4 ms·

I think we know (i.e. 90% of the time) that people will stop for us if we walk out in front of them with ample notice and conditions... It's more from a norms /

by sarreph 11y ago

I think we know (i.e. 90% of the time) that people will stop for us if we walk out in front of them with ample notice and conditions... It's more from a norms / politeness perspective that we don't; it's simply not accepted that you can just walk into the road when you want to get across because (most of us) we don't want to be judged by others for behaving recklessly, either by the driver we're forcing to stop or the other pedestrians. There will most often than not still be people in these driverless cars that we will irritate, and pedestrians that we fear will scorn us. However, I think you make a good point about non-passenger vehicles. Perhaps we will be more likely to walk out in front of an unoccupied Uber that we know will stop for us on an empty street where no one will judge us — but this won't affect the busy streets / scenarios where it's most important that I mention above. Interesting prediction, nonetheless...

dionidium 11y ago
It's more from a norms / politeness perspective that we don't; it's simply not accepted that you can just walk into the road when you want to get across because (most of us) we don't want to be judged by others for behaving recklessly Anyone who has ever lived (or otherwise spent a lot of time driving) in a bad neighborhood knows intimately that this is true. People walk in the street in rough places. And there aren't any norms compelling them to get out of the way.
sliverstorm 11y ago
Nah I think there's always a little bit of fear about that 10% of the time. Humans are unpredictable- what if they don't see you until it's too late. What if they want to give you a "scare" and screech to a halt right at your feet- and what if they get the distance wrong and wind up hitting you. Robot cars on the other hand, while they might fail on a rare occasion, will have very predictable behavior. When you walk up to a doorman, you make eye contact and look for him to open the door. When you walk up to an automatic door, you have been trained to know it will open for you. Run an experiment with a bad doorman who doesn't open doors, and an automatic door that doesn't open, and you'll have a lot more people running into the automatic door.
maxerickson 11y ago
I go out of my way not to step in front of a car if it is on a trajectory that would hit me. It's a "never trust the driver" mantra. These aren't busy city streets where I'm making that choice, but I'm not getting to the point where I'm being considerate of the driver, I simply don't want to create the situation where I am dependent on their noticing me.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  I do the same, but will walk as if I'm about to (as long as I'm in a crosswalk, where drivers are supposed to yield to pedestrians). I can stop walking way faster than drivers can stop their cars, so they basically have to lose the game of "chicken" or be willing to run over pedestrians in crosswalks. Only once they've visually committed themselves to stopping do I take that last step into the path of the vehicle. It's a little douchy, but goddamnit, California law says I've got right-of-way in crosswalks. When you're holding a mutex, what you do is get rid of it ASAP and get out of the way.
  - WildUtah 11y ago
    Nothing douchey about it. Car drivers are taking an enormous amount of public resources and endangering the public while they do it. They can wait a few seconds so that you don't have to wait indefinitely for them in crosswalks.
  - dtparr 11y ago
    Your right-of-way/mutex metaphor is outstanding. I'm going to be stealing that for this and other physical-space-occupying race conditions.
  - crusso 11y ago
    "California law says I've got right-of-way in crosswalks" That's for the safety of the pedestrian in order to avoid confusion and make liability strictly fall on the shoulders of the party with the 2 killing machine. Regardless of my legal right-of-way, though, I try not to be a jerk about it.
SomewhatLikely 11y ago
As a tangent, I think people are severely underestimating how high the percentage of non-passenger vehicles will go up when we're driverless. I'm not talking about empty passenger vehicles looking for passengers, rather goods being shuttled to and fro. Look at all the startups for bringing you food and various other goods that are semi-profitable even with a human wage. History and common sense show that making something cheaper will mean we make more use of it. The driverless future will be filled with autonomous vehicles moving goods around our cities. In the extreme we may even lose apartment kitchens in dense areas because shuttling your meals to you may be cheaper.
mrfusion 11y ago
Well to this I say 90% is way different than 99.99 when your life is on the line. Also you'd feel less bad about making a car slow down if you assumed the occupants weren't paying attention and you're just annoying a machine, no?

by sarreph 11y ago

dionidium 11y ago

It's more from a norms / politeness perspective that we don't; it's simply not accepted that you can just walk into the road when you want to get across because (most of us) we don't want to be judged by others for behaving recklessly Anyone who has ever lived (or otherwise spent a lot of time driving) in a bad neighborhood knows intimately that this is true. People walk in the street in rough places. And there aren't any norms compelling them to get out of the way.

sliverstorm 11y ago

Nah I think there's always a little bit of fear about that 10% of the time. Humans are unpredictable- what if they don't see you until it's too late. What if they want to give you a "scare" and screech to a halt right at your feet- and what if they get the distance wrong and wind up hitting you. Robot cars on the other hand, while they might fail on a rare occasion, will have very predictable behavior. When you walk up to a doorman, you make eye contact and look for him to open the door. When you walk up to an automatic door, you have been trained to know it will open for you. Run an experiment with a bad doorman who doesn't open doors, and an automatic door that doesn't open, and you'll have a lot more people running into the automatic door.

maxerickson 11y ago

I go out of my way not to step in front of a car if it is on a trajectory that would hit me. It's a "never trust the driver" mantra. These aren't busy city streets where I'm making that choice, but I'm not getting to the point where I'm being considerate of the driver, I simply don't want to create the situation where I am dependent on their noticing me.

ThrustVectoring 11y ago
I do the same, but will walk as if I'm about to (as long as I'm in a crosswalk, where drivers are supposed to yield to pedestrians). I can stop walking way faster than drivers can stop their cars, so they basically have to lose the game of "chicken" or be willing to run over pedestrians in crosswalks. Only once they've visually committed themselves to stopping do I take that last step into the path of the vehicle. It's a little douchy, but goddamnit, California law says I've got right-of-way in crosswalks. When you're holding a mutex, what you do is get rid of it ASAP and get out of the way.
- WildUtah 11y ago
  Nothing douchey about it. Car drivers are taking an enormous amount of public resources and endangering the public while they do it. They can wait a few seconds so that you don't have to wait indefinitely for them in crosswalks.
- dtparr 11y ago
  Your right-of-way/mutex metaphor is outstanding. I'm going to be stealing that for this and other physical-space-occupying race conditions.
- crusso 11y ago
  "California law says I've got right-of-way in crosswalks" That's for the safety of the pedestrian in order to avoid confusion and make liability strictly fall on the shoulders of the party with the 2 killing machine. Regardless of my legal right-of-way, though, I try not to be a jerk about it.

SomewhatLikely 11y ago

As a tangent, I think people are severely underestimating how high the percentage of non-passenger vehicles will go up when we're driverless. I'm not talking about empty passenger vehicles looking for passengers, rather goods being shuttled to and fro. Look at all the startups for bringing you food and various other goods that are semi-profitable even with a human wage. History and common sense show that making something cheaper will mean we make more use of it. The driverless future will be filled with autonomous vehicles moving goods around our cities. In the extreme we may even lose apartment kitchens in dense areas because shuttling your meals to you may be cheaper.

mrfusion 11y ago

Well to this I say 90% is way different than 99.99 when your life is on the line. Also you'd feel less bad about making a car slow down if you assumed the occupants weren't paying attention and you're just annoying a machine, no?