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Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

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Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#471

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

Yup. And to add > Waymo said in its blog post that its “peer-reviewed model” shows a “fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.” It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. With a distracted driver (a huge portion of human drivers) it could've been catastrophic.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse.

Why is it likely? Are we taking the vendor's claims in a blog post as truth?

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#472
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's standards for when they're willing to cede control over their lives both as the passenger and the pedestrian in the situation to a machine are higher than a human. And for not totally irrational reasons like machine follows programming and does not fear death, or with 100% certainty machine has bugs which will eventually end up killing someone for a really stupid reason—and nobody wants that to be them. Then…

>People's standards for when they're willing to cede control over their lives both as the passenger and the pedestrian in the situation to a machine are higher than a human. Are they? It is now clear that Tesla FSD is much worse than a human driver and yet there has been basically no attempt by anyone in government to stop them.

> basically no attempt by anyone in government to stop them.

No one in the _US_ government. Note that European governments and China haven't approved it in the first place.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#473
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you imagine being dumb enough to drive over the speed limit around a double parked SUV in a school zone? Can you imagine being dumb enough to think that exceeding a one size fits all number on a sign by As if 2mph would have fundamentally changed this. Pfft. A double parked car, in an area with chock full street parking (hence the double park) and "something" that's a magnet for pedestrians, and probably a bunc…

The default, with good visibility in ideal conditions, should be to not exceed the speed limit. In a school zone, when in a situation of low visibility, the car should likely be going significantly below the speed limit. So, it's not a case of 17mph vs 15mph, but more like 17mph vs 10mph or 5mph.

>The default, with good visibility in ideal conditions, should be to not exceed the speed limit.

Please pass this message on to 99.999% of human drivers who think speed limit is the minimum speed.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#474

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

> remained stopped, moved to the side of the road

Stopped or moved? Is it allowed in CA to move car at all after a serious accident happens?

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was going 17 mph. That is rather slow. To put it another way. If an autonomous vehicle has a reaction time of 0.3 seconds, the stopping distance from 17 mph is about the same as a fully alert human driver (1 second reaction time) driving 10.33 mph.

>It was going 17 mph. That is rather slow. There's a case to be made that it wasn't slow enough.

I have a hard time believing that a human driver would be as slow as this Waymo, or even slower. I drive my kid to school where it's posted 20mph and there are cameras (with plenty of warnings about the presence of said cameras) and witness a constant string of flashes from the camera nailing people for speeding through there.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm picturing a 10 second clip showing a child with a green box drawn around them, and position of gas and brake, updating with superhuman reactions. That would be the best possible marketing that any of these self driving companies could hope for, and Waymo probably now has such a video sitting somewhere.

I dont think Waymo is interested in using a video of their car striking a child as marketing.

It depends on the video. What they should do is arrange for the video to get leaked and let the Internet courts argue about it, and then based on the Internet verdict, come out and claim it's real and they fired somebody for leaking it, or it's AI generated.

Love him or hate him, releasing the video is something I can see Elon doing because assuming a human driver would have done worse, it speaks for itself. Release a web video game where the child sometimes jumps out in front of the car, and see how fast humans respond like the "land Starship" game. Assuming humans would do worse, that is. If the child was clearly visible through the car or some how else avoidable by humans, then I'd be hiding the video too.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#478

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

In fact I would call that “superhuman” behavior across the board. The vast vast vast majority of human drivers would not have been able to accomplish that braking procedure that quickly, and then would not have been able to manage the follow up so quickly. I have watched other parent drivers in the car pick up line at public schools for the last 16 years and people are absolutely trash at navigating that whole proces…

How do you know how quickly the software braked? A blog post by a company selling a product is not credible material. We need independent sources.

> The vast vast vast majority of human drivers ... would not have been able to manage the follow up so quickly

You are saying the "vast vast vast majority of human drivers" wouldn't pull over after hitting a child?

I remember similar blind faith in and unlimited advocacy for anything Tesla and Musk said, and look how that has turned out. These are serious issues for the people in our communities, not a sporting event with sides.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#479
post #474

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

> remained stopped, moved to the side of the road Stopped or moved? Is it allowed in CA to move car at all after a serious accident happens?

If the person got up and walked away I'm not sure what damage you'd be doing by reasonably removing your car from blocking others while waiting for police.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#480
post #452
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. We'd have to see video of the full scene to have a better judgement, but I wouldn't call it likely. The car reacted quickly once it saw the child. Is that enough? But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. Are there muliple kids milling around on the sidewalk? Near a school? Is there a big truck/SUV parked th…

Your opinion of "most humans" is vastly overinflated. The median human driver would be going 5 over the speed limit, on their cell phone, and paying fuck all attention. Humans never drive as slow as 17 mph, even in the context of being directly in front of schools with visible children.

You're describing the median driver in America or India. This is not universal.
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