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Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say
- artninja1988 3y ago> According to Waymo, the company’s vehicle fully stopped at a four-way intersection before proceeding into the intersection as a large truck was driving through in the opposite direction. “The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle’s path,” the company said in a statement. “When they became fully visible, our vehicle applied heavy braking but was not able to avoid the collision.” Sounds like it should have wainted for the truck to fully pass then or am I not understanding the situation correctly? Would love it if they released the footage of the accident though
- tessierashpool 3y agovery surprising that Waymo would describe the accident in terms that blame the other party
- huytersd 3y agoWhy? If you don’t follow the rules of the road the cyclist is to blame. Now what Waymo needs to do to avoid this in the future is a whole other discussion…
- fastball 3y agoWaymo needs to do nothing to avoid this in the future if their vehicle was following the rules of the road and the cyclist did not.
- bagels 3y agoYou don't think that they should try to avoid avoidable collisions?
- fastball 3y agoEvery collision is avoidable if you drive the car at 5mph at all times. But that wouldn't be reasonable. If the Waymo description of the incident is accurate, there would be no way to really avoid this accident without significantly nerfing the normal and expected driving behavior of this vehicle. e.g., you would need to not allow a Waymo vehicle to enter the intersection when there is any other vehicle in it as well, which (in my opinion) would not be reasonable at all. If it drives better than a human (in this case it sounds like it probably did), that's good enough for me.
- FireBeyond 3y agoYou may want to look into the concept of the "Failure to Avoid" or "Failure to Reduce Speed" citation. These encapsulate scenarios where it there was reasonable opportunity to avoid or stop before causing a collision. You don't just get to careen into a collision because someone else is not following the rules of the road, hoping for a payday.
- fastball 3y agoOk, but neither of those things apply in this case. Obviously Waymo vehicles should be slowing down to try to avoid a collision / reduce the severity. But in this case it sounds like the "fix" would be fundamentally changing the cars behavior to be far too conservative.
- deepfriedchokes 3y agoSounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the intersection or follow the rules of right of way.
- pclmulqdq 3y agoI am usually one to bash cyclists for not following the rules, but I believe it's actually legal for them to do this at stop signs. They only have to slow down and check for crossing traffic before going through.
- Aloisius 3y agoCalifornia requires bicyclists to come to a full stop at stop signs. There's no stop-as-yield here. Even in places that do, they still require bicyclists to yield right-of-way to any vehicle stopped at the intersection before they arrived.
- csa 3y ago> They only have to slow down and check for crossing traffic before going through. As another poster said, this is not true, but more importantly… Some cyclists treat the “yield at stop sign” concept as “yield to me the cyclist, as I will not slow down unless I have to, and I will be unhappy about that”. I’ve been cursed out, flipped off, and given the evil eye when I pulled out from a stop sign and a cyclist that was far up the road when I looked had to hard brake because they weren’t even slowing down. I’m all for cyclists rights. I was a bicycle messenger one summer, and my replacement was killed in an accident. Being a cyclist can be dangerous and scary, but some cyclists just act like entitled shitheads. Besides being a problem for all folks on the road, they also give cyclists a bad rep.
- kevingadd 3y agoIt is pretty common to see people go from the opposite side of a stop sign since it's "safe", even if it happens to be against the rules. I can understand how the Waymo AI would end up being configured to do this. Hopefully they amend that based on this incident.
- tobyjsullivan 3y agoI don’t know about California but that’s legal where I live. Vehicles on opposite sides of a 4-way stop can enter simultaneously if both are going straight.
- readthenotes1 3y agoThe way Mo was turning
- jonas21 3y agoFrom my reading of the statement, the truck and Waymo vehicle were both going straight, in opposite directions. The cyclist was traveling on the cross-street and entered the intersection directly behind the truck and into the path of the Waymo vehicle.
- ghaff 3y agoI'm pretty distrusting of where people will use turn signals in general.
- tzs 3y ago> It is pretty common to see people go from the opposite side of a stop sign since it's "safe", even if it happens to be against the rules. Where is it against the rules?
- readthenotes1 3y agoIs it not against the rules to drive into an area that you do not have proper visibility?
- monkaiju 3y agoCant believe these things are allowed on the road...
- digbybk 3y agoWhat’s the relative likelihood that a waymo car will hit a cyclist or pedestrian vs a human operated car? Unfortunately for us cyclists, people are hit by human drivers every day.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y agoI can’t believe those things are allowed on the road!
- mewpmewp2 3y agoI can't believe we have roads in the first place. It is the invention of the romans. And what good have they ever done for us?
- readthenotes1 3y agoPossibly, perhapsily, they left someone behind in England who became the seed of the King Arthur stories, and those are pretty good.
- promiseofbeans 3y agoI'm guessing lower - the Waymo car started braking aggressively as soon as it saw the cyclist, and the cyclist escaped with only scratches. Given our slower response times, the cyclist probably wouldn't have been as lucky with a human driver.
- esafak 3y agoCareless cyclists?
- bugbuddy 3y ago
- topkai22 3y agoI looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.
- mvdtnz 3y agoAre you implying that we shouldn't be concerned about automated vehicles hitting cyclists if the cyclist wasn't following the lawn to the letter?
- TulliusCicero 3y agoAccording to the Waymo description, the cyclist was behind a truck, and not visible to the Waymo car. If that's true, then a human driver likely would've done the same thing: take its turn at the stop sign.
- readthenotes1 3y agoIn most of my defensive driving classes, they tell me that if I can't see it, that means there's probably a car there. So a safe human driver would not have entered the intersection while the truck was obstructing vision. That may have pissed off the people behind me, but at least I wouldn't be turning while blind.
- pavon 3y agoIf Waymo's description was accurate it wasn't blind when they entered the intersection. Waymo and the truck stopped at a 4-way intersection traveling opposite directions. Both entered the intersection going straight. In the meanwhile the bicycle entered from the cross street behind the truck, himself blind to what was occurring in the intersection. We'll have to wait for more information to see if that description is accurate, but the car's action was a legal and safe thing to do based on the description given. > but at least I wouldn't be turning while blind. There is nothing in the article suggesting that the waymo was turning. Edit: Nevermind I was visualizing the direction of cross traffic incorrectly. The cyclist's lane would have been to the left and closest to the Waymo, which means that the truck must have already been in the intersection when the Waymo started moving if it was obscuring the bike. So either the Waymo got to the intersection later than the black truck and tried to sneak in a crossing, or they both got there at the same time but the Waymo came to a complete stop and then proceeded while the truck performed a rolling stop, or something similar. That's a much fuzzier situation and will depend a lot more on details not being shared.
- xianshou 3y agoIf Waymo is truly as much better than Cruise as the statistics claim, this is a perfect opportunity to release the full video of the incident. Most collisions are avoidable, but a few are the result of a perfect storm of conditions that would be difficult to navigate for even the most skilled human driver. To know whether the truck's occlusion of the cyclist is one of those cases requires the actual footage.
- fastball 3y agoYes, they definitely have full footage. I would appreciate seeing it.
- muglug 3y ago> this is a perfect opportunity to release the full video of the incident I hope they’ve released the full video to investigators, but they’re in a tight spot — SF city government is looking for reasons to come down harshly on the company, and trying to sway public opinion ahead of the city’s verdict won’t help.
- PeterisP 3y agoWhy wouldn't it help? I think entirely the opposite, if they believe that SF city government has political reasons to misinterpret the evidence, then putting the evidence to the general public can act as a check to the SF government, preventing them from any shenanigans asserting that the video shows something other than most members of the public saw there.
- jtriangle 3y agoOnly way that happens is if the cyclist signs a boatload of paperwork to waive his right to litigation. And on top of that, I'm far less interested in the footage than I am the telemetry. What was the state of the gas and brake, what was the steering angle, how long was it from detection to action. Those things concretely answer the question of "would a human have done better or worse in this situation?", which is ultimately the only question that matters.
- pb7 3y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if the cyclist blew through the stop sign as is incredibly common.
- nerdponx 3y agoIt's also arguably safer for the cyclist to do so. Bikes typically accelerate much slower than cars.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- TulliusCicero 3y agoIt can be safer, but it's definitely not safer to do this if you're right behind a big truck that blocks other cars from seeing you. There's a right way to Idaho stop, and this ain't it.
- usrusr 3y agoDo waymos perhaps pass through behind a vehicle much faster/closer than a human driver? That would appear like one of those things that "computer accuracy" could do that humans would never try. A cyclist confident to be able to keep up with the truck's acceleration might go not only for the physical slipstream, but also for the "traffic slipstream", remaining so close that he would never intersect paths with a regular driver. That would be breaking traffic rules, not arguing that, but it would not only be safe (-ish, truck might hit the brakes) but also not inconvenience any drivers who wouldn't pass behind the truck without leaving a sufficient gap anyways. Until a waymo shows up and ends that assumption (this is speculation, I don't know how waymos drive) In any case, from a continental European perspective the American four-way stop just seems completely wrong, despite priority to the right being essentially the same when fully saturated.
- fastball 3y agoCan you explain? That doesn't really make sense to me.
- 3y ago
- km3r 3y agoSo the scenario (as described by waymo, surely with some spin): "Driving through a 4 way intersection, while a large truck is also going through the intersection. As you go through, a biker quickly passes behind the truck with minimal time to react once in sightlines." A human driver would take significantly longer to react, and could be deadly. Waymo managed to hit the breaks before the collision, potentially leading to only minor scrapes. Feels much better than human would fare in a similar scenario. What I hope Waymo learbx for this, as well applies as similar scenarios: never cross through these zones of high bike traffic when the obstruction from another vehicle prevents a wide enough view to brake before this zone.
- nerdponx 3y agoLet's wait until there's a neutral 3rd-party description. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35844915/ntsb-letter-nhtsa-self-driving-vehicles/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35844915/ntsb-letter-nhts...
- zone411 3y agoWe shouldn't have to wait and listen to the spin from both sites. The video should be released immediately. What's Waymo's excuse?
- ugh123 3y ago>What I hope Waymo learbx for this, as well applies as similar scenarios: never cross through these zones of high bike traffic when the obstruction from another vehicle prevents a wide enough view to brake before this zone. I hope it's as simple as that, and that regulators will understand just how little fine-tuning could yield substantial safety increases not possible with human drivers.
- clbrmbr 3y agoI hope regulators watch video from the vehicle and think, “damn I would not have been able to react that fast. Sure we can make these things even safer but it would be immoral to block waymo’s operations as it would certainly increase harm.”
- mr3martinis 3y agoI was hit while riding a bike in a situation that sounds similar: I was biking behind a car. A driver headed in the opposite direction turned left and hit me. I was difficult for the turning driver to see because I was obscured by the vehicle I was following. The description is totally plausible. It also sounds like the biker may have ignored the stop sign.
- nicbou 3y agoThis is a situation I'm exceedingly careful about on bikes and motorbikes. I'll make eye contact with drivers and stand on the pedals/pegs to make sure I'm visible. Most of the time, German drivers have good situational awareness. I just won't bet my life on it.
- asah 3y agothe cyclist left the scene “reporting only minor scratches.” I'd never considered it before, but perhaps the endgame is humans getting used to automated taxis like potholes, animals, nails and other road hazards ? And then learning to judge the risk and accepting occasional small crashes like this.
- pests 3y ago/s ? Did you just ask if the endgame is humans getting used to cars crashing into them? Thanks for the chuckle.
- lmz 3y agoAccepting occasional small crashes? Is this not already the status quo?
- dymk 3y agoThe status quo is accepting cyclists getting mowed down by human drivers by the thousands every year
- Groxx 3y agoAs a biker on the road, yes, you absolutely do consider that the status quo. Otherwise you stand a good chance of joining that statistic. Cars do a lot more damage to you than you do to them. Which implies nothing about any ideal state, either practically or legally. But it is an accurate description of the real world in many areas, and therefore a reasonable expectation when your life is on the line. --- On a more technical level, legally and practically, the acceptable number of accidents is essentially never zero. That would imply absurd costs involved in prevention. Everyone wants it to be lower of course, but humans do not have infinite value in policy decisions.
- Bjartr 3y agoThe number pedestrians injured in the us by cars annually is around 60k. We're already pretty used to it. So yes, if automated cars reduce that to say 6k a year, that's still a win. As would be 30k, but lower severity injuries.
- source99 3y agoI would love to hear some stats on how many car/bike collisions happen every day in SF.
- source99 3y agoPrior to the pandemic an average of 1.4 bike accidents per day - https://www.mjqlaw.com/san-francisco-2022-bicycle-accident-statistics-and-study/ https://www.mjqlaw.com/san-francisco-2022-bicycle-accident-s...
- buzzergfxkjkl 3y agoI am unable to drill down on my phone right now but presumably we can figure this out for other years thanks to the visionzero plan/project. https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/traffic-fatalities https://sfgov.org/scorecards/transportation/traffic-fataliti... Yes I know this site only shows fatalities but I'm assuming the data is there if somebody is able to figure out the API/powerbi stuff?
- jeffbee 3y agoI don't know either but I do know that this collision has already got infinity times more press coverage and police attention than that time a wrong-way driver hit me on Howard and fled the scene. It's a problem with the whole AV discourse.
- scarmig 3y agoI can name two times in the last five years where, biking, I had a worse encounter than described (though I reserve judgment of fault until more details come out). Including one that required hospitalization, where the human driver decided to drive away. The frustrating bit about AV discourse is that AVs are held against the standard of a perfect driver. Which I don't actually object to--all drivers should be compared to perfection. But it's enraging when people do so for AVs without comparing against human drivers, which, as everyone should know, fall far short of perfection. And with AVs we have the capability to iteratively improve them toward perfection, while there's no way to do the same with humans.
- semireg 3y agoor maybe, Cyclist Hits Waymo
- notatoad 3y ago>Waymo personnel called police. well at least the industry has learned something from the cruise incident.
- laweijfmvo 3y ago> Waymo personnel called police. The company said the cyclist left the scene “reporting only minor scratches.” There was one passenger in the car and they were not injured, according to the company. Full paragraph. Interesting that the cyclist left? If they are determined to be at fault, then I assume that’s gonna be bad for them?
- pavon 3y ago> Officers rushed to the scene and found the cyclist with non-life-threatening injuries. He left after the police arrived and assessed the situation.
- __loam 3y agoAs a cyclist I can't wait for these things to get more drivers off the streets. They're way safer than the average Californian.
- dmamills 3y ago> CITIZEN, you have been struck by an autonomous vehicle! I have reported the impact data to help us improve our platform. Thank you for your feedback.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoPlease collect your $25 participation gift card from the slot in the rear tailgate.
- Rapzid 3y agoSooo, is that picture from the incident? Edit: The logo on the steering wheel is Jaguar.. That's a bullshit image right? Double Edit: > SFPD said the collision is under investigation and did not provide details on what caused the cyclist and autonomous vehicle to collide So we don't even know who hit who lol. "Cyclist and Waymo Collide" sounds more accurate yeah?
- notatoad 3y ago>the logo on the steering wheel is jaguar. that's a bullshit image, right? waymo has a whole bunch of Jaguar I-Pace SUVs. https://waymo.com/blog/2018/03/meet-our-newest-self-driving-vehicle/ https://waymo.com/blog/2018/03/meet-our-newest-self-driving-... It's a getty image. they're usually pretty good about disclosing whether an image is a real image or a composite.
- Rapzid 3y agoOkay, so it's a real image but not of the incident? Edit: I still have my suspicions it's not even a real image but a composite, getty or not. The shadows from the cyclist don't match that from the cars.
- belltaco 3y agoI wonder if short range radar or sonar can help tell if there's something behind a large truck with the wave or sound reflections. If bats can do it, why can't computers?
- ummonk 3y agoIt's uhclear from the description whether the cyclist was going straight in the same direction as the truck and the Waymo turned into the cyclist, or the cyclist was traveling across the direction of the truck and the Waymo.
- sinuhe69 3y agoWaymo certainly has the video of the collision. Just shows it!
- orochimaaru 3y ago"S.F. Supervisor Shamann Walton responded to the news of the collision on social media, saying, “So much for safety.”" Why the snark? It seems it was a hard call, something that a human driver would not have caught and potentially caused a deadlier accident. As I see it there wasn't an investigation from the cyclists p.o.v.
- bhawks 3y agoThe citizens of SF expect their elected officials to put on a good show. Running the city well is too boring. Here's an article with the same supervisor threatening the sheriff's deputy running the metal detector in city hall: https://abc7news.com/shamann-walton-racial-slurs-sf-board-of-supervisors-president-cadet-emare-butler-supervisor-n-word/12109607/ https://abc7news.com/shamann-walton-racial-slurs-sf-board-of... To be fair all the supervisors and other electeds are clowns - nothing remarkable about Walton.
- CobrastanJorji 3y agoI'm disappointed in all the folks immediately blaming the cyclist without further information, and I'm similarly disappointed in all the folks blaming Waymo for the same reason. But, unless they somehow have extra information we're not privy to, I'm much more disappointed in the S.F. Supervisor quoted in the article, Shamann Walton, for immediately going online to say "so much for safety." Us internet weenies are always going to have our hot takes, but someone in charge of the city has a responsibility to at least try to be better.
- efitz 3y ago[flagged]
- ehsankia 3y agoI think more impressively, even in this seemingly worst case scenario where everything lined up as poorly as it could have, the car was still able to react quite aggressively and the situation ended only with minor scratches it seems? Honestly, if anything, this is probably proof that self-driving is the future, as I would bet any human would've most definitely done much worse in the same scenario.
- gnicholas 3y agoI wonder if a human driver would have (for better or worse) swerved to avoid hitting the cyclist. That is, the Waymo might be programmed to only execute certain types of evasive maneuvers, whereas a human would instinctively do other things as well. Of course, if there were someone in the vehicle's blind spot, it's possible this would have resulted in a worse accident, since there would have been no time for a human driver to double check.
- petre 3y agoIn a recent accident that happened in my country, a human driver swerved to avoid a cyclist that was quickly switching lanes without signaling in order to cross from one side to another. The swerving car went over the sidewalk and killed a pedestrian. You should draw your own conclusions.
- bsdpufferfish 3y agoCan’t wait for all the comments telling me its ok because people also hit bikers.
- soraki_soladead 3y agoAgree that's not a great look for the supervisor. Cyclists have a bad rep in SF because many (not all) ride quite dangerously. It's a common sight to see cyclists running four-way stop signs and lights without even yielding. I live adjacent to a four-way stop and there's an incident where a cyclist fails to yield nearly hourly. Meanwhile, Waymo has millions of incident-free miles and of all the self-driving car companies generally takes safety seriously, even if they will act to protect their interests here. Until more evidence comes out I'll be taking Waymo's side here. I want safer vehicles and Waymo is currently the best bet.
- armada651 3y ago> Cyclists have a bad rep in SF because many (not all) ride quite dangerously. Cycling in the US is almost by definition riding dangerously, since there are very few places with actual safe bicycle infrastructure. This is a self-selecting pressure, because it means that the only cyclists that actually dare to cycle in the city are risk-takers. > I live adjacent to a four-way stop and there's an incident where a cyclist fails to yield nearly hourly. You can blame the cyclist or perhaps a four-way stop with a nearly hourly cyclist incident needs to be redesigned.
- alvah 3y ago"> I live adjacent to a four-way stop and there's an incident where a cyclist fails to yield nearly hourly. You can blame the cyclist or perhaps a four-way stop with a nearly hourly cyclist incident needs to be redesigned." Or, bear with me here, just maybe the cyclists failing to yield is kind of the big issue here?
- shuckles 3y agoNo it’s not. AB122 passed the legislature to legalize the California roll for cyclists, because coming to a full stop at a stop sign makes no sense for riders with high visibility. Newsom vetoed it for stupid culture war reasons. It’s a law that doesn’t make sense so it’s not a big issue if it isn’t followed.
- trhway 3y ago>According to Waymo, the company’s vehicle fully stopped at a four-way intersection before proceeding into the intersection as a large truck was driving through in the opposite direction and that is a traffic violation on the part of Waymo. From the STOP, you can't go into intersection until it is clear.
- undersuit 3y agoThis is a complete waste of time until video or a decision based on video is released.
- occz 3y agoHackerNews has a major problem with regards to victim blaming as it pertains to cyclists, and this thread is clear evidence of it.
- dang 3y agoIt's a classic flamewar topic with plenty of people on both sides feeling similarly about the other.
- qwerty_clicks 3y agoThe system and society built and maintained for cars is the problem. Not robot or human drivers.
- pesto88 3y agoAfter driving behind a bunch of Waymo and Cruise vehicles, I'd much rather be behind/around a Waymo car. They drive at normal speeds and are generally more predictable at intersections.
- XEKEP 3y agoFrankly, I’m impressed with both Waymo the car and Waymo the company reactions to the accident. The only shallow knee-jerk reaction came from S.F. Supervisor Shamann Walton.
- verisimi 3y agoIs there footage? Can we see it? Is there a reason not to see it?
- abalone 3y agoClearly one of these two scenarios happened: 1. The waymo made a left turn into the space occluded by truck, seeing there was no vehicle behind the truck when committing to accelerating through the turn, but not seeing the bike in the adjacent bike line proceeding through the intersection. 2. The bike made a left turn from behind the truck into an occluded space, which would be suicidal. While we can’t rule out the latter until we see video, the former seems much more likely. And that strongly suggests it accelerated too quickly. All the talk about the bike not stopping is beside the point — Waymo is supposed to be able to safely handle such situations.
- devit 3y agoSeems like it could also be Waymo going straight north, truck going straight south and bike going straight east passing just behind the truck (or rotations of this), since there seems to be just stop signs at the intersection.
- tdy_err 3y agoyou guys really love these driverless car accident articles
- Animats 3y agoThe intersection: [1] Simple 4-way uncontrolled intersection, 4-way stop, bike lanes on three streets. No obvious occlusion problems. Not enough info in the reports to tell who was going which way. [1] https://earth.google.com/web/search/17th+and+Mississippi+San+Francisco/@37.765268,-122.39483981,5.88057113a,68.90237897d,35y,0h,0t,0r https://earth.google.com/web/search/17th+and+Mississippi+San...
- insane_dreamer 3y agoNo system is is full-proof (Exhibit A: Jurassic Park ;). Accidents will happen. My question is who will be liable: the owner of the car, or Waymo/Cruise/Tesla etc.?
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoMy cynical guess is the pedestrian.
- linuxhansl 3y ago> S.F. Supervisor Shamann Walton responded to the news of the collision on social media, saying, “So much for safety.” Somehow I would have expected more from a supervisor. Maybe she could have awaited the investigation? Does she have stats on miles driver per accident - for human drivers and autonomous vehicles? Does she have stats on how many cyclist are hit by car with human drivers? Is this an interesting intersection? ... She probably did not ask herself any of this.
- smsm42 3y agoThe fundamental problem of self-driving cars in cities is that they are expected to be 100% safe. They could be 10 times as safe as regular cars, but it wouldn't save them from headlines of "robot car kills an innocent person". And given how chaotic and unpredictable situation on the roads in a densely populated city without designated spaces for cyclists can be, 100% safety is impossible. Even if AI itself if perfect, there's physics of mass, inertia, velocity, visibility, etc. - which sometimes will cause situations that lead to collisions, unless the self-driving cars either are physically segregated or limited to ridiculously low speeds where they become useless. Solution 1: make separate bike paths. Totally works in many cities, likely can't happen in SF because of so many reasons. Solution 2: ban self-driving cars. Solution 3: pay megabucks to PR company which would create some kind of a narrative where safety is much less important than the benefits of the self-driving cars, and if you say otherwise, you are a bad person and should be cancelled. Not sure if it's possible but it probably less impossible than making a 100% safe self-driving car. A sane solution would be to figure out how much safety we expect, take effort to make it as close to 100% as possible while realizing it's never 100%, and rationally investigate each case of failure, while recognizing that some amount of them are inevitable. But that would be totally outdated and unusual pattern of behavior, so I don't expect it to happen in practice.
- Terr_ 3y ago> The fundamental problem of self-driving cars in cities is that they are expected to be 100% safe. I feel like that might be built atop two deeper concerns: 1. People worry that ways and times they are unsafe (separate from overall rates) will be unusual, less-predictable, or involve a novel risk-profile. 2. If it's autonomous, then accidents kinda weird-out our sense of blame and justice. When it fails, is it always the owner's fault and liability--even though the workings are impenetrable to the average person--or does the manufacturer have some blame? Do we each imagine that outcome would be fair if we were the one on the hook for our car doing something weird we didn't even intend? Using regular cars as contrast, #1 is something predictable--or at least we delude ourselves into thinking it's predictable--and #2 has less disturbing ambiguity.
- ExoticPearTree 3y ago> The fundamental problem of self-driving cars in cities is that they are expected to be 100% safe. They could be 10 times as safe as regular cars, but it wouldn't save them from headlines of "robot car kills an innocent person". Well, yes, because all the proponents of self-driving cars tout the fact that computer driven cars are way safer than human drivers. And they're not. Those 10 times safer than humans have no actual meaning in practice, because if they can brake 100ms faster than a human would, in practice it makes no difference. What would make a difference would be to be fully aware of anything that might happen, have solutions for every possibility and react accordingly in I don't know, say 20-30 milliseconds. So when a self-driving car hits and kills a pedestrian it is a failure on the self-driving system (assuming the pedestrian just doesn't jump in front of the car out of nowhere). Self-driving cars don't have three things that humans have: instinct, experience and contextual awareness. No matter how many miles they drive, they can't learn as humans do.
- knapcio 3y agoI just had this thought (possibly unrelated to this particular situation): We see how many accidents are caused by autonomous vehicles therefore it’s easy to blame them. However what we don’t see is how many accidents did not happen because of autonomous vehicles. I hope regulators consider both cases.
- aplummer 3y agoI mean, there’s going to be a detailed video of the entire incident right? A driverless car is like a super dashcam - so I look forward to seeing that.
- gnicholas 3y agoWas there a passenger in the Waymo? I wonder if the vehicle is programmed to take that into account when hitting the brakes or engaging in other unexpected maneuvers. Does the vehicle consider whether a potential victim appears to be breaking the law? That is, would it not brake/swerve as harshly (potentially injuring an occupant) if the thing it is trying to avoid is breaking the law (not that I am saying that's what's happening here — I'm just setting up the hypothetical where there is a blameless passenger and a potential collision with another vehicle that is at fault).
- jmward01 3y agoI'm surprised that nearly all the comments here act as though there are only two parties involved and one of those parties is 'at fault'. I'll throw this out there: Cyclists, drivers, pedestrians and everything in-between (which is a growing category) have to co-exist and the streets of SF don't make that easy in many (most?) places. Where is the discussion about how to better design SF streets to make it all work better and safer? I'll start. I think we need to shut down more streets to make them pedestrian/bike/e-bike/etc friendly and limit where cars can go during most hours. If thee are more car free pathways then these situations won't be possible. These are probably fighting words depending on if you are a cyclist or not. Full disclosure, I used to commute via the wiggle.
- living_room_pc 3y agoI've almost been killed before as a cyclist, a semi with two trailers did not check his mirrors before merging into me while speeding. Being this close to death was honestly traumatizing. I think it about it way too often. What would have happened to my kids, would I have been killed instantly and so on. I only accepted this event because the road is inherently dangerous. People get hit by cars all of the time, and are usually not reported on unless there is a fatality. The cyclist in this case wasn't severely injured, why does it need to be reported? Is it clickbait? Or does SFG want to stir up fears around self driving cars like they are cyclist murder machines? Regardless, I feel like this is not very interesting news until its clear that Waymo or who else has a overall worse track record than the average human. Going back to my near accident, I am excited for self driving cars because they have the potential to be better than humans in the future.
- purplejacket 3y agoJust teleport all the cars into the sun and be done with it. It's the only way to be sure.
- ruuda 3y agoEverybody here is discussing the car and the cyclist, but I don't see anybody considering the possibility that the intersection design is unsafe. That there is a stop sign is a pretty bad signal in itself, Not Just Bikes made a video explaining this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42oQN7fy_eM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42oQN7fy_eM
- sschueller 3y agoSelf driving cars are a misguided attempt to make driving safer when the underlying issue isn't necessarily the driver.
- aubanel 3y agoI think the end goal of self driving cars is simply to let people do something else than drive. Safety is only a condition for this to happen.
- sschueller 3y agoThere is a better solution for that: Public transportation.
- Denvercoder9 3y agoPublic transport solves an overlapping but distinct problem area, and it's not always a feasible solution. Think of e.g. cargo, disabled people that require door-to-door transport, or areas and times where operating public transport isn't viable.
- a-french-anon 3y ago> Public transportation > Safety Pick one. Danger doesn't come only from other vehicles.
- edgyquant 3y agoNo idea why the downvotes. In my city (Seattle) there has been a dozen violent attacks in the last few months ranging from a couple being beaten with a hammer, a stabbing to a gun shooting. You aren’t likely to be beaten with a hammer while driving your own car that’s for sure
- matttproud 3y agoShould have worn more reflective clothing …
- EasyMark 3y agoNow compare # of bicyclists hit per mile that waymo drives vs human drivers and get some perspective. Actuarial stats aren't fun but they are necessary for policy.
- Log_out_ 3y agoImagine if we made separate roads for automated cars and they could pass by all this trouble running on there rail..
- dvh 3y ago10 years from now people will be throwing cats in front of self driving cars just to earn a living.
- sandos 3y agoUhh.... thinking ahead of risks, and especially hidden cyclists and pedestrians is something that is taught in basic drivers ed here in Sweden. How can this not be the fault of the car? It should have realized that, yes, I am completely blind regarding whoever comes out from behind the truck, I should slow down. I guess there are some qualifications here. If there was a severely low probability of a cyclist there, and especially if cycling was forbidden there, then this does not apply in the same way, although you should always be aware that others might break rules, and you are responsible for minimzing risks even to those. But, you can not slow down for every possibly suividal maniac throwing themselves out in the road where you are not supposed to be. I still lean towards the car not being cautious enough.
- cm2187 3y agoIf I understood what happened, not in this case. When you drive through an intersection, you assume that the traffic coming in the opposite direction who wants to turn will give you priority, as I believe is the rule in every jurisdiction. It seems to me here that the cyclist made a turn without looking if cars were coming in the opposite direction.
- ChatGTP 3y agoThe cyclist would’ve assumed whoever was going to make a turn would’ve waited to check nothing was behind the truck. Maybe I’m weird but it’s the default way I drive. I hate cutting corners, or making blind turns. The car is in the wrong as it should’ve made sure the road was completely clear before executing the turn. I mean it must’ve been a pretty aggressive move to turn that soon after a truck went past… That or the AIs are ready to start killing people
- cm2187 3y agoIt’s unclear to me from the article who was turning, the cyclist or the car. I agree that whoever was turning is at fault.
- 3y ago
- concordDance 3y agoI really worry reporting incidents like this will skew the stats against self driving cars. As a cyclist I've been involved in two very minor collisions, neither of which would have been reported. If Waymo is reporting everything that results in just a scrape or bruise it's going to have a very inflated accident per mile rate.
- em1sar 3y ago[dead]
- infecto 3y agoWhile there is a level of clarity missing in the description, it sure sounds like the bicycle was turning and is entirely their fault. Will hold judgement until there is a full write up. Knowing how most cyclists believe they have the ultimate write of way in SF I am inclined to believe they would blindly turn into the path of traffic.
- xyst 3y agoCars (autonomous or not) do not belong in densely urban areas. Let’s finally put an end to the car centric transportation experiment as it has failed on a massive scale. Children death rates largely attributed to vehicle related accidents [1] Trucks/SUVs are also a large contributor to GHGs [2]. Anecdotally, the number of solo commuters I see in SUVs/trucks/“crossovers” is way too fucking high. Truck owners largely hauling air. Maybe see 1-2 trades people on the road. US cities need to follow in the same footsteps as Paris. A ban of large personal vehicles in dense urban cities by making it expensive and as inconvenient as possible. High hourly parking rates. High penalties. Ear mark this money for purposes of removing car centric infrastructure and improving alternative transportation mechanisms. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/25/suvs-second-biggest-cause-of-emissions-rise-figures-reveal https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/...
- rangestransform 3y agoin the absence of adequate NYC-tier public transit existing immediately, it'll be politically intractable to lower people's standard of living like that (and this is a good thing)
- isthatafact 3y agoIt is strange to see people assuming blame already given how vague the article is. Even if it turns out that the bike broke a rule, it is possible that the collision was easily avoidable by the car. I am suspicious of the car because self-driving cars do not have a great reputation for dealing well with unusual situations. And how unusual is a situation? Anything that is not a car, truck, or bus doing something in the road? Maybe self-driving cars are too dumb. How many specific types of "unusual" interactions with bikes, walkers, kids, dogs, etc., will each self-driving car AI model need to encounter to build up a large enough training set to learn to avoid a collisions for a specific type of interaction. Will there need to a training set of thousands of crashes or near misses of every precise combination of interactions that can occur with non-negligible global frequency in order for any self-driving car model to avoid collisions that a perfectly attentive, smart, and instant-to-react person would avoid? or do the models allow fuzzy predictions of what (for example) a bike might do even in cases where the model does not comprehend that a particular blob is a person on a bike.
- MarkMc 3y agoWaymo really needs to do an A/B test to demonstrate the safety of their cars: When you order a ridesharing car you randomly get assigned one of their driverless cars or an Uber with a human driver. After a year see which group has the safest record. Simple.
- electrondood 3y agoI'm interested in the ratio of accidents between driverless + cars with drivers, not headlines. That's the hero metric.
- SergeAx 3y agoI hope the cyclist will recover completely to enjoy those millions $$$ of compensation.
- overview 3y agoWhat if traffic lights emitted their status? Maybe this is already done; if it isn’t, it seems like doing so would greatly improve the safety of autonomous vehicles.