California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment • Hacker News Board

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#501

Post by CSMastermind » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:02 PM UTC

olex wrote: post #351

gcampos wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is actually an interesting question. We track how many accidents the automated cars cause, but I'm not sure how many accidents they prevent are tracked.

That metric is tracked indirectly, by the lower number of accidents that AVs are involved in per distance travelled compared to human-driven vehicles.

> by the lower number of accidents that AVs are involved in per distance travelled compared to human-driven vehicles

Just a note that this number is hard to calculate accurately with an acceptable degree of certainty.

Anyone claiming that AVs are involved in fewer accidents per distance traveled than human drivers is either extrapolating from incomplete data or baking some unreliable assumptions into their statement.

Welch Labs has a good introductory video to this topic: https://youtu.be/yaYER2M8dcs?si=XEB4aWlYf6gnnTqM

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#502

Post by fiddlerwoaroof » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #421

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had several low-light situations where my Tesla identified a pedestrian and applied the brakes before I did (typically dark clothing on a dark street).

Ditto, FWIW. The car may not always behave like a human does in those circumstances[1], but at this point it's objectively much better at the attention and recognition side of the task. [1] It tends to be more conservative than human drivers, and in weird ways. If a pedestrian seems at all to be moving in the direction of traffic, even if they're on a sidewalk and just meandering a bit, the car will try to evade (not…

Yeah, if anything, my Tesla’s issues seem to stem from being overly concerned about accidents than being recklessly dangerous.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#503

Post by bumby » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #245

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

My day-to-day experience with Cruises on the road is much better, mile for mile, than with human drivers. Cruise's failures, in my view, have come broadly at the long tail where their cars stall out entirely in the road due and it cascades to other Cruises.

“The long tail” are usually what causes safety issues, though. Easily identifiable and relatively high probability events are the ones more commonly mitigated. The low-probability events are the ones that tend to fall through the cracks and tend not to be obvious except in hindsight.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#504

Post by dkarl » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:04 PM UTC

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #363

dkarl wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it ironic that the human driver is still at large Ironic but completely expected. We have normalized and accepted the awfulness of human drivers to a degree that people just don't comprehend. Human would be terrible drivers even if you ignored the fact that many of them are chemically impaired, even if you ignored the fact that they are prone to rage and aggression. As we consider the safety of self-driving…

The problem is that you can't punish a car. If a human being had done that they would have absolutely had the book thrown at them. There was a case where a woman was drunk driving and hit a man, he came up over the hood and into her windshield. He was alive but bleeding. She drove home and parked her car in the garage. He bled out through the night. NO ONE was sympathetic towards that woman. But if an automated vehic…

> If a human being had done that they would have absolutely had the book thrown at them.

Really? If they had been in a car accident caused by another driver, and took a few seconds to pull over because they were unaware they were dragging a person initially hit by the other driver, they would have been charged?

It's very hard to hold people responsible, and it's telling that you had to cite such a grisly and outrageous example. Unless you're drunk or it's a hit-and-run, you're unlikely to face any charges beyond a traffic violation.

> You watch, someone will start offering insurance for that liability.

Of course? Exactly like we've mandated for human drivers since the 1970s?

All this hand-wringing about things that we've accepted our whole lives with human drivers.

I'll say it again: we need data-driven approach to figuring out when autonomous vehicles reach the threshold of becoming less deadly than human drivers. If we jump the gun and allow widespread adoption too soon, people will die unnecessarily. If we drag our feet and allow widespread adoption too late, people will die unnecessarily.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#505

Post by tristanb » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

Good. These things have been a real danger around my neighborhood. They are not currently safe. They do not understand crosswalks, and will drive towards pedestrians who are on them until they move. Additionally every time i've encountered a safety issue Cruise have not been accessible to take the report. So I went above and beyond to make sure i reported it. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv-autonomous-vehicles-feedba...

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#506

Post by Mathnerd314 » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

olex wrote: post #351

gcampos wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is actually an interesting question. We track how many accidents the automated cars cause, but I'm not sure how many accidents they prevent are tracked.

That metric is tracked indirectly, by the lower number of accidents that AVs are involved in per distance travelled compared to human-driven vehicles.

Not sure that's fair - the number of accidents in human-driven vehicles varies significantly by the human driving it. Do you compare with the teen that just obtained their license and is more interested in their phone than in driving properly, or the 65-year old doctor who's been driving for work and other purposes every day for the past 40 years? According to https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/age-of-dr... it's at least a 6x difference.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#507

Post by kradroy » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

dilippkumar wrote: post #392

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #34

As a pedestrian I'm not a fan of being an unwitting part of a private company's beta testing. Before this devolves into whatboutism vs the safety of human drivers, my opposition is to adding yet another unknown safety layer to walking down the street. Usually when private companies are developing products that could kill, drugs for example, it is on the company to exhaustively prove the safety and effectiveness befor…

> It seems odd that self driving cars have been skipping this step. [Citation needed]

I have doubts about this too. I remember seeing a Humvee autonomously driving around the CMU campus back in 1998. I get the feeling research institutions and, now, product companies have been working closely with local city governments about safely releasing these into the wild for some time.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#508

Post by danielmarkbruce » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

eep_social wrote: post #82

But not Waymo. Which confirms all my personal biases. More seriously, the statement cites four specific clauses that caused the permit to be suspended. The second one seems really interesting as it implies that there was a lie of omission where the others are more or less what I’d expect regarding safety risks: > Today’s suspensions are based on the following: > 13 CCR §228.20 (b) (6) – Based upon the performance of…

What biases? Are you saying you expected Waymo to be better than Cruise?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#509

Post by ghaff » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #410

pie420 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vision Zero is literally the least effective program out there. Almost every metric they track has gotten worse in the past 5 years

Vision zero when done correctly makes a big difference. However useful changes are often expensive so instead they do cheap things (like put up signs, and flyers) that don't really make a difference. Rebuilding just a mile of a side street would cost $10 million. If it is a major road the cost goes up, and if you need to put in bridges the costs is very high. A useful change to a single intersection can costs more th…

>We have the ability to do more testing and training.

This claim gets made a lot but, while I'm not sure how you would test this, I'm not really convinced that an expensive driving school and more rigorous driving test moves the needle much relative to just a lot of hours on the road and perhaps becoming more mature with age. My recollection is that my driving almost certainly approved with a year or two of driving after I got my license; you're not going to replicate that amount of driving with training/testing.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#510

Post by Steltek » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #501

olex wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That metric is tracked indirectly, by the lower number of accidents that AVs are involved in per distance travelled compared to human-driven vehicles.

> by the lower number of accidents that AVs are involved in per distance travelled compared to human-driven vehicles Just a note that this number is hard to calculate accurately with an acceptable degree of certainty. Anyone claiming that AVs are involved in fewer accidents per distance traveled than human drivers is either extrapolating from incomplete data or baking some unreliable assumptions into their statement.…

Can someone summarize the video? That was my first thought as well: crash data for humans is clearly underreported. For example, police don't always write reports or human drivers agree to keep it off the books.