Hacker News Reader

Comment by ipsin | Hacker News Reader

While a human driver can easily see a rider doing a track stand isn’t going anywhere...

Ok, I'm just going to come out and say, I'm a licensed human driver and a bicyclist, and I find track stands confusing too. Like a skateboarder in the bike lane, there's a lot of potential for unexpected motion, and that needs to be accounted for.

The bicyclist is wobbling in place, but could easily transition to going forward or backwards without warning. The bicyclist is intent on the stand, so drivers won't be able to gain eye contact.

I think the cloud of uncertainty around bicyclists is also why cars wrongly yield to my bike so often at stop signs. Some bicyclists do unpredictable things, and drivers incorporate that into their mental models.

People learn, and I'm confident that self-driving cars will too. Eventually.

View on HN

I hope their cars keep a good log of exactly what logic led them to every decision they make, so when an accident happens, the car's log can clearly indicate something like: "The bicyclist to my left appeared to be in a 'track stand' position, indicating he was yielding to me, so I went forward through the intersection."

Although I suppose keeping a rolling video of everything would suffice as well, for diagnosis purposes.

Maybe team up with the Nest Team, they could only record video of important events?

Videos of events are actually a terrible idea, for the defendant. There's way to much tendency for 'backseat drivers' to second-guess a decision made in a moment. Videos give them a 'sound byte' of a complex event. Juries make terrible decisions that way.

Isn’t it interesting how possessing barely any information can lead people to confidently make decisions “based on the evidence”?

Not sure - sarcasm, right?

Somebody looking over your shoulder from the calm surroundings of a court room are very likely to second-guess everything you do, looking at a video of it. That's why we have a jury, an advocacy system, and we question witnesses.

Yes, when I'm at a stop sign anywhere near a bike, I'll yield if I'm in a car. Bicyclists are just too unpredictable - sometimes they'll roll the stop sign even if it seems unwise (or maybe they just didn't notice me). So now I just assume all bicyclists I see on the road will ignore all stop signs in their way; it sometimes leads to awkward wave/stops, but better that than running somebody over.

Keep in mind that once you "wave" you assumer responsibility for any accident which might ensue do to your waving people on because others may not be aware of your waving and interrupting expected traffic patterns.

Yes my traffic school instructor told me to never wave. Not because of responsibility, but of the fact that you might have missed something and the person (especially children) might interpret your wave not as "I'll stop until you have passed" but as "road clear, go ahead".

Yah, in general I hate wavers. The problem is that I've experienced bicyclists who just don't follow traffic rules regarding stop, yield, and red lights. Given that I know there's a nonzero probability that a bicycle will intersect with my car if I pull out, I don't go from my stop until I'm pretty sure they're going to stop at the 4-way.

As I mentioned in a cousin reply, I once struck a bicyclist who wasn't obeying traffic rules (she blew a stop sign at a 4-way) and was found liable for the accident at least by the officer who wrote the accident report. We're all lucky her injuries weren't major, but there's no way I'm going to risk hitting a biker who is barreling down a hill toward a 4-way by assuming they're going to follow the traffic laws.

As a cyclist, I find it frustrating when cars behave unpredictably. If you get to a 4-way stop before I do, I'm basically planning on timing my crossing to go after you do - and maybe use the delay for a chance to catch my breath.

But if a driver suddenly decides throw the 4-way stop etiquette out the window and start directing traffic from behind a windshield I often can't see through clearly because of tinting/my sunglasses/glare-from-the-sun. I'm at a bit of a loss...are they waving me though? talking to a kid in the back seat? messing with their phone?

If I go, I'm risking my neck if they were in fact distracted and not waving me though. If I resist going out-of-turn, that's awkward because my feeling is some drivers get frustrated I'm ignoring their attempt to help me out.

As it happens, I learned my own behavior because I once struck a bicyclist who wasn't as predictable as you. I went to a 4-way, stopped, saw a biker approaching the intersection who hadn't stopped yet, and pulled into the intersection.

The bicyclist didn't stop, was struck by my car, fell off, went to hospital. She was okay in the long run, but sued over the incident; the police officer who wrote up the event determined that I was at fault (despite eyewitnesses to the contrary) based on the claim that I should have stopped for the bicyclist.

At this point, given that bikes are known to do this I really don't have any choice in the matter. I'm glad I didn't kill anyone - head trauma can be really tricky. I'm concerned that I was the victim of insurance fraud (she really did run out in front of me). My insurance company just settled the complaint - didn't want to get deep into litigation over a matter of hearsay and he-said-she-said.

So, what should I do? If it's a car approaching a 4-way, I assume they will follow traffic laws. If it's a bike, I'm not so certain. My experience isn't just that one time in berkeley I hit someone, now that I live in SF, there's plenty of times when I've observed bicyclists taking their lives into their own hands and dodging traffic without obeying stop signs and red lights.

I hate wavers. They include among their number, those that are planning to run over bicyclists. I can't distinguish between the two sets, and a false negative means I die. So no, I'm not going to go first even if you wave at me.

I ride a unicycle and commonly perform tracks stands ... It really doesn't require that much concentration you're balancing the bike the same way a Segway balances. Would someone concentrating that hard be able to recount the car's behavior so clearly?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com