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That article was interesting. I've been a truck driver, with recurring jobs throughout San Francisco, and can attest to how nerve-racking it can be. In order to
by saosebastiao 9y ago
That article was interesting. I've been a truck driver, with recurring jobs throughout San Francisco, and can attest to how nerve-racking it can be. In order to drive trucks there successfully, you have to know the roads really well, as your GPS is often worthless (so many different rules, changing conditions, unpredictable drivers/cyclists/pedestrians, as well as truck-specific restrictions). From a pedestrian safety perspective, I really appreciate that there are companies that are prioritizing San Francisco as a testing ground.
I still think Seattle is more difficult to drive in. The streets are narrower (most residential streets are two way, but only wide enough for one car width, requiring drivers to negotiate with other drivers on how to proceed). There are far more 3,5,6 and even 7 way intersections[0]. Just as many hills as San Francisco, but the several poorly-intersecting street grids give the hills much worse visibility. And I'm willing to bet we have way more construction than San Francisco.
[0] https://vimeo.com/124481186 https://vimeo.com/124481186
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago>I really appreciate that there are companies that are prioritizing San Francisco as a testing ground. I think it has more to do with them not having a snowball's chance in hell in Boston, Rome or New Delhi (in increasing order of difficulty). We haven't even seen a driver-less car floor it on a green to make a left before the opposing traffic moves.
- muraiki 9y agoIn Pittsburgh this is known as the "Pittsburgh Left", although there are various other cities and states that lay claim to the name! :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_left
- astrange 9y agoSF has plenty of unprotected left turns against traffic. I haven't seen a driverless car outside Mountain View, but hopefully they actually make those turns and don't just get stuck? That said I remember the occasional drive straight down a cliff in Pittsburgh beating even the SF hills.
- ihoshjd 9y agoYeah, certainly one of the key ways pedestrians are killed, entilted drivers who can't be bothered to wait. Unprotected left turns are one of major ways pedestrians are murdered by careless drivers.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe usual definition of murder is that of an intentional act.
- CamperBob2 9y agoWe haven't even seen a driver-less car floor it on a green to make a left before the opposing traffic moves Of course, this isn't an issue in San Francisco, because the intersection is completely gridlocked. The only way you're going to make a left turn -- or even a right turn at many intersections at rush hour -- is by violating various traffic laws up to and including the Pauli exclusion principle. I can't imagine how to build a self-driving car that can perform both safely and effectively in any major urban environment... and I'm not the type of person who says "I can't imagine" lightly. It would literally be easier to work on autonomous rockets at SpaceX. With self-driving cars, the engineering problems are largely social, not technical.
- ghaff 9y agoProbably even worse in a place like Manhattan. Tuning the "aggressiveness" setting so that you hit the right balance for a given situation between making forward progress, not blocking the grid, avoiding all the pedestrians who jaywalk (including myself) as soon as there's an opening, etc. seems like a really tough problem.