No system is is full-proof (Exhibit A: Jurassic Park ;). Accidents will happen. My question is who will be liable: the owner of the car, or Waymo/Cruise/Tesla etc.?
My cynical guess is the pedestrian.
Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
701–710 of 750 posts
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#702Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public transportation cannot compete over long distances either as they stop dropping people off anywhere close to home once you leave the city. They are only able to complete within a city at medium range where they special lanes.
It can, when cities are not built with dumb land use patterns. I am moving to an apartment 50km away from my workplace. Commuting by car or by train will take around the same time (~50 min door-to-door), but the car will be subject to random traffic, hunting for parking spot, stress, etc. Oh, and the train is several times cheaper.
This comment is out of touch just based on the first sentence. The US is a continent spanning nation and half the country does not live in a city.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#703Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public transportation cannot compete over long distances either as they stop dropping people off anywhere close to home once you leave the city. They are only able to complete within a city at medium range where they special lanes.
Fine, you drive between London and Paris, but I'm going to catch the Eurostar (tube and metro). You drive between New York and SF, but I'm going to fly. I'm not recommending buses, buses suck. European public transport is amazing and the US could learn something.
Im talking more going from Chicago to small town central Illinois. You’re biased and assuming everyone who travels lives in, leaves from and arrives at a city. You assume everything else is fly over country instead of most of the countries land and half its population.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#704Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 cl…
Our roads are pretty bad as well. True fix will fix the drivers, and the roads.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#705Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can drive to work in twelve minutes. If I humor the premise of a bus that stops in front of my home and also my workplace, which is unlikely to ever exist no matter how much money is thrown at public transit, it would still take several times longer than driving myself because there are numerous other homes and businesses between which the bus would stop at. Using a bus would mean I have to wake up earlier, and the…
Considering that each time you are driving your it costs money to you and the society and reduce your health and life expectancy unless you exercise separately, that cycling and walking improve your life expectancy while saving money to both you and the society, and that a 12 minutes drive can't be much more than a 40 minutes bicycle ride, my bet is that riding to work would be a better option for both you and the so…
I'm genuinely curious how much doing heavy aerobic exercise (cycling) right next to a road with a bunch of cars affects my life expectancy. Especially since we're starting to discover that things like the tire dust from car tires wearing down while driving also has a huge impact on areas near roads.
I know a singer that avoids doing any heavy exercise near major roads because it affects their performance after even just after a short exposure.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#706Earlier quoted context omitted.
It definitely hiccups in high traffic times, but in practice it works reasonably well around the country. Its generally not meant for high volume intersections, where you'd expect a light instead. For perspective, I'd imagined roundabout and other designs as better, but hadn't really considered an alternative algorithm for people to follow.
Europe has an algorithm that, on such intersections, you have to yield to a car on your right-hand side. This works well until there's a car on every leg of the intersection, which is extremely rare (because, on intersections with such levels of traffic, there are road signs explicitly saying which road has to yield to which one).
Yes, in the US the rules are like this:
- first to the intersection has the right of way. - if you both arrive at the same time, the one to the right has the right of way. - If you both arrive at the same time facing each other you can both proceed driving straight or turn right. - If you both arrive at the same time facing each other anyone turning left must defer to the other.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#707Earlier quoted context omitted.
We get run over with or without driverless cars, but driverless cars do it an awful lot less and will keep getting better at it.
Then by that logic the software engineers should be prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter when their beta test kills someone.
I don't follow your logic
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#708Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does 4 stop sign mean cars have priority over cyclists? Sounds weird reasoning. But not living in this country I don't understand who would have priority if everybody has a stop sign. Is it just a priority based on power? 18 wheeler > Buses > Cars > motorbikes > cyclists ?
it isn't priority by vehicle type, but by time that you arrive at the stop sign. everyone has to follow the rules equally. approach the sign, come to a complete stop, whoever was there first goes. if the intersection is full, then opposite pairs alternate with whoever is going straight getting right of way, followed by whoever's turning.
For any non-Americans wondering what happens if 4 vehicles arrive at the same time all going straight: Yes, it does happen, and it results in 4 people waving each other through, start-stopping in anticipation of each other, and finally someone blowing through the intersection at full throttle in frustration.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#709Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think more impressively, even in this seemingly worst case scenario where everything lined up as poorly as it could have, the car was still able to react quite aggressively and the situation ended only with minor scratches it seems? Honestly, if anything, this is probably proof that self-driving is the future, as I would bet any human would've most definitely done much worse in the same scenario.
Yet it makes me wonder how the car would react if it came to a stop on top of the leg of the cyclist or in some situation where a normal driver would notice that he should get into the car again and back up a couple of feet. I'm not against Waymo.
My mom was hit by a driver when she was biking and fell with her arm in front of the wheel. The driver then decided to pull forward and drove over her arm. So humans don’t really solve that problem.
Re: Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
#710Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cyclists are just dangerous and until we look at statistics we can’t assume that AI does worse than humans in protecting cyclists. As a driver, it took me many years to get into the habit of shoulder checking when turning right from the right lane. I always have my turning signal but to cyclists it doesn’t mean much, they will always try to pass me on the right on the intersection. Cyclists sometimes behave as though…
> I always have my turning signal but to cyclists it doesn’t mean much, they will always try to pass me on the right on the intersection I suspect you aren't merging into the bike lane when turning right and leaving space for a cyclist to pass you on the right. I've seen many drivers make that mistake. As a cyclist I never pass cars on the right in this situation because drivers don't check. You are supposed to merge…
This varies state-by-state. In Oregon the bike lane is not a turning lane, and the locals will express their displeasure if you use it as such. We have bike boxes and lots of no-right-turn-on-red signs instead.