| 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. |
| |
| ▲ | themafia 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > 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 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > 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. | | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >data clearly shows that the experiment is successful in reducing crashes. That's fine. But crashes are relatively rare and what matters is accountability. Will Waymo be accountable for hitting this kid the way a human would? Or will they fight in court to somehow blame the pedestrian? Those are my big concerns when it comes to self driving vehicles, and history with tech suggests that they love playing hot potato instead of being held accountable. And yes, better walkable infrastructure is a win for all. The minor concern I have is the notion that self driving is perfect and we end up creating even more car centric infrastructure. I'm not sure who to blame on that one. | | |
| ▲ | BurningFrog 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Waymo is driving the car and should be held accountable like any other driver. I assume that's how it works already. | | |
| ▲ | johnnyanmac an hour ago | parent [-] | | I hope so too. I'll be keeping a close eye on how they handle this, though. My benefit of the doubt for tech was already long drained, and is especially critical for safety critical industries. |
|
| |
| ▲ | themafia 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > and that data clearly shows that the experiment is successful in reducing crashes I disagree. You need way more data, like orders of magnitude more. There are trillions of miles driven in the US every year. Those miles often include driving in inclement weather which is something Waymo hasn't even scraped the surface of yet. > without question There are _tons_ of questions. This is not even a simple problem. I cannot understand this prerogative. It's far too eager or hopeful. > We can and should do both Well Google is operating Waymo and "we" control road policy. One of these things we can act on today and the other relies on huge amounts of investments paying off in scenarios that haven't even been tested successfully yet. I see an environment forming where we ignore the hard problems and pray these corporate overlords solve the problem on their own. It's madness. | | |
| ▲ | jobs_throwaway 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > You need way more data, like orders of magnitude more. There are trillions of miles driven in the US every year. Absurd, reductive, and non-empirical. Waymos crash and cause injury/fatality far less frequently than human drivers, full stop. You are simply out of your mind if you believe otherwise, and you should re-evaluate the data. > Those miles often include driving in inclement weather which is something Waymo hasn't even scraped the surface of yet. Yes. No one is claiming that Waymos are better drivers than humans in inclement weather, because they don't operate in those conditions. That does not mean Waymos are not able to outperform human drivers in the conditions in which they do operate. > I see an environment forming where we ignore the hard problems and pray these corporate overlords solve the problem on their own. It's madness. What's madness is your attitude that Waymos' track record does not show they are effective are reducing crashes. And again, working on policy does not prevent us from also improving technology as you seem to believe it does. | |
| ▲ | decimalenough 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're moving the goalposts. The claim is that Waymos are safer than human drivers in the areas and under the conditions where they currently operate. Yeah, I'm sure Waymos would struggle in a blizzard in Duluth, but a) so would a human and b) Waymos aren't driving there. (Yet.) | | |
| ▲ | themafia 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > You're moving the goalposts No. I'm not. I'm being realistic about the technology. You're artificially limiting the scope. > so would a human This is goalpost moving 101. The question isn't would a human driver also struggle but _would it be better_? You have zero data. | | |
| ▲ | jobs_throwaway 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > This is goalpost moving 101. The question isn't would a human driver also struggle but _would it be better_? You have zero data. It is not moving the goalpost to say "so would a human". Comparison to human drivers is exactly the stated goalpost (and it should be). > You have zero data. Outrageously uninformed take. We have mountains of data that show Waymos in aggregate are safer drivers than humans. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | ufmace 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > 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? | | |
| ▲ | bragr 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Driving under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol is already illegal in every state. FWIW, your first OWI in Wisconsin, with no aggravating factors, is a civil offense, not a crime, and in most states it is rare to do any time or completely lose your license for the first offense. I'm not sure exactly what OP is getting at, but DUI/OWI limits and enforcement are pretty lax in the US compared to other countries. Our standard .08 BAC limit is a lot higher than many other countries. | | |
| ▲ | ufmace 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | That's true, but note that getting much more severe on enforcement and punishment for DUI/OWI will result in an even higher prison population, more serious life consequences for poor and minorities, etc, when the US is constantly getting trashed for how bad those things are already. To be a bit snarkier, and not directed at you, but I wish these supposedly superior Europeans would tell us what they actually want us to do. Should we enforce OWI laws more strictly, or lower the prison population? We can't do both! | | |
| ▲ | Marsymars 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I suspect you could step up enforcement in ways that don’t involve prison time simply by taking away people’s licenses, and then having a fast feedback loop to catch people driving without a license. | | |
| ▲ | Dylan16807 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Taking away licenses is a bad way to enforce driving rules because so many people have to be able to drive or their life collapses. The problems of aggressive license revocation are similar to the problems of aggressive prison time. | | |
| ▲ | Marsymars 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I get where you're coming from, but it's pretty hard to be sympathetic given the crimes we're talking about and the impact they have on others. Like that would sound nuts if we applied it to other things - e.g. "take away the professional license of a mid-career pilot/surgeon/schoolteacher/engineer because he was drinking on the job and his life collapses". Various people can't drive because of e.g. visual impairments, age, poverty, etc. - I find it an ugly juxtaposition to be asserting that we must allow people with DUIs to drive because otherwise their lives would "collapse" to the same point as those other people who can't drive. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | mlyle 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 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 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | |
| ▲ | jobs_throwaway 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | And the fact that Waymo is never drunk/high/tired/texting, which an astounding portion of human drivers are. |
| |
| ▲ | onetokeoverthe 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
|
