4 ms·

I'd be very curious if this conework was even legal It doesn't matter if it's legal. It is not code compliant. Neither is "double parking". But it happens be

I'd be very curious if this conework was even legal It doesn't matter if it's legal. It is not code compliant. Neither is "double parking". But it happens beyond the control of mere mortal drivers, and it must be maneuvered through safely when it happens. It's like kids dashing into the street -- it's not legal, yet you aren't empowered to simply hit them if it can be avoided. Here in California, it happens all the time. There was a half block of EL Camino Real in Sunnyvale this afternoon that was simply coned off with no signage and no warning by construction people working on a new building. I called it in to Sunnyvale DPS, and they were totally unaware of it. There were two near-collisions in the 45 seconds I was within view. You have day laborers with no clue about traffic safety and ignorant of context given hand signs and no instructions, let alone legal standards. Even if you place cones and signage perfectly per code, you still have to deal with signs or cones being knocked out of position or out of view.

markvdb 5y ago
You may want to look at this from a wider angle. Obviously the driving logic should handle this properly. But... it also has the potential of production testing road infrastructure automatically. Once it's good enough obviously. P.S. I hope similar tech will be built for other types of road use, so cars alone don't shape our roads even more.
ajross 5y ago
> I called it in to Sunnyvale DPS, and they were totally unaware of it. There were two near-collisions in the 45 seconds I was within view. Seems like if those confused drivers had merely stopped where they were, safety would have been improved! Again, the question isn't whether or not automation technology can be confused by bad signage, we know it can. Nor is there a question that humans can be confused by the same situation. The question is, when faced with situations like this, we can trust the automation to operate safely. And it seems like Waymo passed the test. It's true the externalities are different for the different technologies though. If you put down bad cones currently, you raise the likelihood of an accident. If you mark your lane badly in the era of automated vehicles, you cause a traffic jam. I know which I'd prefer.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  > it seems like Waymo passed the test It did not seem so to me. Blocking the road (when it was clearly possible to get out of the way) increased the danger to others through inaction. Issac Asimov would tut tut.
  - ajross 5y ago
    You're not controlling your variables. The choice isn't between "block the road" and "unimpeded safe traffic", it's between "block the road" and "dangerous driving conditions". As we all know bad signage causes accidents. Here, it did not. Because the car stopped.
    - GeekyBear 5y ago
      >The choice isn't between "block the road" and "unimpeded safe traffic", it's between "block the road" and "dangerous driving conditions". The choice was between block the road, or pull off to the side, when it was clearly safe to do so.
      - ajross 5y ago
        > or pull off to the side The car did pull off to the side. Those cones mark the side of the road. What you're demanding it do is to cross the cones to pull off the closed-off shoulder of the road. Which is (1) illegal and (2) only safe because of assumptions you're making about why that road was closed. I mean, consider that they had a giant automated Waymo-branded repaving machine coming down in that lane. Would pulling off the the side have been the right choice? Again, it's true that an AI isn't going to have the same context that you do as a functioning human driver. And so it's going to make different decisions in pursuit of safety than you would. That's not evidence that it's unsafe. This behavior simply wasn't unsafe.
        GeekyBear 5y ago
        >The car did pull off to the side. That's not what I saw. The car attempted to follow it's planned route to use the right lane, and stopped in place when it saw the next traffic cone, partially blocking the left lane. Then it backed up and fully blocked the left lane.
pen2l 5y ago
I think as we come to cross a certain threshold of how widespread these autonomous vehicles are it just makes sense to shape infrastructure around the technology. For starters make it code for construction sites to place beacons that relay information to these vehicles so that there's no equivocation about what the right path for it to take is and what it needs to do. Because making AVs work to the last step, to account for every possibility, we're not there and we're not getting there for a long long long time, so have then the bunch of AV-manufacturers come together and standardize on a secure (lol) communication protocol and give it the crutch that it apparently desperately needs.
- ajross 5y ago
  > For starters make it code for construction sites to place beacons that relay information to these vehicles FWIW: it really doesn't seem like it has to be that complicated. The car could see the cones just find and knew not to cross them. They just needed 4-5x more cones than they used to make it clear to the car[1] where the lane was actually going. [1] And human drivers! Again, this conework was just plain awful, period. I'm 100% convinced that the poor Waymo device wasn't the only driver making bad decisions in that intersection that day.

markvdb 5y ago

You may want to look at this from a wider angle. Obviously the driving logic should handle this properly. But... it also has the potential of production testing road infrastructure automatically. Once it's good enough obviously. P.S. I hope similar tech will be built for other types of road use, so cars alone don't shape our roads even more.

ajross 5y ago

> I called it in to Sunnyvale DPS, and they were totally unaware of it. There were two near-collisions in the 45 seconds I was within view. Seems like if those confused drivers had merely stopped where they were, safety would have been improved! Again, the question isn't whether or not automation technology can be confused by bad signage, we know it can. Nor is there a question that humans can be confused by the same situation. The question is, when faced with situations like this, we can trust the automation to operate safely. And it seems like Waymo passed the test. It's true the externalities are different for the different technologies though. If you put down bad cones currently, you raise the likelihood of an accident. If you mark your lane badly in the era of automated vehicles, you cause a traffic jam. I know which I'd prefer.

GeekyBear 5y ago
> it seems like Waymo passed the test It did not seem so to me. Blocking the road (when it was clearly possible to get out of the way) increased the danger to others through inaction. Issac Asimov would tut tut.
- ajross 5y ago
  You're not controlling your variables. The choice isn't between "block the road" and "unimpeded safe traffic", it's between "block the road" and "dangerous driving conditions". As we all know bad signage causes accidents. Here, it did not. Because the car stopped.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    >The choice isn't between "block the road" and "unimpeded safe traffic", it's between "block the road" and "dangerous driving conditions". The choice was between block the road, or pull off to the side, when it was clearly safe to do so.
    - ajross 5y ago
      > or pull off to the side The car did pull off to the side. Those cones mark the side of the road. What you're demanding it do is to cross the cones to pull off the closed-off shoulder of the road. Which is (1) illegal and (2) only safe because of assumptions you're making about why that road was closed. I mean, consider that they had a giant automated Waymo-branded repaving machine coming down in that lane. Would pulling off the the side have been the right choice? Again, it's true that an AI isn't going to have the same context that you do as a functioning human driver. And so it's going to make different decisions in pursuit of safety than you would. That's not evidence that it's unsafe. This behavior simply wasn't unsafe.
      - GeekyBear 5y ago
        >The car did pull off to the side. That's not what I saw. The car attempted to follow it's planned route to use the right lane, and stopped in place when it saw the next traffic cone, partially blocking the left lane. Then it backed up and fully blocked the left lane.

pen2l 5y ago

I think as we come to cross a certain threshold of how widespread these autonomous vehicles are it just makes sense to shape infrastructure around the technology. For starters make it code for construction sites to place beacons that relay information to these vehicles so that there's no equivocation about what the right path for it to take is and what it needs to do. Because making AVs work to the last step, to account for every possibility, we're not there and we're not getting there for a long long long time, so have then the bunch of AV-manufacturers come together and standardize on a secure (lol) communication protocol and give it the crutch that it apparently desperately needs.

ajross 5y ago
> For starters make it code for construction sites to place beacons that relay information to these vehicles FWIW: it really doesn't seem like it has to be that complicated. The car could see the cones just find and knew not to cross them. They just needed 4-5x more cones than they used to make it clear to the car[1] where the lane was actually going. [1] And human drivers! Again, this conework was just plain awful, period. I'm 100% convinced that the poor Waymo device wasn't the only driver making bad decisions in that intersection that day.