Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say • Hacker News Board

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#671

Post by ikiris » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:06 PM UTC

hx8 wrote: post #57

xianshou wrote: post #7

If Waymo is truly as much better than Cruise as the statistics claim, this is a perfect opportunity to release the full video of the incident. Most collisions are avoidable, but a few are the result of a perfect storm of conditions that would be difficult to navigate for even the most skilled human driver. To know whether the truck's occlusion of the cyclist is one of those cases requires the actual footage.

If the footage is not released to the public I'm going to assume it makes Waymo look bad.

Based on actual experience driving and living in SF, I just assume any cyclist involved in an accident was ignoring the traffic laws and found out why they exist the hard way.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#672

Post by ra7 » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:09 PM UTC

mint2 wrote: post #667

ra7 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s enough to establish public trust with their voluntary release of safety data and regulators closely overseeing their operations. Setting a precedent for releasing footage means fault is automatically assumed when they don’t voluntarily release it. It’s a problem if they’re not even releasing it to the regulators, but that’s not happening here.

Sounds like the same argument bad cops claim after questionable police shootings Public trust requires building it first. As one of the first instances of a waymo crash, yes the public needs to see it. If after reading the footage in the first 99 crashes and in each time waymo’s assessment was valid, that’s when Waymo has public trust and can credibly not release every single video but only do it on a case by case ba…

How do you get to "bad cops" from here? Bad cops are "investigated" by their own units. So that analogy doesn't work.

Waymo is regulated by independent agencies (CA DMV and NHTSA). They are watching the videos and assessing if Waymo is telling the truth. Their permit is pulled if they get caught lying (like Cruise). How are you and thousands of SF residents more qualified than them? Why should I take your assessment more seriously than that of the regulators?

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#673

Post by rangestransform » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:16 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #569

Cars (autonomous or not) do not belong in densely urban areas. Let’s finally put an end to the car centric transportation experiment as it has failed on a massive scale. Children death rates largely attributed to vehicle related accidents [1] Trucks/SUVs are also a large contributor to GHGs [2]. Anecdotally, the number of solo commuters I see in SUVs/trucks/“crossovers” is way too fucking high. Truck owners largely h…

in the absence of adequate NYC-tier public transit existing immediately, it'll be politically intractable to lower people's standard of living like that (and this is a good thing)

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#674

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:17 PM UTC

tsukikage wrote: post #512

sschueller wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a better solution for that: Public transportation.

It's better for some metrics - number of passengers moved per vehicle, fuel efficiency etc. What it isn't optimal for is getting from origin to destination without walking and without waiting. If I am carrying heavy/bulky things or I am less mobile than average, walking to the nearest public transport stop isn't great, and every change of transport is painful. Waits are also long basically anywhere that isn't the cen…

[deleted]

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#675

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:30 PM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #370

cma wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rolling stop is not blowing through which he was talking about I think.

When cars do a “rolling stop” what they are really doing is slowing down to 10-15mph, which is the same speed as a cyclist “blowing” through a stop sign at full speed.

I live in Seattle, so you’ll see bikes mostly blow through stop signs going down a decline, they can faster than 10-15 even without e-assist. Cars, when they do ignore the stop sign, can be going up or down, however. If I see a bike going downhill approaching a stop sign, I assume they are going to try and ignore it if it won’t obviously get them killed. Uphill, bikes care more about stopping since they aren’t losing momentum.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#676

Post by rsynnott » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:32 PM UTC

ra7 wrote: post #587

rsynnott wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have no reason to release it to the public. I mean, if it reflects positively on them, they have huge reason; they want to put as much distance between their response and Cruise's as possible, and show that they're acting in good faith. A large part of what killed Cruise was, well, either the cover-up or its employees' amazingly persistent internet connectivity problems, depending on how cynical you want to be…

The positive PR is so negligible it’s not worth it. This is an incident where no one was even injured. If they want to put as much distance between themselves and Cruise, they just need to be transparent with the regulators and not play games with them.

Eh, if I want to be as upfront and "look how open we're being" as possible. They have a marginal basically-prototype product, in a limited market where a lot of people are already very annoyed about them, and the main competitor has just vanished in a puff of poor crisis management. They should really be leaning on demonstrating to the public that they're different.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#677

Post by LtWorf » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:37 PM UTC

LtWorf wrote: post #447

Aloisius wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't started enforcing it because you can only issue warnings if people park close to the crosswalk until next year - specifically because most drivers don't know about the law. And the law actually states that local authorities can come up with their own distance rules instead.

They don't have the "you're required to know the law, 15 days after it exists" law? Odd.

It's actually a legal principle in most countries. Hence my surprise. But keep flagging :)

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#678

Post by Mawr » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:42 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #151

bagels wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No lies in the article. "The bill now heads to Governor Newsom's desk" ... where it was vetoed, sadly.

> where it was vetoed, sadly Sounds like the gov did the right thing. Cyclists shouldn't get special privileges. They're operating a vehicle on the roadway just like everyone else. Drivers of other types of vehicles shouldn't also have to remember special rules just for cyclists.

An easy position to hold when it's physically impossible for a cyclist to harm you in your steel cage but you can kill them on a whim by slightly turning a wheel.

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#679

Post by r0m4n0 » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:43 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #281

cozzyd wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most states require you to stop as long as a pedestrian is in the cross-walk (one of the many traffic rules that most drivers disregard).

Some states have a half rule. Or a rule that as long as the pedestrian hasn’t passed your car yet, you need to stop. I’m not even clear what my state (Washington) follows ATM: > (1) The operator of an approaching vehicle shall stop and remain stopped to allow a pedestrian, bicycle, or personal delivery device to cross the roadway within an unmarked or marked crosswalk when the pedestrian, bicycle, or personal deliver…

I think they are trying to make the law more reasonable because there were police officers writing tickets for absurd stings. A person would step into the road and everyone would get tickets in the intersection. WA law seems rather convoluted but basically gives some room to use the road when the pedestrian is still out there. Probably more for those, I’m turning right at a red light and ped crossed the road, it’s clear to go now but someone is still technically in the crosswalk.

IMHO it's a slippery slope and vision of other cars can be obstructed by cars driving around pedestrians.

In general, people shouldn’t be doing 40mph within 10 feet of a pedestrian in the road (like they were in this case).

Anyway, I record this intersection because I see all kinds of carnage… 10 collisions in the past year next to a park. Human drivers are the worst

Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say

#680

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Feb 08, 2024, 7:47 PM UTC

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #478

smsm42 wrote: post #326

The fundamental problem of self-driving cars in cities is that they are expected to be 100% safe. They could be 10 times as safe as regular cars, but it wouldn't save them from headlines of "robot car kills an innocent person". And given how chaotic and unpredictable situation on the roads in a densely populated city without designated spaces for cyclists can be, 100% safety is impossible. Even if AI itself if perfec…

> The fundamental problem of self-driving cars in cities is that they are expected to be 100% safe. They could be 10 times as safe as regular cars, but it wouldn't save them from headlines of "robot car kills an innocent person". Well, yes, because all the proponents of self-driving cars tout the fact that computer driven cars are way safer than human drivers. And they're not. Those 10 times safer than humans have no…

> the proponents of self-driving cars tout the fact that computer driven cars are way safer than human drivers. And they're not.

It sounds like you conflating two claims: safety(computer car) == 100% and safety(computer car) > safety(human driver). Refuting the former (which is easy) does not refute the latter, though the converse would be true of course. But is it true that human driver is safer or the same?

> because if they can brake 100ms faster than a human would, in practice it makes no difference

That claim would be stronger with some better substantiation. I think it makes sense that faster reaction time and better focus leads to better safety record. That's why we prosecute people for DUI - because we have reasons to believe that slower reaction and more distracted driving when under influence leads to worse safety. Consequently, faster reaction and less distracted driving would lead to a better one. It will still be imperfect, but likely less imperfect than human driver, with lesser failure rate.

> What would make a difference would be to be fully aware of anything that might happen,

You make impossible demand - no mechanism or system could be ready for "anything that might happen", and nobody - at least nobody not having super-natural clairvoyance - could be aware of absolutely everything everywhere. There will always be weird coincidences and hidden things, the question is how fast the system can adapt and find a safe(r) solution.

> Self-driving cars don't have three things that humans have: instinct, experience and contextual awareness

They certainly have a system analogous to "instinct", and they can learn (even if not in the same way as humans, but who says it's the only way?). It is true that they don't really understand the context, but I wonder how important that is compared to the speed of reaction, lack of distractions and ability to control the vehicle? I would estimate most of the accidents happen because the driver either didn't notice something, or didn't react in time, or reacted not in the way that is optimal (like slamming the brakes on an icy road, or swerving too hard and losing control). A computerized driver would be much better on those dimensions. It would be worse on deciphering complex and unusual scenarios, but I don't think most of the accidents are of that nature.