7 ms·

Total tangent, but a street a couple of blocks away has been getting resurfaced, and man! Some piece of heavy equipment sounds like a diesel truck idling a few

by qup 3y ago

Total tangent, but a street a couple of blocks away has been getting resurfaced, and man! Some piece of heavy equipment sounds like a diesel truck idling a few meters away. I can't believe how much the noise transfers. > speed limit I'd probably have to quit that job. I at least need the autonomy to drive the vehicle if I'm the one risking my life in it This seems like the future, though. I'm sure some tech will be developed to do this to everyone, probably with a punitive system attached, per usual.

denimnerd42 3y ago
Yeah but seeing these delivery trucks and ride share based delivery cars accelerating as fast as possible and stopping as fast as possible over and over again in your neighborhood where your kids play outside is not so great.
InitialLastName 3y ago
If you're driving a delivery truck in a residential neighborhood, most of the people around you are at FAR more risk than you are. If I'm operating (and liable for) a fleet of such vehicles, I'm going to do everything I can to ensure the operators are doing so safely (especially in the face of incentivizing them to also operate efficiently).
LeifCarrotson 3y ago
You need the autonomy to break the law while on the clock and endanger yourself and those around you without it being reported? Why?
- Analemma_ 3y ago
  Because Amazon also fires drivers if they don't manage an insane pace of deliveries-per-hour. Speeding is basically the only way you can meet the target they set. So it's pretty shitty of Amazon to put drivers in this Catch-22.
  - mcfedr 3y ago
    Maybe that would actually help you to prove if you are being asked to do something unreasonable
  - denimnerd42 3y ago
    sounds more fair to drivers if everyone is policed equally. otherwise like you say, they are forced to speed. if you want to drive safely you can't and also keep your job. whereas now the metrics will show what is reasonable.
  - Fernicia 3y ago
    Is your behavioural model of Amazon that they are trying to maximise firings?
    - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
      Maximizing profit. It's a large chunk of logistics. When EDL (electronic data logging) became mandatory a crapton of drivers left the industry because they could no longer fudge records. The labor churn is an unintended, and ignored side effect.
    - reverius42 3y ago
      I think they're definitely trying to maximize _cause_ for firings, such that if and when they do firings, they can't (as easily) be accused of firing for wrongful cause.
  - Night_Thastus 3y ago
    In real world practical tests, speeding does not reduce the overall travel times proportionally with the speed. This is ESPECIALLY true for city driving and for a job with a ton of stops like a delivery driver. Going 45 in a 40 is a 12.5% increase on paper but maybe 3% more deliveries in a day at best. I'd be shocked if that much honestly. Speeding does not help anyone.
    - fooker 3y ago
      > 3% more deliveries With stack ranking, this can easily get you from the bottom half to the top half pf performers.
- themaninthedark 3y ago
  What is the resolution of the speed detection? When was the map last updated? Or to put this another way: We have a system for perfectly knowing what the drivers speed is. We also perfectly know what the legal street speed is. Instead of limiting the drivers maximum speed to the legal street speed, we instead just tell their boss? Looks to me like Amazon wants their drivers to violate the speed limit but then also want to have a record of when they do so they can fire them for cause.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    Both resolution and updates are imperfect, therefore, the reporting system makes more sense. The appeal process for an on-vehicle limit is instant, real-time interaction with the hardware, while for the latter you can talk to a human. If you were cited for going 68 in a 25 you can point out that you were on the highway 10 seconds before and 10 seconds after the incident, and had no way to get to the access road under the highway. If your vehicle decided you were speeding and slammed on the brakes in the middle of the interstate, you'd need a much more reliable system. If your relationship with your employer is dehumanized to the point where these reports, reviews, and penalties are interactions with an uncaring piece of software, that's a different problem.
    - themaninthedark 3y ago
      Right. That is my point, so now you are expecting the Amazon delivery manager to take time to go through all the reports with each employee. The employee to remember what was going on at the time and the system to be fair. Or: The Amazon manager is either going to fire the employee after a number of reports or keep the reports in their back pocket to use when they need an excuse to fire the employee.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Do speed limiters that engage the brakes actually exist, or is this a nonsense scenario?
  - michaelt 3y ago
    > Instead of limiting the drivers maximum speed to the legal street speed, we instead just tell their boss? I don't know about the Rivian, but many driver monitoring systems are aftermarket retrofits, not vehicle manufacturer parts. The driver monitoring system is just a fancy dashcam with cloud uploading features, and a bunch of people in a low-income country manually labelling video clips.
- qup 3y ago
  If you drive the 55mph speed limit on "the bypass" in pretty much any metro area in the united states, you are risking your own life to be going so slow relative to traffic. I'm generally the slowest driver on my commute, judging from the fact that I rarely pass anyone; however, I go faster than the speed limit, at some point during the trip, nearly every time I get in the car. I do not endanger those around me, in my opinion.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    I think this is extremely regional - it's not true in the Grand Rapids, MI metro area (here we have to fight to get people to zipper merge at the lane closure instead of backing up 5 miles down the expressway in one lane because they heard it was closed...) But having driven in Chicago and San Francisco, it's quite different in some places. Probably needs local differences in policy and application.
    - paconbork 3y ago
      On the Dan Ryan, driving the speed limit would be very unsafe considering most people are going at least 15 over!
Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
>I'd probably have to quit that job. I at least need the autonomy to drive the vehicle if I'm the one risking my life in it Speed limits are less about you and more about everyone else around you. Your autonomy means nothing to the mother and child driving the limit when you smash and kill them.
- serf 3y ago
  Let's be real here for a moment. Amazon didn't implement a system like that 'For The Children', they did it to limit their liability and produce goodwill/leniency/court-appeal for when, if ever, they need it. It produces a very nice after-effect of additional safety, but it's not the raison d'etre.
  - jchw 3y ago
    Yeah, but that's a little beside the point: the liability and social pressure exists (in part) for that reason, especially since without it we all kind of understand what companies like Amazon would do.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - eyjafjallajokul 3y ago
    I don't think the comment implied that it was the "raison d'etre". A company who has employees on the road should strive to make them follow the law. If the vehicles are owned by corporation XYZ, the drivers are employed by corporation XYZ -- it stands to reason that they should ensure that laws are followed. e.g. that the drivers have valid licenses, they are authorized for employment in the region they are employed, etc. Why should following speed limits trigger this train of thought?
  - rnk 3y ago
    Yeah, everyone knows that these hourly workers get impossible schedules that have every moment allocated and they can't recover when something slows them down, speeding is one way to get there.
floxy 3y ago
>This seems like the future, though Seems like that is in a race with outlawing human operated drivers once autonomous vehicles become the norm.

by qup 3y ago

denimnerd42 3y ago

Yeah but seeing these delivery trucks and ride share based delivery cars accelerating as fast as possible and stopping as fast as possible over and over again in your neighborhood where your kids play outside is not so great.

InitialLastName 3y ago

If you're driving a delivery truck in a residential neighborhood, most of the people around you are at FAR more risk than you are. If I'm operating (and liable for) a fleet of such vehicles, I'm going to do everything I can to ensure the operators are doing so safely (especially in the face of incentivizing them to also operate efficiently).

LeifCarrotson 3y ago

You need the autonomy to break the law while on the clock and endanger yourself and those around you without it being reported? Why?

Analemma_ 3y ago
Because Amazon also fires drivers if they don't manage an insane pace of deliveries-per-hour. Speeding is basically the only way you can meet the target they set. So it's pretty shitty of Amazon to put drivers in this Catch-22.
- mcfedr 3y ago
  Maybe that would actually help you to prove if you are being asked to do something unreasonable
- denimnerd42 3y ago
  sounds more fair to drivers if everyone is policed equally. otherwise like you say, they are forced to speed. if you want to drive safely you can't and also keep your job. whereas now the metrics will show what is reasonable.
- Fernicia 3y ago
  Is your behavioural model of Amazon that they are trying to maximise firings?
  - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
    Maximizing profit. It's a large chunk of logistics. When EDL (electronic data logging) became mandatory a crapton of drivers left the industry because they could no longer fudge records. The labor churn is an unintended, and ignored side effect.
  - reverius42 3y ago
    I think they're definitely trying to maximize _cause_ for firings, such that if and when they do firings, they can't (as easily) be accused of firing for wrongful cause.
- Night_Thastus 3y ago
  In real world practical tests, speeding does not reduce the overall travel times proportionally with the speed. This is ESPECIALLY true for city driving and for a job with a ton of stops like a delivery driver. Going 45 in a 40 is a 12.5% increase on paper but maybe 3% more deliveries in a day at best. I'd be shocked if that much honestly. Speeding does not help anyone.
  - fooker 3y ago
    > 3% more deliveries With stack ranking, this can easily get you from the bottom half to the top half pf performers.
themaninthedark 3y ago
What is the resolution of the speed detection? When was the map last updated? Or to put this another way: We have a system for perfectly knowing what the drivers speed is. We also perfectly know what the legal street speed is. Instead of limiting the drivers maximum speed to the legal street speed, we instead just tell their boss? Looks to me like Amazon wants their drivers to violate the speed limit but then also want to have a record of when they do so they can fire them for cause.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  Both resolution and updates are imperfect, therefore, the reporting system makes more sense. The appeal process for an on-vehicle limit is instant, real-time interaction with the hardware, while for the latter you can talk to a human. If you were cited for going 68 in a 25 you can point out that you were on the highway 10 seconds before and 10 seconds after the incident, and had no way to get to the access road under the highway. If your vehicle decided you were speeding and slammed on the brakes in the middle of the interstate, you'd need a much more reliable system. If your relationship with your employer is dehumanized to the point where these reports, reviews, and penalties are interactions with an uncaring piece of software, that's a different problem.
  - themaninthedark 3y ago
    Right. That is my point, so now you are expecting the Amazon delivery manager to take time to go through all the reports with each employee. The employee to remember what was going on at the time and the system to be fair. Or: The Amazon manager is either going to fire the employee after a number of reports or keep the reports in their back pocket to use when they need an excuse to fire the employee.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Do speed limiters that engage the brakes actually exist, or is this a nonsense scenario?
- michaelt 3y ago
  > Instead of limiting the drivers maximum speed to the legal street speed, we instead just tell their boss? I don't know about the Rivian, but many driver monitoring systems are aftermarket retrofits, not vehicle manufacturer parts. The driver monitoring system is just a fancy dashcam with cloud uploading features, and a bunch of people in a low-income country manually labelling video clips.
qup 3y ago
If you drive the 55mph speed limit on "the bypass" in pretty much any metro area in the united states, you are risking your own life to be going so slow relative to traffic. I'm generally the slowest driver on my commute, judging from the fact that I rarely pass anyone; however, I go faster than the speed limit, at some point during the trip, nearly every time I get in the car. I do not endanger those around me, in my opinion.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  I think this is extremely regional - it's not true in the Grand Rapids, MI metro area (here we have to fight to get people to zipper merge at the lane closure instead of backing up 5 miles down the expressway in one lane because they heard it was closed...) But having driven in Chicago and San Francisco, it's quite different in some places. Probably needs local differences in policy and application.
  - paconbork 3y ago
    On the Dan Ryan, driving the speed limit would be very unsafe considering most people are going at least 15 over!

Philip-J-Fry 3y ago

>I'd probably have to quit that job. I at least need the autonomy to drive the vehicle if I'm the one risking my life in it Speed limits are less about you and more about everyone else around you. Your autonomy means nothing to the mother and child driving the limit when you smash and kill them.

serf 3y ago
Let's be real here for a moment. Amazon didn't implement a system like that 'For The Children', they did it to limit their liability and produce goodwill/leniency/court-appeal for when, if ever, they need it. It produces a very nice after-effect of additional safety, but it's not the raison d'etre.
- jchw 3y ago
  Yeah, but that's a little beside the point: the liability and social pressure exists (in part) for that reason, especially since without it we all kind of understand what companies like Amazon would do.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- eyjafjallajokul 3y ago
  I don't think the comment implied that it was the "raison d'etre". A company who has employees on the road should strive to make them follow the law. If the vehicles are owned by corporation XYZ, the drivers are employed by corporation XYZ -- it stands to reason that they should ensure that laws are followed. e.g. that the drivers have valid licenses, they are authorized for employment in the region they are employed, etc. Why should following speed limits trigger this train of thought?
- rnk 3y ago
  Yeah, everyone knows that these hourly workers get impossible schedules that have every moment allocated and they can't recover when something slows them down, speeding is one way to get there.

floxy 3y ago

>This seems like the future, though Seems like that is in a race with outlawing human operated drivers once autonomous vehicles become the norm.