Comment by tallowen
21 hours ago
Bike Lanes have turned out to be an interesting edge case.
Waymos are currently dropping off and picking up passengers in a bike lane which is not legal (because it is dangerous) however many ride share drivers also do this. As somebody who is commonly a biker / pedestrian I am excited that AVs will likely make many things safer for that class of user. That being said, I do worry about how we encode these "social understandings" of laws. - A waymo I rode in on a highway was happy to go slightly above the speed limit - It seems at stop signs waymo prefers to be slightly aggressive to make it through rather than follow the letter of the law.
It seems silly that we have to teach robots to break certain laws sometimes but parking in bike lanes / yielding to pedestrians are laws that human drivers break all the time and I hope the mechanisms mentioned in the article prevent us from teaching robots to program anti-social but common behavior.
https://futurism.com/future-society/waymo-bike-lanes-traffic
It's all pretty nuanced. I don't know where to draw a line.
For instance: Busy intersections with 4-way stop signs are an interesting example of how laws don't quite fit.
It's obviously important to get the order right since nobody wants to be in a car crash today. But the law (often -- we've got 50 states worth of driving laws and they aren't all the same) says something very specific and simplistic about the order: First-come, first-served; if order is unclear, yield to the right. Always wait for the intersection to be completely clear before proceeding.
That sounds nice and neat and it looks good on paper. It was surely at least a very easy system to describe and then write down.
But reality is very different: 4 way stops are an elaborate dance of drivers executing moves simultaneously and without conflict. For instance: Two opposite, straight-going cars can proceed concurrently works fine. All 4 directions can turn right, concurrently. Opposing left turns at the same time? Sure! While others are also turning right? Why not.
When there's room for a move and it creates no conflict, then that move works fine.
We all were taught how these intersections are supposed to work, but then reality ultimately shows us how they do work. And the dance works. It's efficient. Nobody gets ticketed for safely dancing that dance. (And broadly-speaking, a timid law-abiding driver who doesn't know the dance will be let through...eventually.)
The main problem with the dance is that it's difficult to adequately describe and write down and thus codify in law.
But maybe we should try, anyway.
The nuance for four-way stops is pretty simple. First come, first serve queue. Except you are allowed to jump out of order if you jumping out of order doesn't slow the people ahead of you down.
You’ve done a great job of explaining exactly how 4 way stops are terrible , and why they should be eliminated.
Only two countries make heavy use of them, so it seems less effort to get rid of them and the AI driverless world will be better without them
What I've described is the reality that I, along with self-driving Waymos in California, exist within.
There isn't a generation alive that didn't grow up with this reality in these places.
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Now, if you want me to agree that there are much better methods than stop signs to control traffic at intersections, then sure: I can agree with that. Absolutely.
But I'll agree only on one condition: That you cease immediately with all attempts to make perfect be the enemy of good.
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As a cyclist and driver I figure you have to use some common sense. I probably break some regulations all the time like stopping where you are not supposed to briefly but being safe and not inconveniencing others is the main thing.
I read an article a while back that they made Waymo more aggressive, in the ways you mention, because they were quite annoying to other drivers when following the letter of the law. There is something to be said for following the flow of traffic.
I would imagine they would be able to revert back to more strict rule following once autonomous vehicles reach some level of critical mass and human drivers are needing to adapt to the AV traffic, rather than AVs needing to adapt to human traffic.
I wonder what happens legally if a biker plows into the Waymo, Casey Neistat style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ
I don't think you are legally allowed to deliberately crash into things even if they are annoying.
The law in that video - ticketing cyclists for not being in the bike lane - surprised me. There's nothing like that in the UK.
It will be an “accident”
In SF it's legal for taxies to do pickups/drop-offs in bike lanes
I haven't seen any evidence Waymo does it anywhere illegal "just because rideshares do"
This is false. It is only legal in the rare event that a passenger requires curb-side access for accessibility/ADA reasons; any other use is still illegal. To quote SFMTA taxi training:
Only drop off in a separated bike lane if you have disabled or elderly customers who require direct access to the curb You may only pick up in a separated bike lane if the dispatcher tells you that the customer is disabled and must be picked up at a location that is next to a separated bike lane.
Taxi drivers often intentionally misstate this regulation because it’s more annoying to follow the law and find a legal place to stop so they pretend they are allowed to use bike lanes for any reason.
Taxi training isn't a regulation. The California Vehicle Code is, and specifically section 22500 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...) states which areas parking and standing is prohibited, without needing to expressly post signs or paint curbs to indicate a no parking zone, and it does not prohibit parking or standing in bike lanes.
Woah you're being pretty misleading!
That's for a separated bike lane, and Waymo doesn't even seem capable of doing it: that'd typically involve driving over/between the plastic bollards separating the lane...
Waymo doesn't seem to be willing to drive on the wrong side of bollards and I've never seen a taxi do it either.
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For non-separated bike lanes it's still a last resort, but it's allowed for all passengers not just the disabled.
> Bicycle Safety
> Passenger Loading: Non-Separated Bike Lanes
> May enter a non-separated bike lane with caution to drop off all customers (disabled and non-disabled) Using bike lanes as an absolutely last resort [emphasis theirs, not mine]
Waymo doesn't seem to do it when there are other options close nearby either, given the gaps in allowed pick up/drop off locations they offer by bike lanes
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It would seem you're intentionally misstating the situation to villainize the driverless vehicles that otherwise l generally respect riders more than anyone else on the road...
Actually weirdly enough, you had to read what I wrote to post this right?
This is the same training doc you used? https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/reports-and-docume...
Sperated bike lanes are illustrated and come after what I quoted :/
Yea, California civic code is pretty liberal with curbside parking parking, allowing it anywhere it isn't expressly prohibited, with signs declaring it so.
I live in Northern California, inland of San Francisco, and the city closest to me has a bunch of streets with bike lanes that are just painted onto the shoulder and otherwise are legally just a shoulder. Most of those streets also prohibit parking, but some don't, so parking is in the bike lane.
It gets really crazy in the denser parts of Southern California, where parking is sometimes not prohibited even when there isn't a shoulder, so parked cars full-on block a driving lane.