Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes • Hacker News Board

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#61

Post by enjeyw » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:03 AM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #45

spike021 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There's a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That's probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars. I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant. Most times…

Any solution that relies on "let's just make humans beings better" is basically doomed to failure and little more than hand wringing and virtue signalling. Cars have been pervasive for over a century and virtually none of the actual improvements in safety have come from "hoping humans do better".

While you may be correct in this case, I'm not sure what you're claiming is generally true. An equally valid observation is "trying to address social problems with technical solutions is doomed to failure". I wouldn't advocate for solving my country's domestic violence issues with technology for example - a shift in social norms addresses the underlying issue and is far more likely to be long-term effective.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#62

Post by xiphias2 » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #44

nsomaru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks. I drive an aged car and drove a friends recent Mercedes long distance. The thing has a feature where it breaks where it thinks it’s good to break, often just when I need to accelerate to get out of a tight spot. I need the vehicle to respond to my inputs directly, not mix my inputs with what it thinks must be done. It’s extremely unpredictable and it feels like I’m not in control of the car.

If studies show that automatic emergency braking cuts down on deaths overall, I think it's a worthwhile tradeoff -- I'd even be happy to have it be mandatory/non-disableable. It sounds like the car you were driving had some kind of defective implementation of automatic emergency braking. That doesn't invalidate the good that these types of systems do when implemented properly. Also I'm wondering what kind of situatio…

> Even in the case of passing on a two lane road (a situation where I doubt emergency braking would trigger erroneously), you've already made a mistake if a rapid acceleration is needed to avoid a dangerous scenario.

Are you talking about a road with each lane in one direction? Outside US that is the most common way to travel between cities.

It is easy to say that acceleration shouldn't be needed, but that's life right now. When somebody starts overtaking, the better acceleration he has, the safer he can do the maneuver. At that point the car behind the car that takes over may have closen the gap to go back, and emergency braking can be fatal.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#63

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:48 AM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #32

spike021 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There's a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That's probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars. I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant. Most times…

> I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant. If I had a dollar for every person I see driving around in thick rain, or in full darkness with their lights off, I could probably buy a nice new macbook air. It's truly shocking how many people are far from alert and observant while driving. Either because they really don't care, or they've been conditioned to take driving very casually. I us…

This is more of a problem caused by emissive displays replacing traditional gauge clusters. There is no longer any feedback in low light conditions from illegible gauges forcing you to turn on the lights. Automatic headlights (without needing a selectable auto mode) should be mandatory on every vehicle with such a display.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#64

Post by sandos » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

nsomaru wrote: post #43

Animats wrote: post #18

You can read the California DMV's set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are "vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver". There's one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them. The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all hi…

No thanks. I drive an aged car and drove a friends recent Mercedes long distance. The thing has a feature where it breaks where it thinks it’s good to break, often just when I need to accelerate to get out of a tight spot. I need the vehicle to respond to my inputs directly, not mix my inputs with what it thinks must be done. It’s extremely unpredictable and it feels like I’m not in control of the car.

I have got auto-braking on my car and it has never once activated during the 5 years Ive owned it.

It has warned with a beep signal I think 2 times when it deemed the car too close to other traffic.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#65

Post by CobrastanJorji » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:00 AM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #20

Animats wrote: post #18

You can read the California DMV's set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are "vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver". There's one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them. The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all hi…

>The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There's a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That's probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars. I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant. Most times…

Please tell me more about this "proper education of being observant." Do you believe such a thing exists? Does it reliably make people consistently observant? Would it work on me? I would pay a lot of money for such a thing.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#66

Post by colordrops » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:03 AM UTC

potatochup wrote: post #39

Animats wrote: post #18

You can read the California DMV's set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are "vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver". There's one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them. The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all hi…

AEB is great, and I'm super happy that it's going to be standard, but its not going to totally eliminate the rear-ending problem. From wikipedia [1]: > Forward collision warning plus autobrake is associated to a 50% decrease in front to rear crashes. Similar stats are reported from around the world. Low friction surfaces, weird car angles, poor radar/camera visibility and too high entry speed all mean the system isn'…

Or very slow entry speed. My wife rear ended someone while parked because her foot wasn't fully engaged on the break and it creeped forward until it was touching the car in front. It's a tesla so it started beeping but not until it was too late. No visible damage but that didn't stop the other driver from collecting insurance info and reporting it.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#67

Post by Bancakes » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:06 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #18

You can read the California DMV's set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are "vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver". There's one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them. The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all hi…

Sounds like Waymo just can't adapt to the same situation.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#68

Post by Bancakes » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:11 AM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #44

nsomaru wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks. I drive an aged car and drove a friends recent Mercedes long distance. The thing has a feature where it breaks where it thinks it’s good to break, often just when I need to accelerate to get out of a tight spot. I need the vehicle to respond to my inputs directly, not mix my inputs with what it thinks must be done. It’s extremely unpredictable and it feels like I’m not in control of the car.

If studies show that automatic emergency braking cuts down on deaths overall, I think it's a worthwhile tradeoff -- I'd even be happy to have it be mandatory/non-disableable. It sounds like the car you were driving had some kind of defective implementation of automatic emergency braking. That doesn't invalidate the good that these types of systems do when implemented properly. Also I'm wondering what kind of situatio…

It's not a worthwhile tradeoff because erroneously functioning humans are still there, and this tech enables them! Today it's crashing a car, tomorrow it's forgetting to walk your dog or pick up your kids. Mindless humans are the problem and auto braking is just a band aid.

By all means, if auto braking (and in the future - auto driving) is enabled, there must be an option in the OBDII interface to disable it.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#69

Post by yourapostasy » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:14 AM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #65

spike021 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it's shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There's a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That's probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars. I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant. Most times…

Please tell me more about this "proper education of being observant." Do you believe such a thing exists? Does it reliably make people consistently observant? Would it work on me? I would pay a lot of money for such a thing.

Indeed, this is a "take my money", "I'll subscribe to your newsletter" kind of breakthrough that I would dearly like to see everywhere (and in myself!), not just in the context of driving cars.

Re: Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

#70

Post by Bancakes » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 7:15 AM UTC

mindvirus wrote: post #17

This is really cool. I suspect that when we have self driving cars, it's going to take off very quickly due to insurance. In particular, if you are in a non self driving car and in an accident with a self driving one, it'll be hard to not be shown as at fault. So insurance I would guess go up based on the percentage of self driving cars, and likely be really cheap for self driving cars. I wonder if there's a period t…

So who's going to pay for that? Tesla?

No, tech companies will just hide a "Not actually self-driving, driver takes full responsibility" sticker near the VIN. It'll be easy to blame the human for negligence then.