Regarding the risk of stepping out in front of a Waymo vehicle, I personally wouldn't be too concerned about it as long as there's adequate stopping distance to

Regarding the risk of stepping out in front of a Waymo vehicle, I personally wouldn't be too concerned about it as long as there's adequate stopping distance to begin with. You're most definitely being picked up by at least a few different sensors, even from hundreds of ft away. If the car is able to correctly categorize you as a pedestrian, it's constantly re-assessing the probability of you stepping into its path based on multiple visual cues, adjusting its behavior accordingly. If the car isn't able to categorize you, it's still seeing you as a large blob that isn't in its static world map, so it's going to aggressively stop out of caution rather than try driving through you. The reliance on a static world map is a very big safety feature in my opinion. I wouldn't be as confident stepping into the path of a Tesla.