4 ms·

I 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

I 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 ago
In 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.
- viraptor 3y ago
  This is my pet peeve with people being so sure online about their abilities of avoiding things on the road. Yeah, maybe you could avoid it with your super human reflexes, but there physically no way you could check that side of your car, register what's there, decide whether you can move that way and then did it. The kneejerk avoidance reaction may be extremely dangerous on its own. (Also in Oz, rolling your car when you try to swerve to avoid a kangaroo is so common that you're normally taught to just break instead)
  - panopticon 3y ago
    I swerved into another lane to avoid another car cutting me off during rush hour once. It all happened so fast, and I will always remember how incredibly lucky I was that no one was in the lane I moved into.
  - cgriswald 3y ago
    Do people really not mentally track the vehicles around them? I remember in driver’s ed even before we were behind the wheel to have “exit strategies” for situations exactly like this. Cars don’t just appear magically next to you.
    - viraptor 3y ago
      > Cars don’t just appear magically next to you. They don't, but: 1. Your perception is not perfect. 2. A truck passing you means there was a blind spot and you have no idea what was there. 3. There are areas with many lanes merging / splitting, where it takes most of your attention to know where you're going; little left to track everything around. Tracking your surrounding is great. Accepting that you're going to make mistakes, adjusting for that and also allowing assistive tech is even better.
    - gnicholas 3y ago
      People try to, but are imperfect at doing so. For example, most people do not closely track what is happening 2 lanes away. But someone can move from your blind spot 2 lanes away into your blind spot right next to you. Also, if something potentially dangerous/important is happening to your left, you will focus your attention there and not be aware of things happening to your right, even if you normally would have seen those things had you been looking straight ahead. I try to know what is going on around me, for the reason you describe (exit strategies), but I'm aware that sometimes I simply do not know what is to my left — and would not want to swerve there. Having seen friends driving Teslas, I can see how the surround-view could be useful for situations like this. However, I have also seen that cars appear/vanish for no reason, and it is clearly not reliable at this point.
shadowgovt 3y ago
Broadly speaking (and this is a very broad brush, details may differ), autonomous vehicles will resolve collision avoidance by doing something legal. Swerving is not legal and it's not legal because you might hit something you can't see. On the other hand, an autonomous vehicle maintains perpetual 360° situational awareness so it already knows whether it's safe to swerve.
- lozenge 3y ago
  Can you provide a source that swerving to prevent a collision is not legal?
- gnicholas 3y ago
  > Swerving is not legal and it's not legal because you might hit something you can't see. If I'm driving down the road and someone pushes a kid in front of my car, I'm very likely to swerve, even if I'm not 100% sure if there is someone next to me. If I hit a car next to me and cause damage/injure people, there is a good chance that a jury would find in my favor because a "reasonable person" (the relevant legal standard in a civil case) would seek to avoid the certain death of a faultless child, even if it means a chance of injury to passengers in a vehicle that might be nearby. I wouldn't swerve if I thought a bicyclist were there, but I would likely swerve into a vehicle, which affords occupants significant protection. And I certainly would not be found guilty of a crime ("beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard in a criminal trial) because it is not criminally negligent to swerve when faced with the certainty of killing a child. Under the "defense of self/others" doctrine, you can do many things that would normally be illegal, if you are doing them to prevent the imminent death of yourself or someone else. (These analyses are not super detailed, but IAAL.)
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    AVs aren't doing near enough calculus to make a decision like that; they have obstacles and they avoid them. Their avoidance can allow for lane departure (that 360 situational awareness is handy), but they aren't going to solve a trolley problem in realtime if boxed in. The thing is... Neither are people. A kid darts out on front of you and you won't have time to make a conscious decision. The maneuver you make will be too fast for rational thought, and your brain will explain to itself why it did that later. ... Incidentally, this is one of the things that scares me about human drivers. Put a human on the stand to testify and most will say they never saw that kid, no matter what physical process happened to their eyes and neurons. I think most even actually believe it. In any case, I'm glad that in this incident they'll be able to do a full NHTSA workup, pull logs, and reprogram the machine to avoid an accident like this in the future. Can't do that to a human driver.

petre 3y ago

In 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.

viraptor 3y ago
This is my pet peeve with people being so sure online about their abilities of avoiding things on the road. Yeah, maybe you could avoid it with your super human reflexes, but there physically no way you could check that side of your car, register what's there, decide whether you can move that way and then did it. The kneejerk avoidance reaction may be extremely dangerous on its own. (Also in Oz, rolling your car when you try to swerve to avoid a kangaroo is so common that you're normally taught to just break instead)
- panopticon 3y ago
  I swerved into another lane to avoid another car cutting me off during rush hour once. It all happened so fast, and I will always remember how incredibly lucky I was that no one was in the lane I moved into.
- cgriswald 3y ago
  Do people really not mentally track the vehicles around them? I remember in driver’s ed even before we were behind the wheel to have “exit strategies” for situations exactly like this. Cars don’t just appear magically next to you.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    > Cars don’t just appear magically next to you. They don't, but: 1. Your perception is not perfect. 2. A truck passing you means there was a blind spot and you have no idea what was there. 3. There are areas with many lanes merging / splitting, where it takes most of your attention to know where you're going; little left to track everything around. Tracking your surrounding is great. Accepting that you're going to make mistakes, adjusting for that and also allowing assistive tech is even better.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    People try to, but are imperfect at doing so. For example, most people do not closely track what is happening 2 lanes away. But someone can move from your blind spot 2 lanes away into your blind spot right next to you. Also, if something potentially dangerous/important is happening to your left, you will focus your attention there and not be aware of things happening to your right, even if you normally would have seen those things had you been looking straight ahead. I try to know what is going on around me, for the reason you describe (exit strategies), but I'm aware that sometimes I simply do not know what is to my left — and would not want to swerve there. Having seen friends driving Teslas, I can see how the surround-view could be useful for situations like this. However, I have also seen that cars appear/vanish for no reason, and it is clearly not reliable at this point.

shadowgovt 3y ago

Broadly speaking (and this is a very broad brush, details may differ), autonomous vehicles will resolve collision avoidance by doing something legal. Swerving is not legal and it's not legal because you might hit something you can't see. On the other hand, an autonomous vehicle maintains perpetual 360° situational awareness so it already knows whether it's safe to swerve.

lozenge 3y ago
Can you provide a source that swerving to prevent a collision is not legal?
gnicholas 3y ago
> Swerving is not legal and it's not legal because you might hit something you can't see. If I'm driving down the road and someone pushes a kid in front of my car, I'm very likely to swerve, even if I'm not 100% sure if there is someone next to me. If I hit a car next to me and cause damage/injure people, there is a good chance that a jury would find in my favor because a "reasonable person" (the relevant legal standard in a civil case) would seek to avoid the certain death of a faultless child, even if it means a chance of injury to passengers in a vehicle that might be nearby. I wouldn't swerve if I thought a bicyclist were there, but I would likely swerve into a vehicle, which affords occupants significant protection. And I certainly would not be found guilty of a crime ("beyond a reasonable doubt", the standard in a criminal trial) because it is not criminally negligent to swerve when faced with the certainty of killing a child. Under the "defense of self/others" doctrine, you can do many things that would normally be illegal, if you are doing them to prevent the imminent death of yourself or someone else. (These analyses are not super detailed, but IAAL.)
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  AVs aren't doing near enough calculus to make a decision like that; they have obstacles and they avoid them. Their avoidance can allow for lane departure (that 360 situational awareness is handy), but they aren't going to solve a trolley problem in realtime if boxed in. The thing is... Neither are people. A kid darts out on front of you and you won't have time to make a conscious decision. The maneuver you make will be too fast for rational thought, and your brain will explain to itself why it did that later. ... Incidentally, this is one of the things that scares me about human drivers. Put a human on the stand to testify and most will say they never saw that kid, no matter what physical process happened to their eyes and neurons. I think most even actually believe it. In any case, I'm glad that in this incident they'll be able to do a full NHTSA workup, pull logs, and reprogram the machine to avoid an accident like this in the future. Can't do that to a human driver.