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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

The "funny" thing, though, is if you hadn't been using FSD at all, you probably never would have seen him at all, and he wouldn't have crossed until after you passed. FSD slowing down is what caused him to think it was safe to cross, because he thought "you" saw him. But you -- very reasonably! -- thought the car was slowing for no reason, and you might have hit the guy had you manually accelerated sooner. Not saying this was your fault in the least. Just thought it was interesting that FSD -- in a very strange way -- could have actually caused you to hit a pedestrian, even though it saw the person and did the right thing.

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Encouraging pedestrians to play chicken with cars is never a good thing.

I personally play chicken with cars very often. Of course only when it is my right as a pedestrian.

If more people did that the drivers would be constantly more alert.

Twice a car has done emergency braking in front of me (they were not alert and braked late) and got rear ended.

This seems like a very bad practice, unless you want your inevitable gravestone to say "Here lies gmokki. It was his right as a pedestrian."

Eh, that sounds like a pretty good legacy for the current era. Mine will probably say "Unknown" or "Anonymous"

This sounds like terrible practice and you are gambling with you life. And probably the lives of those around you.

Fine, you might have right of way. Fine, the car driver might legally be in the wrong. But you'd still be dead and nothing changes that. You are not invincible, and the law will change fuck-all about you being in a wheelchair breathing through a tube for the rest of your life. I doubt youll even change the behaviour of the at-fault driver that much.

Lobby your council for better infrastructure for pedestrians, and steeper fines for infractions. Well lit and marked zebra crossings, etc. In Ireland _every_ zebra crossing outside of Dublin has bright flashing yellow lights on both sides that constantly flash day and night. If you are half asleep at the wheel they sure wake you up as you approach the crossing!

When I do this I am very careful to make sure that while I am not in any danger the driver will think that I am.

In Seattle, if a pedestrian wants to cross at any no-stop-light intersection (it doesn't matter if it is across a busy stroad!), cars are supposed to stop and let them cross safely, even at night. Yes, it is a poorly thought out law (unsafe for both pedestrians and cars, without improving the intersections to make them safe for pedestrians by not adding crosswalks, not removing pedestrian obstructing parked vehicles and trees, etc...), but in that sense even if the guy were in full black camo on a moon-free night without street lights around, cars are still expected to see and stop for them.

So in that case, if the pedestrian was at any kind of intersection, FSD would be doing the correct thing.

I've always been taught that pedestrians have the right of way, even when they don't. But I don't think that applies to invisible pedestrians.

Of course, Seattle is home to lots of terrible traffic designs and practices. I have relatives in Ravenna; in their neighborhood people park on either side of the street and residential intersections signal a 4-way stop by absence of any stop signs.

I teach my son that he doesn't have the right away, no matter what the laws really say, because even if the car is at fault, he is still dead (and that scares me). Cross walks only for now, and definitely no going to try and cross 15th NW (a four lane that carries lots of traffic) like that.

It does apply to invisible pedestrians, but cops are more likely to rule it a drive-at-fault accident than something more serious like negligent homicide. I live in Ballard, people park on either side here also, and...there isn't much buffer even at designated cross walks to see people waiting (or just going) to cross.

That's the exact reason for the law.

The law is on the pedestrian's side, physics is on the car's side.

Pedestrian's should be cautious because they have more to lose.

It’s a half assed law that puts way too much faith in drivers and is not a real solution to pedestrian safety, which requires actual road redesigns.

I love your comment because it highlights another complexifier of FSD debates - what was the actual right action?

Yep, pausing signaled to the guy he could run across. However who’s to say he was going to be reasonable and wait? What if he wanted to get hit, or didn’t care? How much influence will those edge cases have on our (human or FSD) norms?

As a society we haven’t answered those questions; it further muddles the FSD debate.

As the tech improves it will be interesting to see how we humans define the rules of engagement.

It's very clear to me, let FSD stop the car, that puts all further blame on the guy if he dies or something happens. We should do everything in our power to reasonably and safely prevent it, and letting FSD stop does so, the rest is on everyone else.

Yep. The key words are: to you. When I have convos about this, a spectrum of views come out.

Other views I’ve heard:

- pausing encourages ad hoc crossing, increasing odds of hurting someone by volume even as odds decrease.

- if you stop you enable carjacking (walk into street, car stops, steal car / hurt the human, profit). I don’t want my car to set my loved ones up to be attacked.

- pausing significantly impacts traffic flow, compressing our already overcrowded roads

- I don’t want the car to stop unless it gets to my destination, there’s a red light, or I tell it to stop. I don’t want behavior I might not understand. I’ll decide if I stop for a human or puppy or cardboard box.

Everyone says human safety first but in practice there’s a spectrum of opinions in practice.

My hope is FSD will force a common viewpoint and setup a future generation with a more unified approach to road safety.

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