Comment by jefftk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jefftk | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

From the paper (https://storage.googleapis.com/sdc-prod/v1/safety-report/Way...):

"There were also no collisions (actual or simulated) in which the Waymo Driver struck a pedestrian or cyclist. There were three events (one actual, two simulated) in which the Waymo vehicle was struck by a pedestrian or cyclist. In each instance, the Waymo Driver decelerated and stopped, and a pedestrian or cyclist made contact with the right side of the stationary Waymo vehicle while the pedestrian or cyclist was traveling at low speeds."

"in each of the 3 actual and simulated events in which a pedestrian or cyclist struck the Waymo vehicle at low speed, the Waymo vehicle had decelerated and stopped immediately prior to the contact or simulated contact in a way that may have differed from the cyclist’s or pedestrian’s expectations. This illustrates a key challenge faced by AVs operating in a predominantly human traffic system and underscores the importance of driving in a way that is interpretable and predictable by other road users."

(Disclosure: I work for Google, a sibling company of Waymo, speaking only for myself)

They just don’t drive like humans. I almost walked into the side of a Cruise vehicle a few years back because the car did a double stop at a stop sign when I expected it to keep moving forward after the first stop. There was no other traffic and I wasn’t distracted - but it just stopped in the middle of the crosswalk after starting to go forward.

Pedestrians assume certain things that are not necessarily true for self-driving vehicles, just as if I started acting erratically as a pedestrian it would really mess with cars.

All in all, though, I’d much rather take that failure case (At least when walking) over the human failure case of hitting me while turning.

It's not the Cruise system's fault that you almost ran into them. They should absolutely be able to stop again to access the situation before continuing, regardless of the traffic situation. And who knows, maybe there was another pedestrian or animal running around on the other side of the road that you didn't see.

It's like rear ending a car at a stop sign because they did a double stop and blaming the front car. That's just not how it works.

This absolutely can be a liability. I've been 'hit' by a car that made a left turn into their driveway across the bike lane. If there is a small animal or another pedestrian that isn't the biker's fault - the car is still liable at that point. Blocking orthogonal lanes of traffic is not a driver's 'right'.

That's a much more vague situation. Did they actually hit you? Did they cut you off and force you to hit them? Those are much different situations than them having plenty of time to make a turn and having to stop for whatever reason, and you assumed that they wouldn't stop so you didn't slow down. And to be clear, I don't care what the law says in this conversation; I care about what I think is the correct outcome.

A double stop at a stop sign is a very simple situation.

I'll address your questions second, but I want to put forward the most lucid scenario that I feel addresses the double stop situation.

We have an intersection where one direction is controlled (There's a stop sign) and the other is not. If a bike or pedestrian is moving in the uncontrolled direction, should we allow a car in the controlled direction to be able to block uncontrolled traffic - car, bike, pedestrian without by default being liable.

My answer would be no - the car coming from the controlled direction cannot impede the uncontrolled lanes of traffic when proceeding. If something suddenly appeared, like an animal, then we should allow drivers some leeway to resolve that trolley problem. However, I would add that there should be an expectation that things are proportionate - allowing a cat to survive should not force a biker or pedestrian to hit the car.

I think we can generalize this further by introducing right-of-way and other concepts that make fully controlled intersections more difficult, but I feel the results will be roughly similar.

To your initial questions, the body of the car moved into the bike lane when I had insufficient time or space to deviate my path to avoid the car. I hit the hood of the car and flew over it.

I am in agreement that if I'm following someone through an intersection and rear-end them based on them double stopping, I think it is less so when we are dealing with orthogonal lanes of traffic.

We might have to agree to disagree a bit.

If I am driving in the uncontrolled direction and see a car crossing in the controlled direction, then I slow down enough in case the crossing car slows down or stops unexpectedly. If the crossing car doesn't give enough space (i.e. cuts people off), then they're at fault. Otherwise the uncontrolled direction is at fault.

To simplify it: Everyone should give everyone enough space/time to stop before hitting something. Everyone should use that space/time when something unexpected happens. Anyone who breaks either of those should be at fault.

Again, just my opinion about how it should be. I have no idea what the law says.

These AI cars are like that driver that's been in a million accidents but insists they're a good driver because they weren't "at fault" in any of them they're a good driver.

If you violate the expectations of other road users you're gonna get in a hell of a lot of accidents. Sure you might not be to blame in any particular one of them but when you're the common factor eventually it's hard to pretend like you're blameless.

Pedestrians "assuming" certain things (aka acting irresponsibly) is the worst.

I often see people cross the street halfway to only stop at the last second when a car is about to pass them. For people driving at 50km/h this is terrifying because they have to trust that the pedestrian is fully aware of his dangerous position. If you maintain your speed there is a good almost 100% chance that you will pass the pedestrian before he even reaches your lane but if you slow down then there is a non zero risk that the pedestrian didn't see you and you are about to run him over. So nope, defensive driving is not the answer and can actually increase accident risk in this specific scenario. It was all up to the pedestrians to follow safety basic rules and they broke them to cross the street a few seconds faster.

The car is also assuming how the pedestrian will walk, I'm pretty sure we're just describing an adversarial game here. If the pedestrian guesses wrong they might be hit by the car, if the car guesses wrong the pedestrian might be hit. This means you can have easy rules that look clear cut, but in practice the risk for both parties makes me a pretty defensive pedestrian and driver.

Nope. Killing machines being meters away from people is the worst. And it’s crazy we just accept this.

You drivers are the ones who stole massive amounts of prime land from the commons for your cars, and now you want us to adjust our behavior to make driving easier for you too?

Eye contact is a big thing when driving at low speeds - if you don't make eye contact with a driver you can assume they either don't see you or are not going to give you right of way (e.g., if you're jaywalking). I can imagine moments of confusion at intersections where pedestrians are unsure what the AV car is "thinking".

Similarly with other situations where you might leave a gap in traffic for someone to make that left turn across your congested road (would an AV even do this?), it helps to see that other driver wave you across (even if technically you don't have right of way).

I'd love to see some kind of indication that a car is in autonomous mode. That would let others adjust their expectations.

Especially cops, it could be legal to be asleep/drunk if the car is autonomous!

That being said, it would be great if autonomous cars kept up with traffic. I've seen autonomous cars going 50mph on hwy 101 when other traffic is going 70mph, or 5mph over normal highway speeds. Not a great situation.

As a cyclist, this says nothing to me about the safety of these cars. I was biking and I "struck" a car that was heading opposite my direction and making a left hand turn across my path in the bike line and crossing my right of way. I struck the car on the side near the front passenger wheel at "slow speed" and was thrown over the hood of the car and then onto the ground. This incident was the cars fault for making a turn without consideration of my right of way even though I, the cyclist, was the one who struck the car.

An SDC that freezes in front of cyclists is still dangerous to cyclists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com