Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods • Hacker News Board

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#471

Post by rkuykendall-com » Sat, May 23, 2026, 12:35 AM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #425

Sharlin wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An alternate viewpoint is that it looks like after 20 years they still haven't even started solving weather issues that you encounter anywhere outside a California climate.

That's the reality. For both them and Apple. By the way, can these robotaxis handle intersections that aren't at 90 degrees?

Take a look at `2313 NW Military Hwy # 100, San Antonio, TX 78231`

This is an intersection I myself felt daunting my first few years driving. It is within Waymo's San Antonio coverage, and they seem to be handling that just fine.

However, they had to pause them recently related to a lost car, due to, drum roll please... flooding.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#472

Post by dangus » Sat, May 23, 2026, 1:14 AM UTC

thereisnospork wrote: post #330

dangus wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is claiming AGI is around the corner, isn’t that supposed to be at least comparable to a 3 year old? I assume you don’t have kids or know any kids if you don’t think they’re able to judge puddle sizes at age 3. Why shouldn’t I make the comparison? Waymo is attempting to replace human drivers. That means it needs to make something smarter than humans at driving.

The point that it is a reasonable comparison: being able to reasonably compare the performance of a lump of silicon to a human being at a complex task in the real world means the Overton window has shifted, massively, from say 5 years ago. You compared it to a child, not a toaster. In a few years to a few decades I'm sure you will whine about how Waymo cant even measure up to Michael Schumacher and they should just t…

Recall that Waymo’s solution isn’t 100% AI or even close to it. It predates the LLM era and operates on streets that are 100% 3D mapped.

Real life humans take over operation of the vehicle when difficult situations occur. They don’t drive like a remote control but they drive by making decisions for the vehicle.

Cars have been “self-driving” in video games and other simulations for decades and they don’t need neural processing to avoid objects, follow traffic rules, and stay within lanes.

Google said AGI is around the corner, and yet Waymo still relies on a customized vehicle absolutely draped in lidar and other sensors. If AGI is around the corner they should be able to remove those sensors and go all cameras like Tesla (which of course we all know performs far worse and requires human supervision).

It’s not really some kind of gotcha Overton window shift the way you describe it to compare self driving to intelligent human drivers, especially when the self-driving isn’t being done using AI, and when self-driving is extremely late to market based on what was promised.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#473

Post by jdmichal » Sat, May 23, 2026, 1:46 AM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #453

jdmichal wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The storm surge goes up (and a whole bunch of water falls on top of it). The storm surge goes down. This isn't some river bursting it's banks. FEMA has a flood rating specifically for exactly this situation: V. They have this because it carries additional hazards beyond normal flooding seen with storms. > Coastal areas with a 1% or greater chance of flooding and an additional hazard associated with storm waves. The…

Once again, this sort of reddit-esque penchant for projecting general guidance and engineering standards into specific situations misses the mark. Someone in a subdivision that's a few miles inland with a mangrove swamp between it and the ocean anyway has to care about New Orleans style flooding, not "what sea state is my picture window rated for" flooding. Like there's a reason that Florida building code just says t…

I live in Tampa Bay, so I'm quite familiar. It's pretty rare to have a V rating, precisely for many of the reasons you mentioned. But, at the same time, handwaving it away as unimportant is also silly. It's an immensely more dangerous situation to be in flooding with moving water, as opposed to just rising water conditions. If nothing else, it's important to know for evacuation purposes. I would never willingly stay in a V-rated zone if there was a chance of storm surge. Then again, I didn't buy the V-rated house I wanted and instead found a house 40 feet above sea level, so maybe that's just my risk profile.

And I didn't disagree with you regarding building. You were wrong about storm surge always being static -- it mostly is, but importantly sometimes isn't. But you weren't wrong that there's not a lot to do about it. This is one of those situations where nature will win if it wants to. Best thing you can do is just not be there when it does.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#474

Post by Rekindle8090 » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:27 AM UTC

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Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#475

Post by krupan » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:33 AM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #291

sarchertech wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitches from new situations. This is also a huge disadvantage because any flaws in the software that don’t show up in a slow rollout will be present in every single car. It’s a contrived example, but say a new billboard campaign rolls out tha…

Waymo has had a ton of problems like their fleets getting stuck circling a particular block or neighborhood. That's been a thing for years. There was a story about it happening in a new city, just a week or two ago. Even fairly far into their roll-out they clearly didn't do any simulations of the vehicle getting pulled over or interacting with police, and that sort of thing continued to be a problem for a while. I re…

My friend, have you seen the standard that human drivers are held to? One accident, one infraction should probably cancel your driver's license, at least for some amount of time, but we just say oops, pay $150 and keep going.

Do you know how many people die in car accidents each year? More than are killed by guns (you know, tools which are designed for killing people). It's insane that we let humans drive at all. Waymo's safety record is fine.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#476

Post by krupan » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #403

dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

To me it looks like it's a problem with the "default attitude" (can't think of a better name) of the Waymo driving software. When a human sees that the road surface ahead is in some unknown condition (flooded, covered in lava, whatever) they usually default to caution - better stop and check first. While Waymo apparently defaults to blithely driving ahead, after all its maps tell it that there's a road ahead and it d…

That is so not true of humans or Waymos

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#477

Post by krupan » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:38 AM UTC

cheesecompiler wrote: post #466

dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

And to me it seems like you're justifying a lack of oversight and dangers of this technology for what purpose exactly? Why are you defending a corporation?

Are you talking about automobile technology in general? Human operated vehicles kill a lot of people each year. People get tiny slaps on the wrist for breaking the law on the roads, crashing into other cars, crashing into pedestrians. It's actually really hard to lose your driver's license. We can probably give Waymo a little leeway for driving into a puddle that's deeper than it estimated

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#478

Post by krupan » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:44 AM UTC

HDBaseT wrote: post #309

dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

A human has to pass a test to be able to drive. A human (for the most part) doesn't just unknowingly drive into floods. Why aren't we holding computers to AT LEAST the same expectation as humans.

I love when people bring this up. When was the last time anyone here had to pass an actual driving test, like where you have to physically drive a car? For me, age 16, which was more years ago than I like to count.

How many licenses do we revoke for violating traffic laws? Getting into a car crash? Injuring someone in a car crash? Killing someone in a car crash? Not nearly enough! We are so lax about driving it's insane. But you want to hold these robot cars to some much higher standard? I mean, ok, but how much higher? It's a really freaking low bar right now

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#479

Post by krupan » Sat, May 23, 2026, 5:47 AM UTC

overfeed wrote: post #155

themafia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your premise is "robotaxis are so much better than human drivers" then this is almost a disaster. This is only the 10th city they've deployed to, all in the south, and nowhere there's significantly inclement weather. It does not bode well for their expansion plans.

> This is only the 10th city they've deployed to, all in the south, and nowhere there's significantly inclement weather You may be relieved to hear Waymo is rolling out to Portland, Oregon. It's not in the south, and with over 150 rainy days per year, it ranks among the rainiest US cities.

I'm a Waymo supporter, but I hate to break it to you, Portland gets less inches of rain per year than most major US cities.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#480

Post by NiloCK » Sat, May 23, 2026, 6:17 AM UTC

qsera wrote: post #463

NiloCK wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about many things, including reaction speed, visual awareness, specific expertise and informed decision making wrt braking or acceleration power. All of these are better in a modern self-driving car (I do not know whether Tesla falls into this category) than in a human. https://waymo.com/safety/impact/ Over a given driving distance, compared to humans, Waymos produce a 90% reduction in serious injury, 90% reduct…

Reaction speed does not matter if the driver can anticipate things before they happen. Actually I think what makes a good driver is ones ability to anticipate. I don't think computers are anywhere near a human in that regard. >visual awareness A point cloud and some computer vision is not "visual awareness". Your statistics is also biased is of its source. But in very controlled environments and for sedentary pace of…

80-90% reduction, over the course of 170 million miles driven on the famously very controlled city streets of LA, SF, Austin and Phoenix.

On average, I wouldn't expect the regulatory agencies to be very friendly toward outright fraudulent reporting from Waymo. On the very outside, maybe these 80-90% reductions are optimistic roundups from 50-65% reductions. Or do you believe that Waymo is secretly running people down and scooping corpses into their trunks?

What is a sedentary pace of driving?