4 ms·

When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". The article actually has quantitative data that shows reports of "incidents

by NickM 3y ago

When I hear "skyrocket" I think "several orders of magnitude in a very short time". The article actually has quantitative data that shows reports of "incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year. Yeah, the city officials have to cover their asses and make disclaimers about what they can and cannot conclude, because all they know is that they're getting more reports of incidents; they don't have access to Waymo's data. But given that we know driverless car activity has increased substantially, it seems silly to assume that it must just be a random coincidence that people are now reporting correspondingly more problems.

gruez 3y ago
>"incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year. Right, but how much is that in absolute terms? If last year you had 0 incidents, and this year you had 1, that's an infinity% increase.
- NickM 3y ago
  If you actually look at the article, it has the numbers in absolute terms. In April '22 (the earliest month on the chart) there were 3 reports. Following that, we have something that looks like an exponential curve leading to a year later where it's nearly 100 per month. We can split hairs all day about what constitutes an order of magnitude or what percentage increases mean or whatever, but this doesn't appear to just be statistical noise.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  There's a chart at this link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/driverless-taxi-cruise-waymo-18157172.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/driverless-taxi-cruis... that shows incidents going from 3 to 91 during April '22 to April '23.
dekhn 3y ago
I dojn't think that chart represents anything informative. It's at least partly based on "social media reports" and they say it's "incomplete". Any number of alternative explanations for that chart (which isn't a "skyrocket") explain the results better, such as increased awareness of the cars, increased numbers of miles driven (so the complaint rate per mile is roughly constant), and negative press coverage of incidents.
- pms 3y ago
  If self-driving cars are really safer than human drivers, then tech companies need to prove it by releasing more data than necessary, rather than less. Why won't they release sufficient data instead of forcing the city to gather their own data? This doesn't smell well...
- NickM 3y ago
  so the complaint rate per mile is roughly constant Sure, if the complaint rate per mile is constant, but the number of driverless cars increases exponentially, then yeah we might expect the number of complaints to increase exponentially. That doesn't mean this isn't a problem. they say it's "incomplete" Okay, so maybe there are more problems than are represented in the chart, but that doesn't seem to paint any prettier of a picture here.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    By that definition, it is expected to skyrocket. That's like saying people who trip and fall while browsing instsagram shorts is skyrocketing.
    - wasimanitoba 3y ago
      .... and once that problem starts injuring as many people as driverless cars, then we might start looking at it as a public policy issue.
      - shkkmo 3y ago
kwhitefoot 3y ago
> they don't have access to Waymo's data. That seems odd. Surely the authority that licenses this sort of activity should have access to all the data that allows proper evaluation of its safety? Access to such data should be a prerequisite for the agreement.
- NickM 3y ago
  You would think that, but the quotes in the article from the relevant officials seem to imply otherwise.
- comfypotato 3y ago
  It’s such a new area legally that there aren’t precedents for this. Consider dietary supplements as an example of a product that doesn’t have to provide their own safety data.
jeffbee 3y ago
The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something. That's why the "skyrocketing". They didn't count them before and now they do. If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report.
- LegitShady 3y ago
  "The city actually collected data instead of trusting what it was being told"
- kelnos 3y ago
  > The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something Want to provide a citation to back that up? > They didn't count them before and now they do. They've apparently been counting since spring of 2022; the large increase in incidents started a year later. > If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report. Lovely dose of whataboutism. We know that drivers do stupid things and more or less what the consequences are. It's incredibly useful -- and critical -- to find out what AVs do that are stupid, and in what ways those stupid things differ from what human drivers do. The example of the AV driving through yellow caution tape, hooking a Muni wire, and then continuing to drive another block before stopping is illustrative. We can maybe imagine an unlikely-but-possible scenario where a human driver might do the same thing, but that would be an outlier. That also raises another point: as an example, we know that some drivers text while driving. Not all drivers do this; hopefully it's a minority. But a bad behavior that one AV does, all of them (running the same software) will do. That's a much worse problem than bad behaviors that a minority of drivers exhibit. (On the other hand, though, if fixing it in an AV is straightforward, you eliminate the problem... that sort of thing doesn't work with human drivers.)
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    > The example of the AV driving through yellow caution tape, hooking a Muni wire, and then continuing to drive another block before stopping is illustrative. We can maybe imagine an unlikely-but-possible scenario where a human driver might do the same thing, but that would be an outlier. Are you joking? Do you live in SF? People are constantly driving into subway tunnels. https://www.ktvu.com/news/cars-drive-in-munis-sunset-tunnel-4-times-in-the-past-month https://www.ktvu.com/news/cars-drive-in-munis-sunset-tunnel-...

by NickM 3y ago

gruez 3y ago

>"incidents where driverless cars disrupt traffic, transit and emergency responders" rising by a couple orders of magnitude in a year. Right, but how much is that in absolute terms? If last year you had 0 incidents, and this year you had 1, that's an infinity% increase.

NickM 3y ago
If you actually look at the article, it has the numbers in absolute terms. In April '22 (the earliest month on the chart) there were 3 reports. Following that, we have something that looks like an exponential curve leading to a year later where it's nearly 100 per month. We can split hairs all day about what constitutes an order of magnitude or what percentage increases mean or whatever, but this doesn't appear to just be statistical noise.
pessimizer 3y ago
There's a chart at this link: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/driverless-taxi-cruise-waymo-18157172.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/driverless-taxi-cruis... that shows incidents going from 3 to 91 during April '22 to April '23.

dekhn 3y ago

I dojn't think that chart represents anything informative. It's at least partly based on "social media reports" and they say it's "incomplete". Any number of alternative explanations for that chart (which isn't a "skyrocket") explain the results better, such as increased awareness of the cars, increased numbers of miles driven (so the complaint rate per mile is roughly constant), and negative press coverage of incidents.

pms 3y ago
If self-driving cars are really safer than human drivers, then tech companies need to prove it by releasing more data than necessary, rather than less. Why won't they release sufficient data instead of forcing the city to gather their own data? This doesn't smell well...
NickM 3y ago
so the complaint rate per mile is roughly constant Sure, if the complaint rate per mile is constant, but the number of driverless cars increases exponentially, then yeah we might expect the number of complaints to increase exponentially. That doesn't mean this isn't a problem. they say it's "incomplete" Okay, so maybe there are more problems than are represented in the chart, but that doesn't seem to paint any prettier of a picture here.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  By that definition, it is expected to skyrocket. That's like saying people who trip and fall while browsing instsagram shorts is skyrocketing.
  - wasimanitoba 3y ago
    .... and once that problem starts injuring as many people as driverless cars, then we might start looking at it as a public policy issue.
    - shkkmo 3y ago

kwhitefoot 3y ago

> they don't have access to Waymo's data. That seems odd. Surely the authority that licenses this sort of activity should have access to all the data that allows proper evaluation of its safety? Access to such data should be a prerequisite for the agreement.

NickM 3y ago
You would think that, but the quotes in the article from the relevant officials seem to imply otherwise.
comfypotato 3y ago
It’s such a new area legally that there aren’t precedents for this. Consider dietary supplements as an example of a product that doesn’t have to provide their own safety data.

jeffbee 3y ago

The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something. That's why the "skyrocketing". They didn't count them before and now they do. If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report.

LegitShady 3y ago
"The city actually collected data instead of trusting what it was being told"
kelnos 3y ago
> The city assigned a guy to go around and document every time an AV does something Want to provide a citation to back that up? > They didn't count them before and now they do. They've apparently been counting since spring of 2022; the large increase in incidents started a year later. > If some SFFD guy just stood around documenting all driver stupidity it would a significantly different report. Lovely dose of whataboutism. We know that drivers do stupid things and more or less what the consequences are. It's incredibly useful -- and critical -- to find out what AVs do that are stupid, and in what ways those stupid things differ from what human drivers do. The example of the AV driving through yellow caution tape, hooking a Muni wire, and then continuing to drive another block before stopping is illustrative. We can maybe imagine an unlikely-but-possible scenario where a human driver might do the same thing, but that would be an outlier. That also raises another point: as an example, we know that some drivers text while driving. Not all drivers do this; hopefully it's a minority. But a bad behavior that one AV does, all of them (running the same software) will do. That's a much worse problem than bad behaviors that a minority of drivers exhibit. (On the other hand, though, if fixing it in an AV is straightforward, you eliminate the problem... that sort of thing doesn't work with human drivers.)
- jeffbee 3y ago
  > The example of the AV driving through yellow caution tape, hooking a Muni wire, and then continuing to drive another block before stopping is illustrative. We can maybe imagine an unlikely-but-possible scenario where a human driver might do the same thing, but that would be an outlier. Are you joking? Do you live in SF? People are constantly driving into subway tunnels. https://www.ktvu.com/news/cars-drive-in-munis-sunset-tunnel-4-times-in-the-past-month https://www.ktvu.com/news/cars-drive-in-munis-sunset-tunnel-...