There's a weird thing where people like to brag(?) that their city has the craziest, worst, drivers/roads.

Having driven in both LA and NYC+NJ, LA drivers feel almost serenely calm to me most of the time.

In LA, as long as you don't do anything obviously stupid and give plenty of room for people to see you coming, people will just chill and leave you be. Every now and then I will see someone do something unfathomably crazy though.

In NYC (NJ especially), this didn't work. I had to be actively psychologically manipulating other drivers in order to get even a simple lane change done. Make the other guy think he won by signaling earlier than normal so he'll gun it sooner and leave space behind him, or don't signal until I'm halfway into the lane already.

>Also, I can assure you LA drivers are a tad bit more aggressive than NYC drivers (less honking and flicking off though, LA people are more a drive you off the road or into the shoulder sort of passive aggressive).

>I was born and raised in NYC and have lived in LA for quite some time, still going home often for family. I’m really struggling with reading these “NYC is unique” comments regarding Waymo traffic.

Slightly OT, but that reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago (I can't remember the publication though :( )

It had two identical panels with two cars and two drivers on a road:

One panel was marked "Los Angeles" where the driver of one car had a "speaking" bubble that said "Have a nice day!" and that same driver had a "thought" bubble saying "Fuck you!"

The other panel was marked "New York," where the driver noted above's "speaking" bubble said "Fuck you!" and the the "thought" bubble said "Have a nice day!"

I've always thought it was a great metaphor. Then again, I'm a native NYer. ;)

People in LA wait to jaywalk on the street or even in the suicide lane all the time. The Waymos handle it fine; generally by asserting it has right of way unless collision is obviously imminent. They'll even happily swerve around you if you're too far out.

That's fair and I've certainly experienced this where I live, which is north of Buffalo in latitude. Also frost heaves are no joke in non-city/non-highway roads and present another obstacle to FSD. I guess my point, if I had one, is I would hope FSD would be programmed to be as conservative as possible in adversarial winter conditions and not overreact to such conditions and that alone is enough to increase safety because humans, for various reasons, are not conservative enough. Hard to imagine for sure.

> And modern vehicles have electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, automatic emergency braking, and several other safety systems

In ice none of these really stop overcorrection, or at least they don't in my 2020 truck on icy hill/mountain roads in Maine. And I've seen nice recent Volvos and BMWs with presumably the best safety tech in ditches up in the ski towns. The correct safe speed to drive on icy roads is not to drive at all of course, but people have to get places and people make mistakes. IME the assistive technology defaults don't do great on ice roads on some kind of up/down grade.

AFAIK drivers can still steer and brake themselves into a loss of control situation on ice regardless of safety features. So I guess I'm hoping once you take those two variables out of their hands, the FSD vehicles will be safer. Who knows though.

I went many years without a loss of control and the one time it did happen (logging roads with ice pack) was enough for me to buy Nokian studded winter tires to minimize the effect of ice as much as possible.

on the contrary, no amount of safety systems can compensate for a loss of traction on ice and snow.

The surest way to be safe on snow covered roads is to not drive at all. Also, none of the electronic trickery is a replacement for real winter tires, which many people do not buy.

My point was that it will be interesting to see how well it works in NYC where the only way to drive is aggressively in city streets breaking the rules. LA has its share of aggressive driving but as someone who has driven in both, NYC felt like I had to break the rules to go anywhere, LA not so much.

Hard to really compare a tiny piece of LA and say it’s more dense and compare it to borough that is in the same range but also magnitudes larger total pop.

Traffic on the sidewalk is a daily occurrence and often necessity in NYC. I'm not sure exactly how every area in LA is but often (as in pretty much constantly every day) in Manhattan or Brooklyn drivers don't obey the lines on the road, don't care to bump objects and cars to fit into a spot, literally threaten to hit other cars to get anywhere.

There's a bit of a "do what you have to" mentality with NY traffic that I haven't seen in any other east coast or mid-western city. I think that poses some unique challenges that I've often seen video of Waymos freezing up when facing similar scenarios, which could cause huge issues in most of the city.

there is nowhere in LA with the complex intermingling of pedestrian, car, bicycle, and motorbike traffic of anywhere in the boroughs other than Staten.

LA it’s gridlock or go. There’s nothing complicated about it other than strategizing where is gridlock and where is Go.

Crossing the street as a pedestrian without a walk signal in NYC goes:

- look in the direction of oncoming traffic as you approach the intersection, cross if you think you can make it without breaking your stride

- if there is traffic, step off the curb into the street and wait for a large enough gap in traffic to walk against the light

- if there is backed up traffic, find a gap to walk in between

Wait until New Yorkers figure out that Waymos will detect you and yield in order to avoid hitting you. People will just disregard and cross right in front of them.

Also, yes, you can walk in LA, but the major difference here is that the sidewalks are for commuting here in NYC. We don't just walk for pleasure.

If white-out visibility is the only problem to be addressed then machines seem pretty well placed because they can use very accurate positioning and non-visible light sensors. Unfortunately they probably wouldn't know that there's a 50 yard section of the road that always drifts in when the wind comes from the south and the snow is dry.

> Robocars won't be able to drive in a white-out

My Subaru can lane keep in Wyoming blizzards better than I can because it follows the car in front with radar.

Also snow and ice in NYC is a rare event now, not a given like it used to be.

I come from way up top on that globe of ours. I have driven in frankly apocalyptic snowstorms. They're an insidious problem to solve, but I remain optimistic. Back home, they will close specific roads due to snowstorms, but what do you do about the cars already on the road? You can't stay put for 16 hours can you? So you move as slow as possible, sometimes as low as 5 kilometres an hour. Cause that's the thing about a snowstorm; it's about visibility. You're not risking your life if a dude in skis can go faster than you.

That all sounds like something that should be easier for a robot to do than the typical human. If programmed for how to drive in heavy snow, a robot should be able to switch driving modes much easier than the typical human brain.

Waymo has been trained in Buffalo NY for winter conditions, unlike most NYC drivers.