcist wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have always wanted a self-driving car so there's no more "designated driver" hassle with going out.

Same, there are few places I go to I may not come back drunk!

This, and freeing up the streets from parked cars. If cars are self driving they can go park themselves into some big, far away car parks instead of clogging the streets. In europe it can easily multiply by 2 or 3 the throughput of most big cities.

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

#470

Post by godelski »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #355
godelski wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't hate cyclists, I've used a bike as a primary form of transport for much of my life. But especially in the US, dangerous behavior from cyclists seems to be proportionally much more common than dangerous behavior by Waymos. So yeah, it's easy to believe that a cyclist just kind of blew the stop sign when they shouldn't have.

> behavior from cyclists seems to be proportionally much more common than dangerous behavior by Waymos

I'm not trying to take any position to this notion. I don't know the facts. I only know that not coming to a complete stop (different from blowing throw an intersection!) does not equate to dangerous behavior. You'll find another link that shows evidence otherwise. "Stop-as-yield" laws would be worth looking into if you're interested.

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