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I think people are often missing point. Yes, in a rear end collision the fault is almost always the following driver. Having a framework for assigning liability

by bumby 3y ago

I think people are often missing point. Yes, in a rear end collision the fault is almost always the following driver. Having a framework for assigning liability is not the same as having a safety framework. Consider an AV that is consistently brake-checking those behind them due to nuisance alarms. Now I have a harder time predicting what the car in front of me is going to do. Is that a safer or less-safe scenario? Sure, I can mitigate it by giving more trailing distance, but now we've traded traffic flow/congestion for an equal level of safety.

shkkmo 3y ago
> now we've traded traffic flow/congestion for an equal level of safety. If you don't maintain a safe following distance for your speed, you are the one creating the dangerous driving environment. Tailgating is worse for both traffic flow and safety.
- bumby 3y ago
  This, again, gets to missing the point. If a disproportionate amount of cars are nuisance brake checking, it increases the level of uncertainty in driving behavior. I now have to overcompensate on average to maintain the same level of safety.
  - UncleMeat 3y ago
    But you aren't overcompensating. Instead you are driving safely. If sudden braking is so rare that you feel comfortable riding right behind a car in front of you then when they do suddenly brake (which will happen eventually), you are now in a very dangerous situation.
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    > I now have to overcompensate on average to maintain the same level of safety. Tailgating is bad, regardless of if people brake check or not. If automous vehicles are what it takes to get you to stop tailgating and follow at a safe distance, then that is just an added bonus.
    - bumby 3y ago
      There is no single definition of tailgaiting other than being able to not being able to stop at a reasonable distance. So it is impossible to declare what constitutes tailing, especially in the mixed case of human drivers and robot drivers (who have a reputation for nuisance braking). Why, for example, do you think trainers post "Student Driver" stickers on their cars? It's because it signals the driver may be more unpredictable and people (rightly) tend to give them wide berth. You're essentially advocating that everyone treat everyone else (and every robot) as a student driver. That's fine for a dichotomous safety mindset, but other people would prefer to recognize the tradeoffs with that approach. Or maybe you're just deliberately bent on misunderstanding my point, I can't read your mind :)
      - shkkmo 3y ago
        > There is no single definition of tailgaiting other than being able to not being able to stop at a reasonable distance. So it is impossible to declare what constitutes tailing, especially in the mixed case of human drivers and robot drivers (who have a reputation for nuisance braking). What is this nonsense? The safe following distance is determined by how fast you can stop, not by who is driving the vehicle you are following. > Why, for example, do you think trainers post "Student Driver" stickers on their cars? It's because it signals the driver may be more unpredictable. No, it signals they have less experience and are more dangerous drivers. When it comes to driver predictability, student drivers tend to be far more predictable than the adult, overconfident drivers. I've never seen a student driver roaring past me in stopped traffic on a shoulder, or floor the gas to pass me through a light because they didn't want to turn in a turn only lane, or any of the other unpredictable things I see on a regular basis from experienced drivers. > You're essentially advocating that everyone treat everyone else (and every robot) as a student driver. That's fine for a dichotomous safety mindset, but other people would prefer to recognize the tradeoffs with that approach. I think that if more driver treated the people around them as student drivers, our roads would be a lot safer. I know that if people followed at a safe distance then we would have fewer traffic jams. Edit: You also seem stuck on the idea that Waymo unsafely unexpectedly brakes more often than human drivers, yet that isn't clear to me from the data we have. Indeed it seems like the opposite is true from the data.
zehaeva 3y ago
To add onto the sibling's point, the "safe following distance" has a rule of thumb of "3 seconds behind". At 65MPH, I'm assuming you're in the US, is approximately 300 feet. I'm willing to bet that's around 10 times what you were considering as a safe following distance in your head, and probably still 5 times more than what you were picturing for the safe distance behind a brake checking AV.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The problem with the “safe distance” (my new car has it built into the cruise control) is that it’s more than large enough for a vehicle to merge into, which repeatedly happens. As more and more cars default to this safely, however, it’ll start to equal out.
taneq 3y ago
If it were doing it consistently then that would be less of an issue. The problem is that complex systems make decisions for complex reasons and are very difficult to predict as a result. That said, if you routinely tailgate the driver in front on the assumption that nothing will go wrong then you've chosen to accept the consequences when an otter runs out in front of them (hey I didn't see that coming either) and they suddenly limit brake and you're sitting in their back seat. Or a steering tie breaks in a classic car coming the other way, which hits the car in front of you head on and now they're stationary. The question of how much additional caution (in terms of lower speed limits, longer following distances etc.) is optimal in terms of overall QALYs is, I feel, vastly under-considered and under-discussed.

by bumby 3y ago

shkkmo 3y ago

> now we've traded traffic flow/congestion for an equal level of safety. If you don't maintain a safe following distance for your speed, you are the one creating the dangerous driving environment. Tailgating is worse for both traffic flow and safety.

bumby 3y ago
This, again, gets to missing the point. If a disproportionate amount of cars are nuisance brake checking, it increases the level of uncertainty in driving behavior. I now have to overcompensate on average to maintain the same level of safety.
- UncleMeat 3y ago
  But you aren't overcompensating. Instead you are driving safely. If sudden braking is so rare that you feel comfortable riding right behind a car in front of you then when they do suddenly brake (which will happen eventually), you are now in a very dangerous situation.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  > I now have to overcompensate on average to maintain the same level of safety. Tailgating is bad, regardless of if people brake check or not. If automous vehicles are what it takes to get you to stop tailgating and follow at a safe distance, then that is just an added bonus.
  - bumby 3y ago
    There is no single definition of tailgaiting other than being able to not being able to stop at a reasonable distance. So it is impossible to declare what constitutes tailing, especially in the mixed case of human drivers and robot drivers (who have a reputation for nuisance braking). Why, for example, do you think trainers post "Student Driver" stickers on their cars? It's because it signals the driver may be more unpredictable and people (rightly) tend to give them wide berth. You're essentially advocating that everyone treat everyone else (and every robot) as a student driver. That's fine for a dichotomous safety mindset, but other people would prefer to recognize the tradeoffs with that approach. Or maybe you're just deliberately bent on misunderstanding my point, I can't read your mind :)
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      > There is no single definition of tailgaiting other than being able to not being able to stop at a reasonable distance. So it is impossible to declare what constitutes tailing, especially in the mixed case of human drivers and robot drivers (who have a reputation for nuisance braking). What is this nonsense? The safe following distance is determined by how fast you can stop, not by who is driving the vehicle you are following. > Why, for example, do you think trainers post "Student Driver" stickers on their cars? It's because it signals the driver may be more unpredictable. No, it signals they have less experience and are more dangerous drivers. When it comes to driver predictability, student drivers tend to be far more predictable than the adult, overconfident drivers. I've never seen a student driver roaring past me in stopped traffic on a shoulder, or floor the gas to pass me through a light because they didn't want to turn in a turn only lane, or any of the other unpredictable things I see on a regular basis from experienced drivers. > You're essentially advocating that everyone treat everyone else (and every robot) as a student driver. That's fine for a dichotomous safety mindset, but other people would prefer to recognize the tradeoffs with that approach. I think that if more driver treated the people around them as student drivers, our roads would be a lot safer. I know that if people followed at a safe distance then we would have fewer traffic jams. Edit: You also seem stuck on the idea that Waymo unsafely unexpectedly brakes more often than human drivers, yet that isn't clear to me from the data we have. Indeed it seems like the opposite is true from the data.

zehaeva 3y ago

To add onto the sibling's point, the "safe following distance" has a rule of thumb of "3 seconds behind". At 65MPH, I'm assuming you're in the US, is approximately 300 feet. I'm willing to bet that's around 10 times what you were considering as a safe following distance in your head, and probably still 5 times more than what you were picturing for the safe distance behind a brake checking AV.

bombcar 3y ago
The problem with the “safe distance” (my new car has it built into the cruise control) is that it’s more than large enough for a vehicle to merge into, which repeatedly happens. As more and more cars default to this safely, however, it’ll start to equal out.

taneq 3y ago

If it were doing it consistently then that would be less of an issue. The problem is that complex systems make decisions for complex reasons and are very difficult to predict as a result. That said, if you routinely tailgate the driver in front on the assumption that nothing will go wrong then you've chosen to accept the consequences when an otter runs out in front of them (hey I didn't see that coming either) and they suddenly limit brake and you're sitting in their back seat. Or a steering tie breaks in a classic car coming the other way, which hits the car in front of you head on and now they're stationary. The question of how much additional caution (in terms of lower speed limits, longer following distances etc.) is optimal in terms of overall QALYs is, I feel, vastly under-considered and under-discussed.