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California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

reuters.com

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Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#901

Post by guappa »

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #655
FireBeyond wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And further, I have to presume Cruise and the others have a bay of human pilots that are called-on to deal with difficult situations. And then there's a momentary thought of this, and then I think how bad/hard it would be. Sitting there in a "call center", "Ding!" and you're suddenly thrown in to a car mid-collision, needing to take instant surveying of the situation (like "there's someone partly trapped under the…

Sounds like a 911 operator but more technical and more data available

And no possibility to dispatch.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#902

Post by paganel »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #798
paganel wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on this recent-ish YT [1] video Waymo is also crap, just as Cruise is, as any car that stops at a green light, on the left-lane, is a danger to all the other drivers it shares the road with. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rxvl3INKSg

That looks like a big annoyance, but I wouldn't call that stop dangerous.

Have you ever driven in a congested city? Someone stopping out of the blue when green is on is definitely a danger to all those around the car he/she/it is driving. Granted, that might not be the case somewhere in the middle of the US where there's a car passing every 5-10 minutes or so.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#903

Post by littlestymaar »

mike_d wrote: post #540
pbarnes_1 wrote: post #515

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…

Waymo is amazing, knowing some of the stuff they do behind the scenes to ensure safety - I would feel safer riding in a Waymo than driving myself. My biggest fear has always been that Cruise or Tesla would shit the bed so bad we don't get any self-driving, either because of regulatory constraints or ruining the public perception of them.

> My biggest fear has always been that Cruise or Tesla would shit the bed so bad we don't get any self-driving, either because of regulatory constraints or ruining the public perception of them

Exactly this. When I saw Tesla releasing their half-backed crap I feared they will damage the public perception so badly that we wouldn't have self-driving cars for years.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#904

Post by iakov »

alphabetting wrote: post #56
bobthepanda wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are theoretically a safety layer when we have proven they work. If they do not work well, then they aren't actually safer.

I haven't seen anything that indicates they don't work well. My anecdotal experience is feeling much safer inside and around them in comparison to vehicles with humans behind the wheel.

What does the article indicate then? Everything working as intended? I am wondering if the pedestrian that was dragged six meters by a autonomous machine felt much safer.

The AVs do not work well in the edge cases - exactly in those situations where humans can apply common sense and behave accordingly. Exactly the cases that sceptics seemed to be worried about, and it turns out that the sceptics were right.

I hope AVs will not be allowed on public roads where I live in the next decades.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#905

Post by barrkel »

gerdesj wrote: post #654
pbarnes_1 wrote: post #515

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…

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…

The yellow diamond with a black stripe puts you into "French priority to the right" mode and it's not restricted to France, it's pretty common across the continent.

I like how it's indicated with road paint here in Switzerland, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Switzerland/comments/wp6clo/who_has...

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#906

Post by Dylan16807 »

hnbad wrote: post #881
Dylan16807 wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This comment is pretty controversial for whatever reason, but said differently - why would we allow autonomous cars to kill 30k Americans every year (the same allowance we give human drivers)? > That seems like a comically bad baseline. Now consider a version of autonomous cars that would kill 20k. The argument to switch to those cars, to save 10k lives a year, has to use 30k as a baseline. If we don't use 30k as a…

I think the better question is why we try to replace cars 1 to 1, even if it is in terms of mileage rather than number of vehicles. The problem isn't just drivers, the problem is cars. For most trips there are superior technological alternatives, there's just no political motivation to implement them because infrastructure is boring and it's easier to justify throwing more money at roads in the short term than invest…

I like reducing car use too, but that's not what autonomous driving tech in particular is useful for.

Also I expect that a single autonomous taxi can replace more than one private car.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#907

Post by concordDance »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #788
Symbiote wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am staring aghast with European eyes at a city of 4 million people where the commuter rail doesn't run outside peak hours. How do you get home if you go out for a couple of drinks with colleagues, or stay late for a call? You shouldn't be asking for a couple of trains between 8pm and midnight. They should be every half hour, or more! Midnight until 6am on Saturday and Sunday could be every hour or two. (I live in C…

I feel this way too, having gone down the online rabbit hole of urbanist content. We don’t need cheaper Ubers, we need trains!

Dunno where you are, but trains suck arse here in the UK. Its half the price to fly to Edinburgh than to take a train and my wife recently took a stressful (delays and cancellations and missed connections) two and a half hour train ride that would have taken an hour.

Honestly I think busses are far superior due to not having so many dependencies.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#908

Post by daEmpathyMon »

prmoustache wrote: post #854
tim333 wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though Waymo et al aren't really competing with unusually good drivers, more with average drivers and they are probably safer there, on the roads they have been trained for. (one study - 100% reduction in the frequency of bodily injury claims and a 76% decrease in property damage - https://www.ktvu.com/news/waymo-says-its-driverless-cars-saf... )

The thing is most drivers should not be allowed to drive given their low training, driving standard, general lack of empathy and/or medications or substance abuse issues but society incorrectly assume driving is a right while it should be considered a privilege you earn and that can be revoked anytime based on regular tests + eventual tickets. I estimate at around 20% the amount of drivers that really should be allow…

Ironically, it is very unempathetic to claim 80% of drivers lack empathy.

Your super-claim that you are indeed empathic because you're concerned about everybody else does not justify the lower-level empathy violation.

You have been P.C.'d

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#909

Post by concordDance »

School-Cotton wrote: post #663
fhub wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun anecdote. When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once (I'm not sure they still do this). But it wasn't implemented very well at some point since the Waymo I was in was behind another one for many blocks. The wipers went at least 17 times. As an earlier adopter I provided lots of feedback. Even little things like I…

> When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way I hate “whimsical” stuff like this. Part of maturity/adulthood is coming to the realization that you don’t have the right to conscript other people into your sense of humor.

I disagree strongly, I want more personality in the people and things I see in life. Even if I'm not a fan of someone's sense of humour I can appreciate an attempt at levity and whimsy.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#910

Post by JanSt »

ignormies wrote: post #816
dekhn wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most intersections in the Bay Area have magnetic sensors underground to detect cars and expedite a green when appropriate. Where was this mile-long stretch? 3rd street?

As an extension of the argument the comment you're replying to was making: Many (most?) intersections in the Netherlands have early detection systems that change the light _before_ the car reaches it. But they didn't just do this for cars, they also do this for bikes. And public transit gets signal priority allowing buses and trams to almost always get green lights. They've spent the money improving transportation of…

As a german I'm so jealous for the smart actions of our neighbors. We are always at least 10 years behind.
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