4 ms·

Does Phoenix have laws that make them more attractive for testing or just location preference?

idiot900 7y ago
Not much precipitation in Phoenix, and the roads tend to be dry.
desine 7y ago
Uber was testing there because the local city government was easy to work with initially. After their fatal incident, the city became more restrictive, but Google/Waymo had already also moved in and started testing there, and because they didn't have any issues, I presume the city continued to work with them.
whalesalad 7y ago
The opposite -- Phoenix has less laws that make them more attractive for virtually everything.
mikeyouse 7y ago
Arizona basically threw their citizens to the wolves with a 2015 self-driving car law that allowed anything and everything to go (you wouldn't even have to register your cars as self-driving for a period). This attracted tons of firms to test their cars in a lax regulatory environment but since the famous Uber death and a number of self-driving accidents, they have tightened the rules somewhat. I suspect they're still looser than average and there's some inertia from everyone setting up shop there originally. From the original press release: > "Part of what makes Arizona an ideal place for Uber and other companies to test autonomous vehicle technology is that there are no special permits or licensing required," the ADOT release said. "In Arizona, autonomous vehicles have the same registration requirements as any other vehicle, and nothing in state law prevents testing autonomous vehicles." Article with latest updates: https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/maricopa-county-sheriff-election-arpaio-penzone-sheridan-2020-11446082 https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/maricopa-county-sheriff...
- darawk 7y ago
  Thrown their citizens to the wolves and caused all of one death, and no other problems to speak of? Seems like they made a great call to me.
  - rleahy22 7y ago
    Yeah cause screw that person who died.
    - ebiester 7y ago
      Arizona allows drivers over 80, and I'd trust Waymo over the average octogenarian driving.
      - nomadluap 7y ago
        That would be an interesting metric: normalized accident rates for self-driving cars vs octogenarian-driven cars.
        dodobirdlord 7y ago
        I'm certain the self-driving cars win. Per Waymo's numbers they already have a much lower accident rate than the average driver.
      - mandevil 7y ago
        See, the thing is, Waymo controls the data, and certainly knows how good their driving is. If it was clearly better than the average octogenarian driving, wouldn't they be letting us all know that? Wouldn't they be announcing that and writing up white papers and giving presentations at conferences about this? They need to start building the safety case, and it is entirely to their benefit to release this data, if it truly is more reliable than even just the average octogenarian. The fact that they don't, and so far as I can tell only release the minimum data that they are legally obligated to (and marketing-speak like https://waymo.com/safety/ https://waymo.com/safety/ is not the same thing at all), leaves me with an inference that the data is not nearly that rosy.
zyang 7y ago
Well maintained roads. Easy access by engineering teams from California. Cheap local wages for test drivers.
johnbrodie 7y ago
Both lack of regulation as well as weather, road condition, and road layout. Most of the Phoenix metro area is a grid, fairly modern as streets are constantly redone as we've grown so new-ish signs that are largely unobstructed by trees, etcetc. As a motorcyclist with a 45 minute commute, I'm on the cautious side when it comes to self-driving tech on the roads, but I have to say that anecdotally it's been fine so far. I'd be willing to bet I see ~10 Waymo vehicles a day. I've had plenty of issues with normal cars/drivers, have never had nor seen an issue with Waymo.
jartelt 7y ago
Combination of favorable laws, good weather for testing, wide roads, etc.

Not much precipitation in Phoenix, and the roads tend to be dry.

Uber was testing there because the local city government was easy to work with initially. After their fatal incident, the city became more restrictive, but Google/Waymo had already also moved in and started testing there, and because they didn't have any issues, I presume the city continued to work with them.

whalesalad 7y ago

The opposite -- Phoenix has less laws that make them more attractive for virtually everything.

mikeyouse 7y ago

Arizona basically threw their citizens to the wolves with a 2015 self-driving car law that allowed anything and everything to go (you wouldn't even have to register your cars as self-driving for a period). This attracted tons of firms to test their cars in a lax regulatory environment but since the famous Uber death and a number of self-driving accidents, they have tightened the rules somewhat. I suspect they're still looser than average and there's some inertia from everyone setting up shop there originally. From the original press release: > "Part of what makes Arizona an ideal place for Uber and other companies to test autonomous vehicle technology is that there are no special permits or licensing required," the ADOT release said. "In Arizona, autonomous vehicles have the same registration requirements as any other vehicle, and nothing in state law prevents testing autonomous vehicles." Article with latest updates: https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/maricopa-county-sheriff-election-arpaio-penzone-sheridan-2020-11446082 https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/maricopa-county-sheriff...

darawk 7y ago
Thrown their citizens to the wolves and caused all of one death, and no other problems to speak of? Seems like they made a great call to me.
- rleahy22 7y ago
  Yeah cause screw that person who died.
  - ebiester 7y ago
    Arizona allows drivers over 80, and I'd trust Waymo over the average octogenarian driving.
    - nomadluap 7y ago
      That would be an interesting metric: normalized accident rates for self-driving cars vs octogenarian-driven cars.
      - dodobirdlord 7y ago
        I'm certain the self-driving cars win. Per Waymo's numbers they already have a much lower accident rate than the average driver.
    - mandevil 7y ago
      See, the thing is, Waymo controls the data, and certainly knows how good their driving is. If it was clearly better than the average octogenarian driving, wouldn't they be letting us all know that? Wouldn't they be announcing that and writing up white papers and giving presentations at conferences about this? They need to start building the safety case, and it is entirely to their benefit to release this data, if it truly is more reliable than even just the average octogenarian. The fact that they don't, and so far as I can tell only release the minimum data that they are legally obligated to (and marketing-speak like https://waymo.com/safety/ https://waymo.com/safety/ is not the same thing at all), leaves me with an inference that the data is not nearly that rosy.

zyang 7y ago

Well maintained roads. Easy access by engineering teams from California. Cheap local wages for test drivers.

johnbrodie 7y ago

Both lack of regulation as well as weather, road condition, and road layout. Most of the Phoenix metro area is a grid, fairly modern as streets are constantly redone as we've grown so new-ish signs that are largely unobstructed by trees, etcetc. As a motorcyclist with a 45 minute commute, I'm on the cautious side when it comes to self-driving tech on the roads, but I have to say that anecdotally it's been fine so far. I'd be willing to bet I see ~10 Waymo vehicles a day. I've had plenty of issues with normal cars/drivers, have never had nor seen an issue with Waymo.

jartelt 7y ago

Combination of favorable laws, good weather for testing, wide roads, etc.