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

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#531

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:22 PM UTC

mckn1ght wrote: post #423

bluGill wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is unpredictable and a driverless car that behaves this way is going to cause problems. Sure, but less problems than if it just kept on going and hit something. While rare regular cars have unpredictable things happen and many of them are a lot worse than a car coming to a controlled stop on the road. As a driver you need to be able to handle that. When there is a catastrophic failure of the vehicle the other ve…

Now I’m just imagining endless gridlock because an AV randomly stops mid highway, and all the other AVs reasonably stop, creating waves of backup. And this happening on a fairly frequent intermittent cycle. Big is different, and scaling this kind of thing to majority of vehicles on the road can cause all sorts of interesting problems. I’m not saying it’s inevitable; sure, we can and most likely will improve things on…

It is better than what most people do now: just keep driving hoping things are safe. If AVs are regularly stopping on the highway that implies there is a problem with the road design.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#532

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

tesseract wrote: post #321

mint2 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren’t littered through CA, in CA they are exclusively in SF. In SF they are common and as they seem to drive nonstop, take more road time than a comparable number of normal cars. They don’t stop and wait between fares, they seem to drive aimlessly in routes like ghosts or lost souls.

In the Palo Alto/Mountain View/Sunnyvale area I see Waymo, Nuro, and unmarked-but-we-all-know-it's-Apple autonomous vehicles quite frequently. A few times a week at least. Cruise specifically operated in SF where I agree they have been a very common sight.

Wait, I thought Apple had given up on it's car project?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#533

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #385

bluGill wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sound like trips where you shouldn't call a car at all, but get on the local transit service. Talk to your local politicians about fixing service so that is an option. Self driving cars are useful to replace various maintenance or delivery trucks in cities, and farm transport. However mass transit is better for most things people are thinking about them for.

If the bus had dynamic routing, so it could show up where I am when I’m ready, and take me where I want to go, I’d be a huge fan. I don’t mean this ironically! I think dynamically dispatched, self-driving buses and vans will eventually save public transit. They’ll enable a much higher quality of service than current bus systems. Which drive around mostly-empty stopping every few blocks so it takes forever to get anyw…

You don't want dynamic routing. You want frequent predictable routing.

Dynamic means you call and 1-15 minutes later a bus comes. Then it takes you to your destination, but you have no idea when you will get there because sometimes it takes long detours for someone else.

Frequent predictable routing means when you feel like leaving you just walk out the door confident that the bus will be there soon (even if you see it pulling away just as you arrive), and you quickly learn which buses to transfer to, to get where you want to be.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#534

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

ternaus wrote: post #522

So sad. We, I mean humanity, need an example that L4 self driving is possible. When SpaceX showed that private company can access space and build a product in the area world changed. Startup founders, investors, government changed their opinion and many space companies were created and trying to do things that they would not even consider before SpaceX: Astra, Rocket Labs, Planet Labs, Firefly, etc (Great book on the…

[deleted]

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#535

Post by dopamean » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

pie420 wrote: post #361

dopamean wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's literally no way you know this for a fact.

The comment you are replying to starts with "My day-to-day experience..."

Yes and then go on to say something they could not possibly know for a fact. In my day to day experience Cruise cars are, mile for mile, far worse than human drivers . How could I possibly know that? I've had a couple bad encounters with Cruise cars but I've had countless encounters with human drivers in between all those. How could either of us possibly know which one is better "mile for mile." It's a ridiculous thing to say. By couching it with "in my experience" they attempt to make it sound like they're just talking about their personal experience but then they go on to say something that sounds rather objective and _could_ be measured (but wasn't).

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#536

Post by JoblessWonder » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

Solvency wrote: post #285

tmpz22 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are these autonomous vehicles so littered throughout California that you run into them weekly? In SF yes. Even small amounts of driving in certain areas will have multiple daily interactions with these vehicles.

Where can I see videos (in the wild, not corporate) of this? I've never seen one in my life, though I'm in LA.

It is probably an odd thing to find because in SF they really are everywhere. I don't live in SF but visit a few times a year and after the first time I saw one they just sort of became part of the cityscape and not worth filming.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#537

Post by bluGill » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

mikebenfield wrote: post #483

bluGill wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sound like trips where you shouldn't call a car at all, but get on the local transit service. Talk to your local politicians about fixing service so that is an option. Self driving cars are useful to replace various maintenance or delivery trucks in cities, and farm transport. However mass transit is better for most things people are thinking about them for.

> Talk to your local politicians about fixing service so that is an option. Lots of people have been trying to get decent public transit in US cities for decades. There is so much resistance it often seems impossible. So, yes, obviously public transit would be great. But right now, and for the foreseeable future, it's just not an option for most people. "Talk to your local politicians about fixing service" sounds del…

A small minority has been trying. A larger number of people (but still a minority) get interested in it, but they don't care about fixing transit. They just care about shoveling money to someone else (unions, contractors, artists...) and transit is one way to do that.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#538

Post by dekhn » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:29 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #310

I had an epiphany about self driving recently late at night on the streets of San Francisco. It was a somewhat deserted part of town, and the roads were empty. There was a lone Cruise car chugging along and constantly stopping at red lights. The signals were so badly optimized that the car would be the only one waiting at a completely empty intersection for minutes at a time, only to be stopped again at the next one,…

Most intersections in the Bay Area have magnetic sensors underground to detect cars and expedite a green when appropriate.

Where was this mile-long stretch? 3rd street?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#539

Post by ethbr1 » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:29 PM UTC

pbarnes_1 wrote: post #521

fhub wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since it seems people are interested. I had one situation which this sort of thing made me a bit uneasy (So one gripe actually). I was sitting back right seat. Waymo was waiting to make an unprotected left turn over two lanes. There was a vehicle waiting to also make an unprotected left in the other direction. Behind it was a truck. Waymo made that turn where I wouldn't have. I thought it through after and it had at…

I've been in this situation, and it's something that seems to get tweaked every week. They definitely pushed the "aggressive" lever up a little over the last month. I think it's one of those cases where it's sort of obvious it can calculate trajectories and speeds much better than a human, so it's a safe manoeuvre in theory, but it "feels" bad as a passenger. Same thing for where it can see that it can squeeze throug…

One huge advantage sensor-equiped vehicles have is knowing velocity and acceleration of traffic around them.

Human drivers are often conservative because they don't know the speed/acceleration of a potentially colliding vehicle.

We look at something and estimate (How fast? Speeding up or slowing down?), but we don't know.

If you could put an actual number on it, I think you could drive a lot more "aggressively" and still be perfectly safe.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#540

Post by mike_d » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 9:29 PM UTC

pbarnes_1 wrote: post #515

fhub wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective, as a relatively early adopter of Waymo (60+ rides). I have zero gripes with the driving itself. In fact I've seen Waymos do things that no human would be able to do*. Drop-offs and pickups I'd like to see improvements made like getting a bit closer to the curb. Occasionally the route selections make no sense at all. * Waymo made a right turn up a steep hill. Two lanes each way. It then pulled a b…

I saw a Waymo come to a screeching halt in a split second as a... less than intelligent individual... skateboarded in front of a bus, into the extremely busy road . If it was a human that person would have been dead, no question. Sometimes I'm riding in a Waymo (which I do every single day, 4x) and it does something, and I double take. Then a second later I see whatever it was it reacted to, and I'm like "dang, why d…

Waymo is amazing, knowing some of the stuff they do behind the scenes to ensure safety - I would feel safer riding in a Waymo than driving myself.

My biggest fear has always been that Cruise or Tesla would shit the bed so bad we don't get any self-driving, either because of regulatory constraints or ruining the public perception of them.