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Comment by wyldfire | Hacker News Reader

> the reality is that the self-driving vehicles are overly cautious.

Humans contribute to lots of accidents when they unconventionally yield the right of way. Other drivers which should be yielding are now faced with the unpredictability of the too-cautious ("dangerously" cautious IMO) driver re-claiming their right of way. Or they face the problem of other drivers in other lanes who don't notice that the incorrectly-yielding driver is letting another vehicle into their right-of-way.

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Inappropriate yielding should be penalised just like lack of appropriate yielding.

At sea the COLREGS require ships with right of way to maintain their course and speed (unless of course they have to give way to another ship, or make evasive maneuvers). Of course fishermen tend to ignore this rule, changing their course and speed whenever convenient to them.

> Inappropriate yielding should be penalised just like lack of appropriate yielding.

Uh, yeah, I've had too many close calls with people merging to just blindly assert my right of way every time.

COLREGS don't say do it blindly, why should you?

I'll typically just sit there until the person yielding their right-of-way gives up and goes. No way I'm pulling in front of someone with the right-of-way only to have them change their mind on a whim. I just assume they're trying to commit insurance fraud and ruin my day, whether they are or not.

This is my tactic as well. If I can't trust them to know they have the right of way and use it, then I won't trust them enough to put myself in front of their vehicle. That goes for driving as well as walking.

I would argue if an accident occurs from your example, none of the parties involved were yielding properly to begin with. There shouldn't be an accident (nomenclature is more correct with "collision") with a yield.

The worst-case scenario when yielding properly, with unconventionally given right-of-way is that both parties are at a complete stop and have angry drivers behind.

Now, if you are disobeying the law and are following too closely and collide with someone in front of you, that's a different situation......

Yeah, my grandmother does this kind of thing all the time (or did, back when she still drove). Violating expectations out of an abundance of caution causes a lot of accidents and near misses.

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