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>pedestrian jaywalks in front as they're stopped at a stop sign;

>A pedestrian on the corner next to a stop sign causes them to pause

I am struggling to reconcile how the pedestrian does not have the right of way in both these cases.

What action you take depends on what state you're in, and where the pedestrian is.

> Pedestrian crossing: 50 state summary

> The majority of states, however, only require motorists to yield to, rather than stop for, pedestrians crossing at uncontrolled crosswalks. Nineteen states require a motorist to yield when a pedestrian is upon any portion of the roadway. Louisiana mandates motorist yielding when a pedestrian is upon the same half of the roadway. Nebraska requires yielding when a pedestrian is upon the same half of the roadway or within one lane of the motorist. Massachusetts mandates yielding when a pedestrian is upon the same half of the roadway or within 10 feet of the motorist; and 20 states mandate motorists yield when a pedestrian is upon the same half of the roadway or approaching closely enough from the opposite side of the roadway to constitute a danger. In addition, in at least five states and the District of Columbia, bicyclists have the same or similar rights as pedestrians.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/pedestrian-cross...

In my example (standing at corner), they certainly have right of way, whenever they plan on walking. Sometimes they're just hanging out, which is usually obvious to a human, but in a subtle way I can't describe, let alone guess at how to program.

In my example (jaywalker) they stopped and waited for the pedestrian to cross the street.

The pause times do seem longer than a human would take (I noticed this with the right-turn with pedestrian case as well), but I'd rather that self-driving cars err on the side of safe rather than sorry.

Agreed, endgame (all cars self driving) it's gonna be better. But when there's a mix on the road, I imagine a lot of awkwardness. I feel like they should throw a little LCD panel on each side of the car so it can just display a message like "yielding to pedestrian" or whatever.

Imagine the lawsuits when someone relies on what they saw on the panel and an accident ensues.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Mercedes has spent some thought on this. They propose having LEDs in the front of the car that colour where it sees pedestrians, so you know if you've been seen.

1. "Jaywalker" ("crazy walker") is a slur invented by the auto industry to remove the civil rights of humans not in cars.

2. Your example doesn't even seem to meet the slur's definition.

1. 100 years ago yes, but at this point the term is in common use.

What's considered jaywalking (crossing a street where there is no crosswalk) in USA is usually legal in other countries. In Netherlands I can cross the street almost anywhere I want, except if I'm too close to a real crossing.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#Safety_consideratio... for the various unique instances.

In some cities in the USA, Jay walking is also waking across a crosswalk when you don't have the walk signal. Is this a ticketable offense in the Netherlands?

I am not sure why you got downvoted for stating a fact. About the automotive industry's aggressive lobbying to gain control of the streets in the 1920s, see here for instance: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797

> I am not sure why you got downvoted for stating a fact.

Personally, I downvoted it for the "civil rights" phrase. It is unnecessary, hyperbolic, and inflammatory; these discussions tend to attract such comments and they derail rational discussion.

FYI the definition of jaywalker is "a reckless pedestrian who crosses a street illegally". This sounds legal.

As a New Yorker currently living in California, this is something I've had to grapple with.

In New York, right of way is pretty unilaterally given to road traffic. Outside of otherwise controlled interactions (signaled crosswalks), pedestrians are expected to give way to vehicles. And vehicles (to borrow maritime terminology) have a stand-on duty--they are expected to maintain speed and direction.

So it doesn't matter what posture pedestrians adopt, even when they are standing a full lane into the road (people commonly queue to cross the street in the parking lane, rather than on the sidewalk, leaving the sidewalk clear for people traveling along the street). Cars are expected to proceed---and you can bet they will be reminded of that fact by those behind them if they slow unnecessarily. Furthermore, New York's robust jaywalking culture means that these people are all peering upstream, watching for a break in traffic.

In contrast, California has very much opposite expectations. Cars are expected to yield to pedestrians in pretty much all situations (and jaywalking is rare). It turns out if you exhibit really any of the above behaviors in California, drivers tend to interpret that as telegraphing an immediate intent and request to cross the street.

When I moved to California, I was initially perplexed and frustrated by how it seemed like cars would randomly stop anytime I happened to be standing by a crosswalk, even when I didn't have any intention to cross, or when I was happy to let them pass by first. Lots of awkward "no, no, please proceed" gestures ensued.

Eventually I realized the big cue I was giving them was that I was habitually watching traffic. I now take care to be visibly not looking upstream when standing at a crosswalk. That seems to have solved the problem.

So I submit to you that the difference you're picking up on between pedestrians who do and do not have an intent to cross is whether they are paying attention to traffic.

Your example perfectly illustrates why I prefer the California method. On my morning walk or bicycle ride to the train station, I have to go through easily 30 lighted intersections. Having to analyze traffic for a gap 60 times a day sounds exhausting. I much prefer just zoning out at the red light, listening to a podcast or whatever, then doing one quick left/right check when my signal comes on.

I don't have to analyze anything, I don't have to negotiate with a driver, don't have to guess speed, I just go when it's my time to go.

>I am struggling to reconcile how the pedestrian does not have the right of way in both these cases.

A pedestrian jaywalking does certainly not have "the right of way". That doesn't mean the car doesn't still have an obligation to avoid hitting them. The rules of the road are redundant for a reason, one party not doing what they're supposed to should not cause a crash.

If the car is at a stop sign no person walking in front of them could possibly be jaywalking.

The Rengstorff-El Camino intersection seems incorrect. If you are turning left from Rengstorff to El Camino it's not a left turn arrow, but actually when it's green, the cars on the parking lot on the opposite side have a red light. I've been confused by this because it seems like if there's a car wanting to go straight on the opposite side and no turn arrow, you shouldn't turn left, but that's how that intersection works.

That is indeed wrong, wonder if there's some public feedback mechanism for reporting non protocol conforming intersections :)

The City of Mountain View has a public works issue tracker system, which you can use to submit a request to the city engineers: https://clients.comcate.com/newrequest.php?id=128#

Keep in mind that both El Camino Real and freeway ramps are maintained by CalTrans, not the city. But the one time I submitted a issue about a freeway off-ramp they forwarded the report to CalTrans for me, so it's a good place to start.

Also that intersection is literally the border of Los Altos and mountain view, and is only "partially" managed by Caltrand. I dunno what that means, it's what the lady on the phone told me.

That intersection has always been horrible. Our office looks straight onto it so it's our favorite thing to just watch and wait for the inevitable (usually tame) accident.

"...you aren't sure if you should just go around them or what"

It just now occurs to me that autonomous cars could have status lights. So that an observer can better predict what's gonna happen next.

Kinda like the purpose brake lights and blinkers serve. Flashing yellow lights indicates the car is confused, thinks there's a safety risk, or whatever.

An expanded visual vocabulary.

hazards during hazards are fine but I don't think adding more status light with proprietary meaning would really help.

on the other hand a led matrix with pictograms would be great

> pedestrian on the corner next to a stop sign causes them to pause in the middle of the intersection for an uncomfortable amount of time

This is a really interesting point to me, and I think it's one of the major weak points for self-driving cars: they have to pass a kind of Turing test.

You have a good example of something we do all the time when driving: try to read the mind of the driver. Don Norman wrote a book titled, "Turn Signals are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles", but it goes well beyond that. We use the "body language" of driving to infer driver intent.

I think the best short-term case is that people make excuses for the dumb robot as you do here. But a very plausible outcome is that we get an "uncanny valley" effect for robot cars where people resent and are creeped out by something pretending to be human but falling short.

What they need is to tell the people around them that they've been seen, maybe an led strip that glows in your direction, green for "congrats, you're very predictable", blue for "what the hell are you doing", and black for off "haven't seen you yet"