Comment by Mawr
9 hours ago
The situation in question: "yielding to a pedestrian crossing the driveway entrance to the parking lot on the right-hand sidewalk".
Now, really? As far as backwards logic goes, this is up there. Better to break the law and endanger others because what, some can't drive for shit?
They really can't stop tying themselves into knots to dunk on self driving cars. They don't even know it's the case, they just suspect it's the case. Even if it _were_ the case, the drivers behind them most likely don't have this information available, they probably can't distinguish between "SDV being cautions and giving right of way" and "SDV stopping an immediate impact", they can just see a car in front of them suddnely stopping. So they should stop.
To be honest, it depends.
If the pedestrian hasn't gotten to the driveway quite yet, and you're stopping to let them get there and cross out of an abundance of caution, then it may not have been legally required for you to yield. And the motorcyclist behind you could very reasonably have seen the pedestrian too (and reasoned that the pedestrian was still several seconds away from getting to the driveway) and not expected you to stop. In such a situation, such an abundance of caution could have easily "caused" an accident, in that not yielding and proceeding through would have been perfectly safe.
(I'm of course being steel-manning GP's argument here, it could have very easily been that the pedestrian was already crossing the driveway at that point, I didn't see the video. Point is, "more caution" doesn't always mean "less chance of an accident".)
> Point is, "more caution" doesn't always mean "less chance of an accident"
that's a fair point. For example, if you're on a highway and traffic is moving at 80mph however the speed limit is 55mph and so you're driving 55 you're doing way more harm than good. Becoming an obstacle to traffic makes an accident more likely regardless of whether you're right or wrong.
Having said that, I do not see the waymo at fault here at all. The other car driver turned a minor accident into a fatality without involving the waymo, pedestrian, or even the motorcyclist. They were just not paying attention and ran over the poor person.