4 ms·

> 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 creati

by 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.
      - bumby 3y ago
        >The safe following distance is determined by how fast you can stop, not by who is driving the vehicle you are following. So when you're driving, do you somehow know the braking distance of every car and reaction time of every driver around you? You don't, and since their braking distance is needed to know your own braking requirements, you have to use heuristics. Maybe your heuristic is "assume everyone will cram on the brake, full tilt, at any time." But, that is not a pragmatic solution given our current infrastructure. We don't have the road capacity for everyone to drive that way. So we make tradeoffs. Part of that tradeoff means anticipating what other drivers will do and adjusting accordingly. Naturally, this will trade some safety for other things we value. That is the reality of the world we live in. You seem to be advocating for something else. The OP was that we might struggle to apply such heuristics without a theory of mind to guide us. We probably just disagree on the student driver vs. overconfident drivers. I feel like I'm pretty good at anticipating aggressive drivers, and I fear them must less than the super-tentative driver that tends to put other people at risk. But unless you have data, we're just talking about subjective opinion here so it's not really worth delving into further. >I think that if more driver treated the people around them as student drivers, our roads would be a lot safer. Sure. But again, it doesn't really fit with the world we live in. Should we all, in general, drive more defensively? Sure. But I doubt our infrastructure will allow for 25+ car lengths between vehicles that the NHTSA recommends, so we're stuck making some tradeoffs. I agree on the data point. I'm not making strong claims about safety. I'm making claims about uncertainty. One thing that is clear (and I've advocated elsewhere) is that we don't have good data (in part, because companies get to share only what they want in many cases), which makes uncertainty greater.

by shkkmo 3y ago

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.
    - bumby 3y ago
      >The safe following distance is determined by how fast you can stop, not by who is driving the vehicle you are following. So when you're driving, do you somehow know the braking distance of every car and reaction time of every driver around you? You don't, and since their braking distance is needed to know your own braking requirements, you have to use heuristics. Maybe your heuristic is "assume everyone will cram on the brake, full tilt, at any time." But, that is not a pragmatic solution given our current infrastructure. We don't have the road capacity for everyone to drive that way. So we make tradeoffs. Part of that tradeoff means anticipating what other drivers will do and adjusting accordingly. Naturally, this will trade some safety for other things we value. That is the reality of the world we live in. You seem to be advocating for something else. The OP was that we might struggle to apply such heuristics without a theory of mind to guide us. We probably just disagree on the student driver vs. overconfident drivers. I feel like I'm pretty good at anticipating aggressive drivers, and I fear them must less than the super-tentative driver that tends to put other people at risk. But unless you have data, we're just talking about subjective opinion here so it's not really worth delving into further. >I think that if more driver treated the people around them as student drivers, our roads would be a lot safer. Sure. But again, it doesn't really fit with the world we live in. Should we all, in general, drive more defensively? Sure. But I doubt our infrastructure will allow for 25+ car lengths between vehicles that the NHTSA recommends, so we're stuck making some tradeoffs. I agree on the data point. I'm not making strong claims about safety. I'm making claims about uncertainty. One thing that is clear (and I've advocated elsewhere) is that we don't have good data (in part, because companies get to share only what they want in many cases), which makes uncertainty greater.