5 ms·

Things like this are cool. What I would be curious to see though, rather than setting global parameters (i.e., politeness), would be to have each agent have its

by vbtemp 6y ago

Things like this are cool. What I would be curious to see though, rather than setting global parameters (i.e., politeness), would be to have each agent have its own politeness score (as well as other attributes). Models like the one linked to here work as if each agent is a particle, rather than autonomous decision-maker adapting to their circumstances locked in long-term, iterated games with other anonymous drivers. This way, agents would adapt their attributes to maximize their own local advantage, and therefore could see how large scale trends develop. I've driven in many countries and regions within countries, and it's just wild how "driving cultures" vary so much. Some places the drivers are so polite to the point it really makes things dangerous, other places the drivers are vindictive (distinct from being aggressive driver). It would be interesting to model how driving cultures emerge. Edit: I guess the short story is I'm really curious why some places, like Bangkok driving is chaotic, dangerous, gridlocked, and no one adheres to traffic laws much or yields to pedestrians, but relatively devoid of road rage (and people will let you merge over if you need to). In DC, people carefully adhere to red lights, stop signs, pedestrians, etc but will go far, far out of their way to block you from changing lanes once they see your turn signal go on. Also, exploring the game theoretic (probably prisoner's dilemma?) aspects of tailgating and how that seriously depends on the driving culture. When someone tailgates, the tailgatee can slow down (everyone loses), speed up or move out of the way (tailgater wins/tailgatee loses), etc. If everyone slowed down when tailgated, there would be no benefit of tailgating; if enough people give in when tailgated, that keeps rewarding the behavior. Anyway, that would be something fun to explore in one of these traffic simulations.

pc86 6y ago
This would be a neat reinforcement learning project. > Some places the drivers are so polite to the point it really makes things dangerous I've known people like this, who will approach a 4-way intersection and stop even when they don't have a stop sign and the perpendicular street does.
- jeffhuys 6y ago
  Participating in traffic all comes down to being as predictable as possible, I think.
  - beerandt 6y ago
    Yes, but in a way that's obvious to other drivers. Driving decisively is more important to overall safety than driving defensively.
    - mattbk1 6y ago
      *and people on foot or bicycles
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Yep. I prefer the driving rule, "Don't be nice, be predictable." That is, don't deliberately be mean, but don't extend any courtesy where doing so would come at the cost of being predictable.
- vbtemp 6y ago
  Places where I've seen it, people who have the right of way take that to mean they get to play "traffic cop". E.g., at a 4-way stop the "extra polite" person who gets there first, instead of going through the intersection first, waits and waves the person who does not have the right of way to go through first, which makes that person (and everyone else) confused, and then causes a lot of slowdown, frustration, etc. Of course only happens in certain locales, where it's part of the local driving culture.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Or they slam on the brakes at the end of what should be a merging ramp or lane because the fore and aft distances to the other traffic that were good enough for the prior N people would be too close for them.
    - Daho0n 6y ago
      Well to be fair the distance most people feel fine with is not near what is safe.
  - 2iP1zbR 6y ago
    this has always bothered me. if you have the right of way, and you do not take the right of way, in most cases you are effectively disobeying traffic rules and disrupting the flow of traffic.
    - bluGill 6y ago
      In rural areas where this is common there isn't traffic. Thus the politeness doesn't cost you anything. Also in those rural areas it is somewhat common for someone with the right away to have a reason to drive much slower than the speed limit and so giving up your right away makes things better for everyone - the other person doesn't have to try to pass you latter. When there is traffic you giving up the right away is impolite to the person behind you and shouldn't be done. unless traffic is so heavy that you won't be able to move, and so you should give you your right away to someone who can go.
- parhamn 6y ago
  > who will approach a 4-way intersection and stop even when they don't have a stop sign and the perpendicular street does Not the main point but I never liked how traffic signs aren't affirmative sometimes. In the case of the 4-way usually the stopping direction have a stop sign with a missing "All Way" sign below it. But thats not required in all jurisdictions. Nor is the non-stopping direction 100% sure their stop sign is still visible (shrubs, weather, etc) and can proceed at regular speed. I'm sure there are a ton of reasons for the way things are, I just think the outcome is you can't really ever be 100% sure what the correct thing to do is without slowing down and observing.
  - macintux 6y ago
    Speaking as someone who recently blew through a 4-way stop with other cars waiting, because the setting sun made it hard to see the stop sign, yeah, there are no shortage of human factors at play.
  - asdff 6y ago
    Stop signs are the shape they are so you can recognize them from the reverse for this purpose
    - btowngar 6y ago
      Hard to recognize them from the reverse when they're hidden behind a bush!
jsrcout 6y ago
> Some places the drivers are so polite to the point it really makes things dangerous I live in a small town that has extra polite drivers. It was really confusing for a while. Eventually I realized that it was a practical response to the overall street layout, with a limited number of main streets, and different areas of town not being well connected. Stopping to let others cross improves the overall traffic flow - if no one did it, traffic would just be backed up for miles.
bonestamp2 6y ago
It would be cool to study things like politeness, top speed, acceleration, etc in different cities and then create traffic profiles that represent these cities and see what kind of tweaks can improve each one.
throwaway2245 6y ago
> I'm really curious why some places... Based on my experience of living in different countries, differences in behaviour and car culture are often underlined by hidden aspects of legislation which support those differences. I'm thinking more in terms of who is liable in the event of a crash, rather than the actual traffic rules. >Some places the drivers are so polite to the point it really makes things dangerous I think the danger you are talking about generally comes from the lack of anticipation and lack of meeting expectations, rather than the politeness. If you shock a driver's expectations, that will at least appear dangerous, because they have to consciously react (or crash). A Bangkok-style driver in DC is dangerous, just as a DC-style driver in Bangkok is the dangerous one.
acdha 6y ago
> In DC, people carefully adhere to red lights, stop signs, pedestrians, etc but will go far, far out of their way to block you from changing lanes once they see your turn signal go on. The last part, yes, but the first half has very much not been my experience here in DC. I usually see at least one driver blow a stop sign, red light, or one-way street before I make it 2 blocks from my house. The other thing I found amazing is that it's totally normed that you can just park in the traffic lane whenever you want — not just FedEx/Amazon but I've seen people park downtown at rush hour, get their dry cleaning, and get back in their car as if it was normal. I think the main cause here is that we have a bunch of poorly-trained commuters from suburbs where they're used to high speed limits and wide, less used roads but the traffic means they're lucky to average 5mph on their commute into the city and a certain fraction of people cut any corner they can because they think they're owed a higher average speed. They're “running late” every day because they don't want to admit that their “30 minute commute” is off by a factor of 2-3. I'm curious whether the pandemic will lead to people trying to stay at 100% telework after realizing how much better life is without spending a couple hours a day stuck in traffic.

by vbtemp 6y ago

pc86 6y ago

This would be a neat reinforcement learning project. > Some places the drivers are so polite to the point it really makes things dangerous I've known people like this, who will approach a 4-way intersection and stop even when they don't have a stop sign and the perpendicular street does.

jeffhuys 6y ago
Participating in traffic all comes down to being as predictable as possible, I think.
- beerandt 6y ago
  Yes, but in a way that's obvious to other drivers. Driving decisively is more important to overall safety than driving defensively.
  - mattbk1 6y ago
    *and people on foot or bicycles
- SilasX 6y ago
  Yep. I prefer the driving rule, "Don't be nice, be predictable." That is, don't deliberately be mean, but don't extend any courtesy where doing so would come at the cost of being predictable.
vbtemp 6y ago
Places where I've seen it, people who have the right of way take that to mean they get to play "traffic cop". E.g., at a 4-way stop the "extra polite" person who gets there first, instead of going through the intersection first, waits and waves the person who does not have the right of way to go through first, which makes that person (and everyone else) confused, and then causes a lot of slowdown, frustration, etc. Of course only happens in certain locales, where it's part of the local driving culture.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Or they slam on the brakes at the end of what should be a merging ramp or lane because the fore and aft distances to the other traffic that were good enough for the prior N people would be too close for them.
  - Daho0n 6y ago
    Well to be fair the distance most people feel fine with is not near what is safe.
- 2iP1zbR 6y ago
  this has always bothered me. if you have the right of way, and you do not take the right of way, in most cases you are effectively disobeying traffic rules and disrupting the flow of traffic.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    In rural areas where this is common there isn't traffic. Thus the politeness doesn't cost you anything. Also in those rural areas it is somewhat common for someone with the right away to have a reason to drive much slower than the speed limit and so giving up your right away makes things better for everyone - the other person doesn't have to try to pass you latter. When there is traffic you giving up the right away is impolite to the person behind you and shouldn't be done. unless traffic is so heavy that you won't be able to move, and so you should give you your right away to someone who can go.
parhamn 6y ago
> who will approach a 4-way intersection and stop even when they don't have a stop sign and the perpendicular street does Not the main point but I never liked how traffic signs aren't affirmative sometimes. In the case of the 4-way usually the stopping direction have a stop sign with a missing "All Way" sign below it. But thats not required in all jurisdictions. Nor is the non-stopping direction 100% sure their stop sign is still visible (shrubs, weather, etc) and can proceed at regular speed. I'm sure there are a ton of reasons for the way things are, I just think the outcome is you can't really ever be 100% sure what the correct thing to do is without slowing down and observing.
- macintux 6y ago
  Speaking as someone who recently blew through a 4-way stop with other cars waiting, because the setting sun made it hard to see the stop sign, yeah, there are no shortage of human factors at play.
- asdff 6y ago
  Stop signs are the shape they are so you can recognize them from the reverse for this purpose
  - btowngar 6y ago
    Hard to recognize them from the reverse when they're hidden behind a bush!

jsrcout 6y ago

> Some places the drivers are so polite to the point it really makes things dangerous I live in a small town that has extra polite drivers. It was really confusing for a while. Eventually I realized that it was a practical response to the overall street layout, with a limited number of main streets, and different areas of town not being well connected. Stopping to let others cross improves the overall traffic flow - if no one did it, traffic would just be backed up for miles.

bonestamp2 6y ago

It would be cool to study things like politeness, top speed, acceleration, etc in different cities and then create traffic profiles that represent these cities and see what kind of tweaks can improve each one.

throwaway2245 6y ago

> I'm really curious why some places... Based on my experience of living in different countries, differences in behaviour and car culture are often underlined by hidden aspects of legislation which support those differences. I'm thinking more in terms of who is liable in the event of a crash, rather than the actual traffic rules. >Some places the drivers are so polite to the point it really makes things dangerous I think the danger you are talking about generally comes from the lack of anticipation and lack of meeting expectations, rather than the politeness. If you shock a driver's expectations, that will at least appear dangerous, because they have to consciously react (or crash). A Bangkok-style driver in DC is dangerous, just as a DC-style driver in Bangkok is the dangerous one.

acdha 6y ago

> In DC, people carefully adhere to red lights, stop signs, pedestrians, etc but will go far, far out of their way to block you from changing lanes once they see your turn signal go on. The last part, yes, but the first half has very much not been my experience here in DC. I usually see at least one driver blow a stop sign, red light, or one-way street before I make it 2 blocks from my house. The other thing I found amazing is that it's totally normed that you can just park in the traffic lane whenever you want — not just FedEx/Amazon but I've seen people park downtown at rush hour, get their dry cleaning, and get back in their car as if it was normal. I think the main cause here is that we have a bunch of poorly-trained commuters from suburbs where they're used to high speed limits and wide, less used roads but the traffic means they're lucky to average 5mph on their commute into the city and a certain fraction of people cut any corner they can because they think they're owed a higher average speed. They're “running late” every day because they don't want to admit that their “30 minute commute” is off by a factor of 2-3. I'm curious whether the pandemic will lead to people trying to stay at 100% telework after realizing how much better life is without spending a couple hours a day stuck in traffic.