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Is that a negative of Waymo or a negative of the aggressive/illegal way many humans drive? My assumption is the anecdotal speed difference you notice is Waymos

Is that a negative of Waymo or a negative of the aggressive/illegal way many humans drive? My assumption is the anecdotal speed difference you notice is Waymos actually following the speed limit, and I imagine Waymo isn't really looking to program their cars to break the law while they're trying to expand their ability to operate.

babyshake 2y ago
Not just humans, but Uber/Lyft drivers. It is very common for an Uber driver to perform unsafe and illegal maneuvers while driving me. I don't report them because I don't want to get them fired. Usually I don't even remark on it, unless I think they did it in a way that was especially unsafe.
- dpe82 2y ago
  Uber/Lyft drivers won't improve their behavior on their own without feedback from the system, so please for everyone's safety please do report it.
  - throwaway7ahgb 2y ago
    You're not wrong but I do feel a bit guilty every time I give less than 5 stars. The rating system is so bad that you can't give any small feedback without serious negative financial consequences for the drivers. Basically anything negative is rolled up into one signal no matter what the safety aspect is.
- toomanyrichies 2y ago
  This is a far-too-infrequently discussed benefit of self-driving cars. Right or wrong, I (and many others) have qualms about narc’ing on a human driver. I have no such qualms about doing so with a robot.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  If you don't hold people accountable for dangerous driving, 1)more people will drive dangerously while doing lyft/uber and 2)you are indirectly endangering vulnerable road users (people on foot and on bike, motorcycles, etc.) Trust me, you'd feel very differently if you were on a bike regularly in the city. The lyft/uber drivers are the most dangerous drivers in the city. Have been since almost the very beginning of this ride "share" app crap. Any time a driver did something dangerous with me in the car, they got reported and a one star rating with a comment explaining exactly why. If they did something particularly dangerous around a pedestrian or cyclist, I'd tell them the ride was over and to let me off immediately, and then call uber/lyft to report it to an agent instead of just clicking the "unsafe" button in the app. You don't have a right to drive for a living. If you do, you damn well should act like it is your living and be safe about it. The whole fucking reason we have a massive problem with traffic safety in the US is because police and courts and legislators act like it's so necessary that we must endlessly tolerate people endangering others with their cars, and people get "hardship" exceptions where they're allowed to keep driving even after proving themselves to be a complete fucking menace, because "they need to get to their job" instead of "you knew you needed to be able to drive to get to your job and you still drove the wrong way down that street and hit someone? Sucks to be you."
  - twoWhlsGud 2y ago
    This is the aspect that makes me most excited about Waymo and the like –the prospect of no longer having to tolerate terrible driving because removing someone's license is akin to an economic death sentence. Fully commercialized, self-driving should provide an economic alternative to humans driving themselves. And we should be able to leverage that to stop the worst drivers ever getting behind the wheel again.
    - teractiveodular 2y ago
      So instead of penalizing unsafe drivers, we'll penalize all drivers by replacing them with robots? I'm actually a Waymo fan but this particular argument doesn't really hold water.
- kristjansson 2y ago
  Uber/Lyft/Taxi drivers as sin-eater is one of their great values. Rider gets all the benefits of drugging like an asshole with none of the social/moral shame
firloop 2y ago
Yes, most human drivers go above the speed limit. I agree that it can be unsafe, but wouldn't a self-driving car be safer at going above the speed limit than humans? I feel like it should be OK for it to go 5-10 miles over, especially if that's what the flow of traffic is.
- rainsford 2y ago
  I don't know if it's actually safer, but I feel like programming your self driving car to regularly break the speed limit would be a hard sell from a regulatory perspective. It's different in "self-driving" cars with drivers who can choose the speed of the vehicle. In this case, Waymo is programming the car to independently pick a speed, and making that programming decide to break the law seems like it could be a problem. Probably a better solution is more reasonable speed limits and more consistent enforcement of those limits, but now I'm just engaging in wishful thinking.

babyshake 2y ago

Not just humans, but Uber/Lyft drivers. It is very common for an Uber driver to perform unsafe and illegal maneuvers while driving me. I don't report them because I don't want to get them fired. Usually I don't even remark on it, unless I think they did it in a way that was especially unsafe.

dpe82 2y ago
Uber/Lyft drivers won't improve their behavior on their own without feedback from the system, so please for everyone's safety please do report it.
- throwaway7ahgb 2y ago
  You're not wrong but I do feel a bit guilty every time I give less than 5 stars. The rating system is so bad that you can't give any small feedback without serious negative financial consequences for the drivers. Basically anything negative is rolled up into one signal no matter what the safety aspect is.
toomanyrichies 2y ago
This is a far-too-infrequently discussed benefit of self-driving cars. Right or wrong, I (and many others) have qualms about narc’ing on a human driver. I have no such qualms about doing so with a robot.
KennyBlanken 2y ago
If you don't hold people accountable for dangerous driving, 1)more people will drive dangerously while doing lyft/uber and 2)you are indirectly endangering vulnerable road users (people on foot and on bike, motorcycles, etc.) Trust me, you'd feel very differently if you were on a bike regularly in the city. The lyft/uber drivers are the most dangerous drivers in the city. Have been since almost the very beginning of this ride "share" app crap. Any time a driver did something dangerous with me in the car, they got reported and a one star rating with a comment explaining exactly why. If they did something particularly dangerous around a pedestrian or cyclist, I'd tell them the ride was over and to let me off immediately, and then call uber/lyft to report it to an agent instead of just clicking the "unsafe" button in the app. You don't have a right to drive for a living. If you do, you damn well should act like it is your living and be safe about it. The whole fucking reason we have a massive problem with traffic safety in the US is because police and courts and legislators act like it's so necessary that we must endlessly tolerate people endangering others with their cars, and people get "hardship" exceptions where they're allowed to keep driving even after proving themselves to be a complete fucking menace, because "they need to get to their job" instead of "you knew you needed to be able to drive to get to your job and you still drove the wrong way down that street and hit someone? Sucks to be you."
- twoWhlsGud 2y ago
  This is the aspect that makes me most excited about Waymo and the like –the prospect of no longer having to tolerate terrible driving because removing someone's license is akin to an economic death sentence. Fully commercialized, self-driving should provide an economic alternative to humans driving themselves. And we should be able to leverage that to stop the worst drivers ever getting behind the wheel again.
  - teractiveodular 2y ago
    So instead of penalizing unsafe drivers, we'll penalize all drivers by replacing them with robots? I'm actually a Waymo fan but this particular argument doesn't really hold water.
kristjansson 2y ago
Uber/Lyft/Taxi drivers as sin-eater is one of their great values. Rider gets all the benefits of drugging like an asshole with none of the social/moral shame

firloop 2y ago

Yes, most human drivers go above the speed limit. I agree that it can be unsafe, but wouldn't a self-driving car be safer at going above the speed limit than humans? I feel like it should be OK for it to go 5-10 miles over, especially if that's what the flow of traffic is.

rainsford 2y ago
I don't know if it's actually safer, but I feel like programming your self driving car to regularly break the speed limit would be a hard sell from a regulatory perspective. It's different in "self-driving" cars with drivers who can choose the speed of the vehicle. In this case, Waymo is programming the car to independently pick a speed, and making that programming decide to break the law seems like it could be a problem. Probably a better solution is more reasonable speed limits and more consistent enforcement of those limits, but now I'm just engaging in wishful thinking.