Comment by chaboud

1 day ago

Possibly, but Waymos have recently been much more aggressive about blowing through situations where human drivers can (and generally do) slow down. As a motorcyclist, I've had some close calls with Waymos driving on the wrong side of the road recently, and I had a Waymo cut in front of my car at a one-way stop (t intersection) recently when it had been tangled up with a Rivian trying to turn into the narrow street it was coming out of. I had to ABS brake to avoid an accident.

Most human drivers (not all) know to nose out carefully rather than to gun it in that situation.

So, while I'm very supportive of where Waymo is trying to go for transport, we should be constructively critical and not just assume that humans would have been in the same situation if driving defensively.

26 comments

chaboud

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jobs_throwaway  1 day ago

Certainly, I'm not against constructive criticism of Waymo. I just think it's important to consider the counterfactual. You're right too that an especially prudent human driver may have avoided the scenario altogether, and Waymo should strive to be that defensive.

  • themafia  20 hours ago

    > I'm not against constructive criticism of Waymo.

    I feel like you have to say this out loud because many people in these discussions don't share this view. Billion dollar corporate experiments conducted in public are sacrosanct for some reason.

    > I just think it's important to consider the counterfactual

    More than 50% of roadway fatalities involve drugs or alcohol. If you want to spend your efforts improving safety _anywhere_ it's right here. Self driving cars do not stand a chance of improving outcomes as much as sensible policy does. Europe leads the US here by a wide margin.

    • jobs_throwaway  20 hours ago

      > I feel like you have to say this out loud because many people in these discussions don't share this view. Billion dollar corporate experiments conducted in public are sacrosanct for some reason.

      Yes, and I find it annoying that some people do seem to think Waymo should never be criticized. That said, we already have an astounding amount of data, and that data clearly shows that the experiment is successful in reducing crashes. Waymos are absolutely, without question already making streets safer than if humans were driving those cars.

      > If you want to spend your efforts improving safety _anywhere_ it's right here.

      We can and should do both. And as your comment seems to imply but does not explicitly state, we should also improve road design to be safer, which Europe absolutely kicks America's ass on.

      8 replies →

    • ufmace  20 hours ago

      > More than 50% of roadway fatalities involve drugs or alcohol. If you want to spend your efforts improving safety _anywhere_ it's right here. Self driving cars do not stand a chance of improving outcomes as much as sensible policy does. Europe leads the US here by a wide margin.

      Could you spell out exactly what "sensible" policy changes you were thinking of? Driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol is already illegal in every state. Are you advocating for drastically more severe enforcement, regardless of which race the person driving is, or what it does to the national prison population? Or perhaps for "improved transit access", which is a nice idea, but will take many decades to make a real difference?

      9 replies →

veltas  1 day ago

Absolutely, I can tell you right now that many human drivers are probably safer than the Waymo, because they would have slowed down even more and/or stayed further from the parked cars outside a school; they might have even seen the kid earlier in e.g. a reflection than the Waymo could see.

  • mlyle  1 day ago

    It seems it was driving pretty slow (17MPH) and they do tend to put in a pretty big gap to the right side when they can.

    There are kinds of human sensing that are better when humans are maximally attentive (seeing through windows/reflections). But there's also the seeing-in-all-directions, radar, superhuman reaction time, etc, on the side of the Waymo.

    • davorak  10 hours ago

      17MPH is way to fast, depending on the details. I do not think the article gives the details to know if it was a reasonable speed to be going or not, enough details to know it might be to fast, like proximity to a school and children present, yes.