I’m actually pretty surprised Waymo as a general rule doesn’t completely avoid driving in school zones unless absolutely unavoidable.

Any accident is bad. But accidents involving children are especially bad.

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dylan604 14 hours ago | parent [-]

That would be one hell of a convoluted route to avoid school zones. I wonder if it would even be possible for a large majority of routes, especially in residential areas.

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whynotminot 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It might not be possible for a lot of places — I don’t really know.

But I know when I drive, if it’s a route I’m familiar with, I’ll personally avoid school zones for this very reason: higher risk of catastrophe. But also it’s annoying to have to slow down so much.

Maybe this personal decision doesn’t really scale to all situations, but I’m surprised Waymo doesn’t attempt this. (Maybe they do and in this specific scenario it just wasn’t feasible)

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dylan604 14 hours ago | parent [-]

Most people prefer the shortest ride. Circling around school zones would be the opposite of that. Rides are charged based on distance, so maybe this would interest Waymo, but one of the big complaints about taxi drivers was how drivers would "take them for a ride" to increase the fare.

	▲	whynotminot 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Seems like a solvable problem: make it clear on the app/interior car screens that a school zone is being avoided — I think most riders will understand this. You also have to drive much more slowly in a school zone than you do on other routes, so depending on the detour, it may not even be that much longer of a drive. At worst, maybe Waymo eats the cost difference involved in choosing a more expensive route. This certainly hits the bottom line, but there’s certainly also a business and reputational cost from “child hit by Waymo in school zone” in the headlines. Again, this all seems very solvable.

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trollbridge 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, I'm a human and I figure out how to avoid school zones.