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California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

reuters.com

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Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#661

Post by [deleted] »

BytesAndGears wrote: post #556
minwcnt5 wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pure fantasy to think public transit can replace all/most car trips in American cities, even in most of SF. It's not just a matter of "fix service", it's you need to completely rebuild the city with 5-10x the population density.

Living in a European city and relying 100% on public transit and walking, with occasional biking for longer distances, it’s easy. It does not require 5-10x the population density, maybe just 2-3x, at least compared to San Francisco (which is already somewhat dense in parts). It is not a major shift in lifestyle easier. The tallest buildings in some cities in the Netherlands are 2-3 stories, and those cities still hav…

[deleted]

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#662

Post by wsinks »

alooPotato wrote: post #437
wsinks wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true. Often times at night, there are long times for certain lights so the bigger throughput street can have more time on there. Human drives know about this, and will take different routes to get there. It's unclear that Cruise is mapping out light timings and their changes, although you would think they would.

yes lights let higher throughput roads have more time. i don't see why it makes my statement not true.

I take point with your use of 'correctly' because traffic engineering cannot get every car to its destination without stopping it even if it knew every destination.

Cars already do talk to various traffic lights via underground sensors and occasionally a camera. The investment required to have a fully networked traffic light system with a centralized controller would be immense, and would create an organization with a natural government given monopoly.

Your use of 'correctly' paints a world that seems ripe for more corruption and ultimately worse timings across the network. If you wrote 'better', then I wouldn't have commented. I think I'm nitpicking

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#663

Post by School-Cotton »

fhub wrote: post #550
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…

Another fun anecdote. When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once (I'm not sure they still do this). But it wasn't implemented very well at some point since the Waymo I was in was behind another one for many blocks. The wipers went at least 17 times. As an earlier adopter I provided lots of feedback. Even little things like I…

> When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way

I hate “whimsical” stuff like this. Part of maturity/adulthood is coming to the realization that you don’t have the right to conscript other people into your sense of humor.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#664

Post by oldgradstudent »

zestyping wrote: post #592
lokar wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lied to the DMV, that alone is enough to ban them.

What was the lie?

They showed a video of the crash without the part where they dragged the pedestrian for 20 feet, claiming it was the full video of the incident.

The DMV was not aware of that until notified by another government agency that was investigating the incident.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#665

Post by ralferoo »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #583
ralferoo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this, it rather seems like the AV wasn't at fault in the accident itself and handled itself well. However, after coming to a complete stop, while the pedestrian was still on the ground in front of it, it then started again and drove into the pedestrian and continued for another 20 feet pushing the pedestrian along (and presumably under) the car. They say it did this to leave the car in a safe place, but this…

> Reading this, it rather seems like the AV wasn't at fault in the accident itself and handled itself well. Probably because you're reading their press release. Their previous press release was even more convincing - they somehow forgot to mention the part about draggin the pedestrian at the time. Here they somehow forget to mention the car has already accellerated to 18mph while a pedestrian was still crossing the r…

I get your point, but on the other hand if a pedestrian was crossing on their when the light turns green and the pedestrian was already clear of the lane, I think most human drivers would also proceed. I'm in a different country but, both as a driver and as a pedestrian, I witness this exact situation on a daily basis.

I'm not trying to detract from the horrible outcome of this case, but the problem wasn't the car pulling away at a green light when there were no obstacles in front of it, but the way the car decided to move itself to a "safer place" immediately after an accident when it clearly didn't have enough sensors or the AI wasn't trained sufficiently on this kind of situation to be 100% sure that it was safe for it to make the maneuver.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#666

Post by School-Cotton »

bluGill wrote: post #327
fragmede wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is limited to San Francisco, rather than the whole of California, but they do just drive around the city, especially after 9pm. As a rider, the future is here. Instead of just checking Uber and Lyft for prices to get somewhere, now I check the Cruise and Waymo app for prices too. (Well, not Cruise anymore.) But yes, it's a thing . I call a car, sometimes it doesn't have a driver, and it takes me to where I need to…

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.

I agree with you in the abstract. The reality of the US political and administrative system is that it’s not possible to build new public transit, but it is possible to develop self-driving cars.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#667

Post by cdot2 »

fhub wrote: post #550
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…

Another fun anecdote. When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once (I'm not sure they still do this). But it wasn't implemented very well at some point since the Waymo I was in was behind another one for many blocks. The wipers went at least 17 times. As an earlier adopter I provided lots of feedback. Even little things like I…

Why is working on a laptop not recommended in SF?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#668

Post by huytersd »

WillDaSilva wrote: post #653
huytersd wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that it currently sucks. Even if it was the cleanest, safest, most connected system it still sucks compared to a personal vehicle (ideally electric and fully powered by renewable energy). It also means people have to live in dense apartments instead of spread out suburbs and semi rural living. I don’t mean privacy as in personal data, I mean not having to be in close quarters with other humans.

Even if we accept that the personal vehicle provides a better experience for an individual in a vacuum compared to ideal public transit, we're left with the critical problem that if a significant number of people choose to use personal vehicles instead of public transit, then there will be so much traffic that the experience will be awful for everyone. This traffic will cause travel delays, noise, pollution (from exh…

Public transport has its place, especially in dense city centers and especially metros/subways. Those will always be more efficient and a better experience in cities. I’m not even opposed to completely banning personal vehicles in city centers. But only about 5% of the US population live in densely packed downtown areas of cities. For the rest of the folks we should have more cars and improve our road systems.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#669

Post by fhub »

gerdesj wrote: post #654
pbarnes_1 wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Good grief, two skateboarders lives saved by a Waymo in two consecutive comments. A couple of weeks ago I came across a biker partially lying in the road, trapped by his bike. I parked my van at an angle, so if it was hit from behind it should roll past him. I jumped out and performed an assessment (I'm a qualified, OK: certificated first aider). I diagnosed "pissed" and ascertained he was unharmed. We got his bike i…

I do want to clarify that my comment: the skateboarder would not have died. Waymo provided a larger margin of error for the board rider than a human could possibly have.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#670

Post by fhub »

cdot2 wrote: post #667
fhub wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun anecdote. When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once (I'm not sure they still do this). But it wasn't implemented very well at some point since the Waymo I was in was behind another one for many blocks. The wipers went at least 17 times. As an earlier adopter I provided lots of feedback. Even little things like I…

Why is working on a laptop not recommended in SF?

The start stop traffic gave me car sickness quickly. The 280 is a 4 lane highway that, at certain times of day, adaptive cruise control gets very little workout.
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