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Comment by pengaru | Hacker News Reader

So smooth they apparently opt to blow red lights instead of stopping abruptly.

source: I commute by skateboard in SF daily. Just yesterday an empty Waymo cruised straight through a fresh red, narrowly missing my entry into the crosswalk.

But don't get me started on what I've seen human drivers do on the same streets. Just annoyed that Waymo's aren't better.

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Competing anecdata: Yesterday I was running downtown and a Waymo stopped for me at a green light because it wasn't sure if I was gonna jaywalk (jayrun?). Only once I stood still for a few seconds did it continue to make its turn.

This was in a turn-left-only intersection with a separate pedestrian light. Maybe the Waymo got confused and thought I also had green.

Could also be that they're taught to be overly cautious to avoid suicidally stupid humans

It's pretty normal for people running in densely populated cities with 15mph average traffic speeds to ignore red lights. Nothing suicidal about it :)

Yes, but SF seems to have some truly reckless pedestrians, often presumably under the influence of substances. There are graduations between "cross at a red light when you think it's safe to do so" and "barge into a 4 lane street in the middle of a block because the voices in your head tell you to".

I sometimes wait on pedestrians when turning right on a green and pedestrians do a little dance on the corner that makes it hard to tell if/when they're gonna cross.

I think it’s legal to enter an intersection on yellow and exit on red in CA. Thats why.

Human drivers speed up to avoid red, and yay you avoided red but the suddenly higher speed is far more dangerous for everyone around.

Why would it be illegal to enter on yellow? I thought that's the entire point of yellow. Otherwise we'd just have red and green, and hopefully you can imagine how that would work out.

In some states you are supposed to attempt to stop on yellow unless it’s unsafe to do so: https://axleaddict.com/safety/The-Meaning-of-the-Yellow-Traf...

Its the leaving on red being legal thats the interesting part.

Plenty other jurisdictions will ticket if your car is still on the intersection when it turns red.

Anecdata to say I've been in a Waymo and had it run a red.

I would like to see video of an equivalent incident.

> So smooth they apparently opt to blow red lights instead of stopping abruptly.

Surprised traffic lights aren't updated to communicate with cars directly. Why not have traffic lights broadcast 'stop' message along with turning red?

I suspect traffic lights, roads and cities will have to be updated to work with driverless cars.

It does. It uses a specific band on the electro magnetic spectrum commonly supported by most receivers

hm? Are you mixed up with Transit Signal Priority where Muni can request the light stay green a little longer?

I've never heard of the lights transmitting their timing

This article from SFMTA erroneously states that the busses use "GPS to communicate with the traffic signal", lol, what is the actual band used ?

https://www.sfmta.com/blog/green-lights-muni

I think the commenter was alluding to the 430 terahertz band.

SF traffic lights do not.

Of course they do. A specially trained human can even visualize those signals.

Lol I missed the joke.

Why? That would be expensive and the cars are designed to understand the lights as they are.

Have also nearly been hit as a pedestrian by a Waymo. I also last week saw a Waymo blow through a yellow-red very aggressively, so I think the downvotes on above comment are intensely biased.

The way you can tell that a mode of transport is very safe is there are tons of people online whining that they almost got killed by it.

No. It means it’s only a matter of time before this technology breaks the law and kills someone.

Or people are sensitive to it and the rate at which it kills people will be lower than humans, or probably already is!

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