6 ms·

If you brake more aggressively, you will be involved in more accidents, but in fewer accidents that are considered your fault (courts and insurance companies wi

If you brake more aggressively, you will be involved in more accidents, but in fewer accidents that are considered your fault (courts and insurance companies will almost always find against the rear-ender). You might also be involved in less serious accidents: a low or moderate speed rear end collision is safer overall than hitting a pedestrian, T-boning someone, or colliding at the higher speed from before braking. That's a trade off that Waymo presumably know about, and are taking intentionally. It would be interesting to know what they prioritise: is it fewer overall deaths and injuries, or fewer accidents where they were determined to be at fault?

kube-system 2y ago
You really can't control the behavior of the driver behind you, you just have to trust that they're going to do their job of not hitting things in front of them, just as you are. If humans are hitting things in front of them more often because they're concerned that the person behind them might not stop, that's probably indicative of a flaw in human driving behavior. The rules surrounding accident fault exist because of the individual responsibility assigned to driving behavior. If someone would have rear-ended a hesitant waymo, they would have rear-ended an equally hesitant human.
- dmurray 2y ago
  It obviously wouldn't be ethical for Waymo to brake aggressively just to catch out humans tailgating them too closely (at no risk to Waymo, after all, since the insurance of the car behind them will pay for damage and let's say they do this only when there are no human occupants). Even though it's a "flaw" in the tailgater's behaviour and even though he will have the responsibility assigned to him. So is it ethical to brake aggressively to avoid a 1% chance of an accident up ahead? 5%? 0.1%? This is a real life trolley problem, and the answer can't be as simple as "always brake, feel no remorse because it's the other driver's problem" even if that might be a good heuristic for a human to teach in driver's education.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    That isn't just unethical, it is illegal. You can't intentionally cause an accident. The waymo would have the responsibility assigned to them if it was determined that was programmed that way intentionally.
    - crote 2y ago
      It doesn't need to be intentionally programmed to cause an accident. The far more likely scenario is that it simply doesn't take into account what's behind them. It causes accidents by unintentional negligence, simply because nobody bothered to add a check. Human drivers are taught to avoid scenarios like that. During drivers' lessons you will be taught to check your mirror before braking, and you will be taught to activate your alarm lights when there's a sudden stop on a highway to alert the drivers after you. Basic self-preservation makes it pretty clear that you don't want a car crashing into your rear. Waymo doesn't need to care. If the other vehicle is considered at fault, their insurance is going to pay for your damages. It's at worst a minor inconvenience, so why bother spending engineering time on writing code to avoid it?
      - gruez 2y ago
        >Human drivers are taught to avoid scenarios like that. During drivers' lessons you will be taught to check your mirror before braking If I'm going to crash into something I'm going to be slamming the brakes without checking my mirrors first.
        toast0 2y ago
        Priorities. You should brake immediately to avoid an impending collision, of course. OTOH, if you're driving and the light changes to yellow and you have room to stop, you should check your mirrors to see if there's a vehicle behind you that's unlikely to stop. Additionally, in the impending collision decision, once you've taken initial action, you'll want to check on traffic to see if you have an option to evade the obstacle. And if you don't have an out, if there's a vehicle behind you and try to maintain space ahead and behind if possible.
- clort 2y ago
  > you just have to trust that they're going to do their job of not hitting things in front of them, just as you are. Thats a very human-centric viewpoint, understandably. A human driver can only see in one direction, and should be looking in the direction where things are happening the vast majority of the time. A self-driving car can see in all directions and in fact is looking in all directions at all times. Perhaps the rules will be updated at some point.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    No, it's not a human-centric viewpoint. It's a physics centric viewpoint. When one vehicle follows another, the rear vehicle is on a collision course. Human drivers are required to be aware of vehicles in all directions at all times.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      You only need to train one person to drive to realize there's a really huge gulf between the bare minimum you're legally mandated to do when driving and what you should do to make driving less dangerous and less frequently displeasurable.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    > A human driver can only see in one direction And it's usually in the direction of their phone. Even while driving.
  - crote 2y ago
    > A human driver can only see in one direction Cars have mirrors. Any halfway-decent drivers' education will teach you to regularly check them, especially when you're about to brake.
    - bitnasty 2y ago
      How can you simultaneously check all the mirrors at the same time while also not looking away from the front?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aaron695 2y ago
  [dead]
- 83 2y ago
  You might not be able to control the behavior of the driver behind you, but you can certainly influence it. When there's someone close behind me and I know I'm approaching a situation that might require me to make a sudden stop, I often hold the brakes just enough to trigger the brake lights. This lets the person behind know to back off, or at least be ready. I'm curious if Waymo does any sort of warning brake lights like that if chance of panic braking > 15% or something.
isthatafact 2y ago
> "If you brake more aggressively, you will be involved in more accidents" Is that statement based on evidence? While that seems plausible, it also seems counter-intuitive to me. I suspect that many crashes happen because someone was afraid to apply maximum brakes, either out of fear that someone might hit them from behind, or simply due to being unfamiliar with braking hard.
- dmurray 2y ago
  It's true at some points in the parameter space, not at others. If you never brake at all, starting to brake more aggressively would be great! Once you've tuned your parameters to be driving pretty safely and minimizing accidents, which is what Waymo is surely doing for some definition of "minimizing accidents", it must be true that every further parameter change involves a tradeoff like this.
Suppafly 2y ago
>If you brake more aggressively, you will be involved in more accidents, but in fewer accidents that are considered your fault (courts and insurance companies will almost always find against the rear-ender). I was talking to a kid once that was bragging about how his dad always got rear-ended, due to aggressive braking, but it was 'never his fault'. I was like "your dad is an asshole, that isn't something brag about."
- potato3732842 2y ago
  That kid's dad is exactly why insurers push the OBD2 dongles and cell apps so hard. The insurers want to know who those people are so they can jack their rate preemptively because there's a non-trivial chance that a) both parties in a collision have the same insurer b) the rear ended party's conduct is both indefensible and caught on camera and their insurer will wind up paying out anyway.
  - bayouborne 2y ago
    It's variation on a tired joke - If you've been rear-ended, chances are the person behind you wasn't a very good driver. If you've been rear-ended 7 times, chances are that you are the person who isn't a very good driver.
    - AtlasBarfed 2y ago
      Yes what do people do when behind somebody that's chronically slow and incompetent? They tailgate them
      - Doxin 2y ago
        I'd file tailgating under "incompetent". Being impatient is no excuse.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    Insurers want those things to jack up all of our rates no matter how we drive. Give them enough data and they'll find something to justify screwing you over no matter how you drive.
happymellon 2y ago
Of you brake aggressively and someone rear ends you, could it not also be that the person behind was too close in the first place? Not to be rude, but American drivers are not normally considered great, and San Francisco is number 7 on the list of cities you are most likely to get in an accident in the US. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/cities-most-car-accidents/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/cities-mo...
- maxerickson 2y ago
  The degree to which people tailgate is incredible. I live in a small town and people still act like it's going to take forever to get to where they are going. One of 4 cars on a city street? Better try to push the car in front of you along, even if the other 2 in front of them are going the same speed. Driving 2 miles on a 45 mph road? Better crowd the car in front of you that is already going 50 mph. And then you get to the freeway where people think it's a great idea to try to push the car in front of you out of the way so you can weave through a little bit of traffic.

kube-system 2y ago

You really can't control the behavior of the driver behind you, you just have to trust that they're going to do their job of not hitting things in front of them, just as you are. If humans are hitting things in front of them more often because they're concerned that the person behind them might not stop, that's probably indicative of a flaw in human driving behavior. The rules surrounding accident fault exist because of the individual responsibility assigned to driving behavior. If someone would have rear-ended a hesitant waymo, they would have rear-ended an equally hesitant human.

dmurray 2y ago
It obviously wouldn't be ethical for Waymo to brake aggressively just to catch out humans tailgating them too closely (at no risk to Waymo, after all, since the insurance of the car behind them will pay for damage and let's say they do this only when there are no human occupants). Even though it's a "flaw" in the tailgater's behaviour and even though he will have the responsibility assigned to him. So is it ethical to brake aggressively to avoid a 1% chance of an accident up ahead? 5%? 0.1%? This is a real life trolley problem, and the answer can't be as simple as "always brake, feel no remorse because it's the other driver's problem" even if that might be a good heuristic for a human to teach in driver's education.
- kube-system 2y ago
  That isn't just unethical, it is illegal. You can't intentionally cause an accident. The waymo would have the responsibility assigned to them if it was determined that was programmed that way intentionally.
  - crote 2y ago
    It doesn't need to be intentionally programmed to cause an accident. The far more likely scenario is that it simply doesn't take into account what's behind them. It causes accidents by unintentional negligence, simply because nobody bothered to add a check. Human drivers are taught to avoid scenarios like that. During drivers' lessons you will be taught to check your mirror before braking, and you will be taught to activate your alarm lights when there's a sudden stop on a highway to alert the drivers after you. Basic self-preservation makes it pretty clear that you don't want a car crashing into your rear. Waymo doesn't need to care. If the other vehicle is considered at fault, their insurance is going to pay for your damages. It's at worst a minor inconvenience, so why bother spending engineering time on writing code to avoid it?
    - gruez 2y ago
      >Human drivers are taught to avoid scenarios like that. During drivers' lessons you will be taught to check your mirror before braking If I'm going to crash into something I'm going to be slamming the brakes without checking my mirrors first.
      - toast0 2y ago
        Priorities. You should brake immediately to avoid an impending collision, of course. OTOH, if you're driving and the light changes to yellow and you have room to stop, you should check your mirrors to see if there's a vehicle behind you that's unlikely to stop. Additionally, in the impending collision decision, once you've taken initial action, you'll want to check on traffic to see if you have an option to evade the obstacle. And if you don't have an out, if there's a vehicle behind you and try to maintain space ahead and behind if possible.
clort 2y ago
> you just have to trust that they're going to do their job of not hitting things in front of them, just as you are. Thats a very human-centric viewpoint, understandably. A human driver can only see in one direction, and should be looking in the direction where things are happening the vast majority of the time. A self-driving car can see in all directions and in fact is looking in all directions at all times. Perhaps the rules will be updated at some point.
- kube-system 2y ago
  No, it's not a human-centric viewpoint. It's a physics centric viewpoint. When one vehicle follows another, the rear vehicle is on a collision course. Human drivers are required to be aware of vehicles in all directions at all times.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    You only need to train one person to drive to realize there's a really huge gulf between the bare minimum you're legally mandated to do when driving and what you should do to make driving less dangerous and less frequently displeasurable.
- throwup238 2y ago
  > A human driver can only see in one direction And it's usually in the direction of their phone. Even while driving.
- crote 2y ago
  > A human driver can only see in one direction Cars have mirrors. Any halfway-decent drivers' education will teach you to regularly check them, especially when you're about to brake.
  - bitnasty 2y ago
    How can you simultaneously check all the mirrors at the same time while also not looking away from the front?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aaron695 2y ago
[dead]
83 2y ago
You might not be able to control the behavior of the driver behind you, but you can certainly influence it. When there's someone close behind me and I know I'm approaching a situation that might require me to make a sudden stop, I often hold the brakes just enough to trigger the brake lights. This lets the person behind know to back off, or at least be ready. I'm curious if Waymo does any sort of warning brake lights like that if chance of panic braking > 15% or something.

isthatafact 2y ago

> "If you brake more aggressively, you will be involved in more accidents" Is that statement based on evidence? While that seems plausible, it also seems counter-intuitive to me. I suspect that many crashes happen because someone was afraid to apply maximum brakes, either out of fear that someone might hit them from behind, or simply due to being unfamiliar with braking hard.

dmurray 2y ago
It's true at some points in the parameter space, not at others. If you never brake at all, starting to brake more aggressively would be great! Once you've tuned your parameters to be driving pretty safely and minimizing accidents, which is what Waymo is surely doing for some definition of "minimizing accidents", it must be true that every further parameter change involves a tradeoff like this.

Suppafly 2y ago

>If you brake more aggressively, you will be involved in more accidents, but in fewer accidents that are considered your fault (courts and insurance companies will almost always find against the rear-ender). I was talking to a kid once that was bragging about how his dad always got rear-ended, due to aggressive braking, but it was 'never his fault'. I was like "your dad is an asshole, that isn't something brag about."

potato3732842 2y ago
That kid's dad is exactly why insurers push the OBD2 dongles and cell apps so hard. The insurers want to know who those people are so they can jack their rate preemptively because there's a non-trivial chance that a) both parties in a collision have the same insurer b) the rear ended party's conduct is both indefensible and caught on camera and their insurer will wind up paying out anyway.
- bayouborne 2y ago
  It's variation on a tired joke - If you've been rear-ended, chances are the person behind you wasn't a very good driver. If you've been rear-ended 7 times, chances are that you are the person who isn't a very good driver.
  - AtlasBarfed 2y ago
    Yes what do people do when behind somebody that's chronically slow and incompetent? They tailgate them
    - Doxin 2y ago
      I'd file tailgating under "incompetent". Being impatient is no excuse.
- autoexec 2y ago
  Insurers want those things to jack up all of our rates no matter how we drive. Give them enough data and they'll find something to justify screwing you over no matter how you drive.

happymellon 2y ago

Of you brake aggressively and someone rear ends you, could it not also be that the person behind was too close in the first place? Not to be rude, but American drivers are not normally considered great, and San Francisco is number 7 on the list of cities you are most likely to get in an accident in the US. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/cities-most-car-accidents/ https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/auto-accident/cities-mo...

maxerickson 2y ago
The degree to which people tailgate is incredible. I live in a small town and people still act like it's going to take forever to get to where they are going. One of 4 cars on a city street? Better try to push the car in front of you along, even if the other 2 in front of them are going the same speed. Driving 2 miles on a 45 mph road? Better crowd the car in front of you that is already going 50 mph. And then you get to the freeway where people think it's a great idea to try to push the car in front of you out of the way so you can weave through a little bit of traffic.