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

Post by ragazzina » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:45 AM UTC

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…

Post by ffsm8 » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 10:59 AM UTC

jjav wrote: post #711

rdtsc wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my thinking as well. Taken in some abstract scenario, all those steps seems very reasonable, and in that abstract scenario we can even say it would do better than an average human would. But that is missing the overall context that this was an elementary school during drop-off hours. That's when you crawl at 3 mph expecting kids to jump behind any car, and not going at 17mph.

> But that is missing the overall context that this was an elementary school during drop-off hours. That's when you crawl at 3 mph expecting kids to jump behind any car, and not going at 17mph. Indeed. Sure the car knows the limit, it knows it is a school zone, it can precisely track people within the reach of its sensors (but not behind blockages it can't see through). But it is missing the human understanding of th…

Post by optionalsquid » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 11:26 AM UTC

tommica wrote: post #688

mlsu wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An honest account of this situation would place at least some blame on there being a tall SUV blocking visibility. These giant SUVs really are the worst when it comes to child safety

What I find a bit confusing is that no one is putting any blame on the kid. I did the same thing as a kid, except it was a school bus instead of SUV, and that was a fucking stupid thing to do (I remember starting to run over the street, and the next thing is that I am in the hospital bed), even though I had been told to always cross the street from behind the bus, not in front of it. That day I learned why it was so.

Post by Mawr » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 11:54 AM UTC

expressadmin wrote: post #617

belorn wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you drive in Sweden you will occasionally come up to a form of speed reduction strategy that may seem counterintuitive. They all add to make driving harder and feel more dangerous in order to force attention and lower speed. One is to merge opposite directional roads into a single lane, forcing drivers to cooperate and take turn to pass it, one car at a time. For a combined car and pedestrian road (max speed of 7k…

I recently visited a friend that lives in Sweden (couple hours south of Stockholm). Something he said while I visited stuck with me: "Sweden hates cars." There must be a happy medium somewhere in between.

Post by Mawr » Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 12:03 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #516

belorn wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you drive in Sweden you will occasionally come up to a form of speed reduction strategy that may seem counterintuitive. They all add to make driving harder and feel more dangerous in order to force attention and lower speed. One is to merge opposite directional roads into a single lane, forcing drivers to cooperate and take turn to pass it, one car at a time. For a combined car and pedestrian road (max speed of 7k…

Does it actually work though? Many roads in London have parked cars on either side so only one can get through - instead of people cooperating you have people fighting, speeding as fast as they can to get through before someone else appears, or race on-coming cars to a gap in the parked cars etc. So when they should be doing 30mph, they are more likely doing 40-45. Especially with EVs you have near-instant power to q…