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Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

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Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#71

Post by viraptor »

blibble wrote: post #47
arethuza wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I've seen many human drivers doing equally stupid things.

I'd expect to be prosecuted if I was caught driving like this, and probably lose my license as a result what is the threshold for permanently terminating Waymo's license? - an example like this of dangerous driving? - 1 death by dangerous driving? - 10 deaths by dangerous driving? (say it veered right in this video into the other road users) - 100 deaths by dangerous driving? (say it veers into a sidewalk full of ped…

Why would you expect losing a license? The only actual issue I can see is crossing the double line which is just one penalty point if caught https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/vehicle-code/21460/

(Possibly also not using the indicator which is another point, but I don't think we can be 100% sure it wasn't used before the change started - California seems to require it only before not during lane change if I read it correctly)

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#72

Post by rufus_foreman »

datadeft wrote: post #10

When are we going to admit that the current level of understanding and technical capabilities are not sufficient for safe autonomous driving?

One alternative to autonomous driving in San Francisco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HoqFlDuuBI

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#73

Post by _xivi »

arethuza wrote: post #50
Timshel wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes tired, drunk or raging people do stupid shit. But the goal is not exactly to have autonomous driving at their level ...

The point I was trying to make, clearly not very well, was that nobody would be surprised by a human making a mistake like this so why are we expecting perfection from a software controlled car? They will make mistakes but I'd also expect these mistakes to become less and less common. I'd only worry if the rate of change of performance isn't fairly positive...

> They will make mistakes

Machines don't make "mistakes". A mistake require intent. In case of autonomous driving, any problem is a defect in the system that the whole fleet share.

> I'd also expect these mistakes to become less and less common

So the people should just tolerate it in the mean time "for the greater good"? oh please, it's an enterprise.

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#74

Post by blibble »

viraptor wrote: post #71
blibble wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect to be prosecuted if I was caught driving like this, and probably lose my license as a result what is the threshold for permanently terminating Waymo's license? - an example like this of dangerous driving? - 1 death by dangerous driving? - 10 deaths by dangerous driving? (say it veered right in this video into the other road users) - 100 deaths by dangerous driving? (say it veers into a sidewalk full of ped…

Why would you expect losing a license? The only actual issue I can see is crossing the double line which is just one penalty point if caught https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/vehicle-code/21460/ (Possibly also not using the indicator which is another point, but I don't think we can be 100% sure it wasn't used before the change started - California seems to require it only before not during lane change if I read it…

the UK has somewhat stricter driving standards

doing it for a second or two would likely be classed as "driving without due care and attention", resulting in a fine if convicted

however doing it for as long as in this video I suspect would be classed as "dangerous driving", with disqualification being the likely result

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#75

Post by danielbarla »

Timshel wrote: post #61
danielbarla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few more categories of people who often do stupid shit, many of which are fairly mundane and far less easy to disregard (such as: momentarily distracted / semi-permanently fiddling with their phone / dangerously incompetent). I don't think it's unfair to point out that humans, quite often, also suck quite badly at driving.

In general, I don't think human sucks at driving, but there are many times when any driver can be extremely dangerous for many reasons. Many of those reasons are illegal (alcohol, fiddling with your phone) so it's not a question of fairness an automated program was supposed to be better than that. I don't see anything unfair in requiring that automated driving which is supposed to not be afflicted from our human fail…

My take is that both have spectacular edge cases / failure modes that are essentially laughable from the other's point of view. It's hard to compare the two, when all we're doing is cherry picking scenarios.

I could point to a double pedestrian crossing near my place where cars routinely speed. Various people have told me that the drivers cannot see the pedestrians, for a variety of reasons (buildings, cars, and especially a large tree near one corner), yet the human drivers are confident to go 10-20 kph over the speed limit through the area, despite this lack of information. I can give many similar examples - people really do suck at driving, they just tend to get away with it most of the time because rare events are, well, rare.

AI sucks for a variety of other reasons. The only real question is whether on average, over all scenarios and ratios of humans to AIs populating the roads, one sucks more than the other. It's something I don't think we have the answer to.

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#76

Post by jfim »

fabian2k wrote: post #7

I would be curious to know what the car thought the situation was, something must have gone really wrong here. It ignored the double lines and crossed them to overtake and then stayed in the wrong lane for a really long time. If the car understood the state of the world around this, this is kind of a huge mistake in behaviour. And if it didn't it is concerning as well as it would mean it can end up in the opposite la…

One possible explanation would be that it detected the unicyclists as pedestrians, assumed that it would be able to overtake them, and was unable to do but kept trying to overtake them.

Seems like a failure of their path planning in this case, the same way if someone were to try to overtake on a two lane road, one would have to abort the overtake if the vehicle one is trying to pass keeps on accelerating such that overtaking isn't safe anymore.

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#77

Post by tmearnest »

mchanson wrote: post #68
fabian2k wrote: post #7

I would be curious to know what the car thought the situation was, something must have gone really wrong here. It ignored the double lines and crossed them to overtake and then stayed in the wrong lane for a really long time. If the car understood the state of the world around this, this is kind of a huge mistake in behaviour. And if it didn't it is concerning as well as it would mean it can end up in the opposite la…

It’s kinda funny that the Waymo car is so impatient. I’m pretty sure in this situation I would have just waited until the group ride cleared out to ahead of me and then continued. I would not want to crowd or find my way around them. If I wanted to get past such a big group ride I would probably reroute onto another block since they would keep catching me at stop lights.

Once I saw that Waymo rage pass all of those bicyclists, I knew we finally solved self driving cars.

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#78

Post by arethuza »

blibble wrote: post #74
viraptor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect losing a license? The only actual issue I can see is crossing the double line which is just one penalty point if caught https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/vehicle-code/21460/ (Possibly also not using the indicator which is another point, but I don't think we can be 100% sure it wasn't used before the change started - California seems to require it only before not during lane change if I read it…

the UK has somewhat stricter driving standards doing it for a second or two would likely be classed as "driving without due care and attention", resulting in a fine if convicted however doing it for as long as in this video I suspect would be classed as "dangerous driving", with disqualification being the likely result

I'd be very surprised if someone lost their license over doing this in the UK - you might get a fixed penalty notice but I suspect if you managed to explain to the police what you thought you were doing you might get away with a good telling off. Of course, if anyone got hurt you'd be in serious trouble...

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#79

Post by GrantMoyer »

rimunroe wrote: post #53
underdeserver wrote: post #8

No idea what the Waymo car was thinking, but what are these kids riding? Maybe it thought they were on a bike lane? Where I'm from it's illegal to ride like that in a group outside of police-sanctioned events - you're supposed to ride one after the other and keep right.

> Maybe it thought they were on a bike lane? Where I'm from it's illegal to ride like that in a group outside of police-sanctioned events I’m in Massachusetts where lane splitting is legal in some cases (single lane each direction, posted speed limit below some amount, probably something else). Some other states have similar rules, but in most it’s flatly illegal. I believe California is an unusual outlier in that la…

FYI, lane splitting coventionally refers to driving a small vehicle between lanes of stopped or slow cars, rather than multiple small vehicles riding side by side within one lane [1]. The first is unconditionally illegal in Massachusetts, while the second is conditionally legal like you say.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_splitting

Re: Waymo illegal overtake into wrong-way driving

#80

Post by peteradio »

miki123211 wrote: post #63
blibble wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect to be prosecuted if I was caught driving like this, and probably lose my license as a result what is the threshold for permanently terminating Waymo's license? - an example like this of dangerous driving? - 1 death by dangerous driving? - 10 deaths by dangerous driving? (say it veered right in this video into the other road users) - 100 deaths by dangerous driving? (say it veers into a sidewalk full of ped…

The problem with these self-driving companies is that they drive a lot more miles than a human ever could. Even if their error rates were 1/10th of the most cautious human drivers, if we held them to the same standards as we hold humans, they'd lose their licenses in a week. This is due to the sheer number of cars they have and miles they drive. This is a variation on the trolley problem. Would you rather have roads…

If Waymo sold the software/hardware without onerous licensing costs I would rather live in world #2. If instead they become an incredibly wealthy lobbying engine based on extraction for a few rather than true wealth creation then I'd rather still live in world #1.
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