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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

#621

Post by Dylan16807 »

consumer451 wrote: post #602
Noumenon72 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a runaway process of prioritizing safety over convenience -- and it's wrecking their road base just before self-driving cars would allow them to have both.

I was wondering how much convenience is worth one kid's life. This thread reminded me of some interesting terms like "value of statistical life." It appears that all those annoying low speed limits and purposeful obstructions in residential areas really do save lives. > An evaluation of 20 mph zones in the UK demonstrated that the zones were effective both in reducing traffic speed and in reducing RTIs. In particular…

20mph residential is pretty close to standard. Note the Waymo car was going slower than that. That's far from the 5mph GP was reacting too, or the super tight curves.

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

#622

Post by somenameforme »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

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.

You're omitting the context provided by the article. This wasn't just a random scenario. Not only was this by an elementary school, but during school drop off hours, with both children and doubled parked cars in the vicinity. If somebody doesn't know what double parking is - it's when cars parallel park beside one another, implicitly on the road, making it difficult to see what's beyond them.

So you are around young children with visibility significantly impaired because of double parking. I'd love to see video of the incident because driving 17mph (27kph for metric types) in this context is reckless and not something human would typically do, because a kid popping out from behind one of those cars is not only unsurprising but completely expected.

Another reason you also slow way down in this scenario is one of those cars suddenly swinging open their door which, again, would not be particularly surprising in this sort of context.

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

#624

Post by BurningFrog »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #605
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like you have to say this out loud because many people in these discussions don't share this view. Billion dollar corporate experiments conducted in public are sacrosanct for some reason. Yes, and I find it annoying that some people do seem to think Waymo should never be criticized. That said, we already have an astounding amount of data, and that data clearly shows that the experiment is successful in reduc…

>data clearly shows that the experiment is successful in reducing crashes. That's fine. But crashes are relatively rare and what matters is accountability. Will Waymo be accountable for hitting this kid the way a human would? Or will they fight in court to somehow blame the pedestrian? Those are my big concerns when it comes to self driving vehicles, and history with tech suggests that they love playing hot potato in…

Waymo is driving the car and should be held accountable like any other driver.

I assume that's how it works already.

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

#625

Post by danielmarkbruce »

naet wrote: post #549

We should all think twice before taking a company PR statement completely at face value and praising them for slowing down faster than their own internal "model" says a human driver would. Companies are heavily interested in protecting their bottom line and in a situation like this probably had 5-10 people carefully craft every single word of the statement for maximum damage control. Surprised at how many comments he…

Do you know anyone who works at Waymo? The cynicism is silly. Just because some people at some companies behave horribly, it doesn't mean all or even most do.

Look at Waymo's history in the space, meet some of the people working there, then make a decision.

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

#626

Post by [deleted] »

somenameforme wrote: post #622
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're omitting the context provided by the article. This wasn't just a random scenario. Not only was this by an elementary school, but during school drop off hours, with both children and doubled parked cars in the vicinity. If somebody doesn't know what double parking is - it's when cars parallel park beside one another, implicitly on the road, making it difficult to see what's beyond them. So you are around young…

[deleted]

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

#627

Post by myko »

ProAm wrote: post #612
aanet wrote: post #234

This is the classic Suddenly Revealed Pedestrian test case, which afaik, most NCAP (like EuroNCAP, Japan NCAP) have as part of their standard testing protocols. Having performed this exact test on 3 dozen vehicles (L2/L3/L4) for several AV companies in the Bay Area [1], I would say that Waymo's response, per their blog post [2] has been textbook compliance. (I'm not defending their performance... just their response…

Still relies on an actual driver. “The event occurred when 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 six mph before contact was made,” a statement from Waymo…

Though given the situation a human driver would not have been going 17 mph in a school zone during drop-off near double parked vehicles

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

#628

Post by amluto »

aanet wrote: post #234

This is the classic Suddenly Revealed Pedestrian test case, which afaik, most NCAP (like EuroNCAP, Japan NCAP) have as part of their standard testing protocols. Having performed this exact test on 3 dozen vehicles (L2/L3/L4) for several AV companies in the Bay Area [1], I would say that Waymo's response, per their blog post [2] has been textbook compliance. (I'm not defending their performance... just their response…

Waymo’s performance, once the pedestrian was revealed, sounds pretty good. But is 17mph a safe speed at an active school dropoff area? I admit that I don’t think I ever personally pay attention to the speedometer in such a place, but 17mph seems excessive even for an ordinary parking lot.

I wonder whether Waymo’s model notices that small children are present or likely to be present and that it should leave extra margin for error.

(My general impression observing Waymo vehicles is that they’ve gone from being obnoxiously cautious to often rather aggressive.)

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

#629

Post by no-name-here »

stouset wrote: post #598
jjav wrote: 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…

The car was driving 17mph before braking. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human drive at 17mph in a school zone or other area children congregate.

Meaning you’ve never seen a human drive that slowly in such an area, or you've never seen a human exceed the speed limit in a school zone?

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

#630

Post by JBlue42 »

recursive wrote: post #91
drcongo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa! You're allowed to double park outside a school over there?!

Wait, is double parking allowed anywhere?

Yes, please visit LA.

Edit: Not 'allowed' but people do it constantly. Regular drivers, delivery drivers, city workers, construction trucks, etc. There may be laws but very little enforcement.

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