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California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

reuters.com

891–900 of 1001 posts

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#891

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the regulations. What we need is enforcement of existing regulations. In the case of headlights, I disagree. Many other countries have laws that require always on headlights, or at least daytime running lights (DRLs) in some cases. For example, I work in the auto industry and the cars that we distribute in America have different light programming than the cars we send next door to Canada. It's stupid. We sh…

The problem with DLRs is that it makes cars more visible. And more vulnerable traffic participants such as bikes, pedestrians, skateboarders, etc. (that mostly don't have lights) less visible by comparison.

As someone who has spent more time participating in traffic as a pedestrian and on bike than driving cars and frequently cycles between these roles this feels like a bogus argument. DLRs make cars more visible to me even when I'm not driving a car, allowing me to better anticipate their behavior. This is especially helpful with curb-side parking.

Also bikes absolutely should have lights and are required by law to have them in my country (and to have them on at night, dusk or in reduced visibility conditions). E-bikes and e-scooters also have lights which are typically always-on regardless of lighting conditions.

Pedestrians don't normally have lights (although I've seen joggers wear hi-vis vests or head lamps, especially during early morning or late night runs) but pedestrians also don't move as rapidly and suddenly as vehicles. Plus in urban environments drivers are expected to look out for pedestrians, especially in narrower roads. "Child peeking out between parked cars" is a scenario covered several times during driver ed and the practical exam includes one emergency break without prior warning (tho in practice learners can make an educated guess about when it might be coming up, e.g. being led to a low-traffic street and instructed to "pick up speed a little").

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#892

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm not sure a machine would have noticed an odd lump next to a lamppost, with a civic rubbish bin next to it, in the rain. As opposed to what? You don’t have RADAR, or LIDAR, or echolocation, or any other way to “detect” a person in the road. You have human vision. This is the idea behind Tesla FSD. If human vision is good enough, computer vision is good enough. We have cameras that can approximate human vision. A…

A rock instead of a hammer is also probably "good enough". Still a bad idea.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have the regulations. What we need is enforcement of existing regulations. In the case of headlights, I disagree. Many other countries have laws that require always on headlights, or at least daytime running lights (DRLs) in some cases. For example, I work in the auto industry and the cars that we distribute in America have different light programming than the cars we send next door to Canada. It's stupid. We sh…

We don't have DRL because it has been studied and shown not to not make a difference. Other countries should catch up to us in not requiring things that don't do anything useful. (depending on the time of day, sometimes DRL helps, but sometimes it makes things worse - overall the difference works out to not significant)

I'd like to see those studies because both as a driver and on bike DRL makes a huge difference. Maybe less so with stroads and massive parking lots where you don't have a lot of curb-side parking and visibility is generally good.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget no pressure to tip your Waymo

There will be. "Donate $1 to Waymo's autonomous safety research fund?"

No, it will be the United Way. Or to help give poor children blankets.

And it will be offered, when Waymo's onboard AI detects you're on a date, verbally, so the date can hear.

So even if you give to charites in a meaningful way, you'll end up doing it again or look crass and be embarrassed. And as with many of these "at the till" charity collections, there is a fee given to the collector.

Who will be Google! Plus, not only do they get to track your co-riders, eg who you associate with, and where you go, and even all conversation in the car (anonymized, of course), now they get to track your charitable predilections, by offering choice.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#895
post #122

if people weren't VC brained they would realize that the way to prevent traffic deaths isn't to build fancy self driving cars, it's to invest in safer, more pedestrian friendly infrastructure and use the boring technology that already exists to get people where they want to go. the future is on buses and trains and bikes and pedestrian friendly 15 minute communities

> the future is on buses and trains Bikes? If you mean e-bikes and motorcycles then maybe. Buses and trains? No it's not and it will never be. This is a position only a green extremist would take. A fucking horse is better than any of those methods of transportation. There are two crucial elements a car and a horse have in common: The first element: You own it (or rent it) and you tell it when and where to go. The wh…

> It has the capability of carrying not only you, but also an another person and cargo.

The vast majority of car rides are taken by a single person without significant cargo. Nobody is saying we should eviscerate all cars, but _most_ of the time, _most_ people that use cars in cities don't actually _need_ to use cars.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#896

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…

I wonder if this will become new pedestrian behavior? Once people learn that waymo will stop for them no matter what they can just cross in front of it.

Human drivers are supposed to stop too.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#897
post #277

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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…

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…

You are on a technology forum you should know better than call it magic, it's talent and sweat.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#898
post #754
post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current ride pricing feels about 10-20% less than an Uber in SF - but I haven't really checked properly. So don't expect the rideshare product (Waymo One) to be a super cheap option.

Last time I checked (in SF), Uber was $16.70 for a ride I wanted to take and Waymo was $25.40. All things being equal (or anywhere near equal), I'll pay the human driver rather than the bot.

Funny, I’d choose the opposite.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#899
post #670
post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"The" 280? Has Norcal shifted to usage of definite articles for freeways?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#900
post #310

I had an epiphany about self driving recently late at night on the streets of San Francisco. It was a somewhat deserted part of town, and the roads were empty. There was a lone Cruise car chugging along and constantly stopping at red lights. The signals were so badly optimized that the car would be the only one waiting at a completely empty intersection for minutes at a time, only to be stopped again at the next one,…

Having a big flat 4-way intersection is an antipattern. If you have a major road (2 lanes in any direction, or over 30mph) intersecting another major road, then traffic lights just shouldn't happen. You get pollution from starting and stopping, T-bone collisions etc.

This is an infrastructure issue. Culturally I sort of understand how the US ended up with bad walkability and bad public transport. But what I do not understand is how road infra is so horrible.

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