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I live in the bay and occasionally ride Waymo in SF and I pretty much always have a good time. I visited NYC a few weeks ago and was instantly reminded of how

I live in the bay and occasionally ride Waymo in SF and I pretty much always have a good time. I visited NYC a few weeks ago and was instantly reminded of how much the traffic fucking sucks :) While I was there I actually thought of Waymo and how they'd have to turn up the "aggression" slider up to 11 to get anything done there. I mean, could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when the light is yellow and you know you're going to block the crossing traffic?

setgree 1y ago
Semi-related, but just once in my life, I want to hear a mayoral candidate say: “I endorse broken windows theory, but for drivers. You honk when there’s no emergency, block the box, roll through a stop sign — buddy that’s a ticket. Do it enough and we’ll impound your car.” Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends…
- wahnfrieden 1y ago
  NYPD cops don't like enforcing traffic violations: https://i.redd.it/w6es37v1sqpc1.png https://i.redd.it/w6es37v1sqpc1.png (License holders and drivers on the road are up in the same period that summonses are down, too. Traffic is up since pre-covid.) Now that I live in Toronto we face the same challenges. Politicians may introduce traffic laws to curb dangers and nuisances from drivers, but police refuse to enforce them. As they don't live in the city, cops seem to prefer to side with drivers over local pedestrians, residents or cyclists who they view antagonistically. Broken window works for them because they enjoy harassing pedestrians and residents of the communities they commute into. So there is a bigger problem to solve than legislation.
  - miltonlost 1y ago
    Part of the problem is we have police doing far too many jobs. We need to separate out traffic enforcement, mental health responses, and other works into their own focused units. Especially the mental health responses, as far too often police refuse to or (at best) don't know how to de-escalate in those situations.
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      Bringing a gun and a taser to every problem guarantees that a lot of problems will be "solved" with the wrong tools. It's impossible to train enough people to carry guns and tasers and use them wisely.
      - Scoundreller 1y ago
        It’s also expensive training and on-going cost when you add it all up. Canada budgeted the cost of arming its border officers at ~$1 billion. In the first 10 years, they fired them 18 times. 11 were accidents and the rest were against animal, usually to euthanize it rather than defend. Works out to ~$55 million per bullet. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-guards-guns-1.4201882 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-guards-guns-1.4...
    - saila 1y ago
      I agree we need to separate these responsibilities, but when it comes to mental health response, the police themselves are often opposed to alternatives, even while they complain that they're not mental health providers and often can't do anything in those types of situations. In my city, we've had an underfunded street response program for a few years now, but a lot of people (including a lot of people who don't live here) see it as antagonistic to police and police funding, when really it should just be part of a holistic system to address social issues. It makes no sense to me that the people who ostensibly care the most about addressing crime and "disorder" on the streets are often the most oppositional to programs that might actually address some of the underlying issues (not all of course, but some).
    - jkaplowitz 1y ago
      The current Democratic nominee and frontrunner for NYC mayor plans to do exactly that! He plans to create a Department of Community Safety to take over mental health responses from NYPD.
    - FireBeyond 1y ago
      As a paramedic, multiple times I've watched police walk into a mental health emergency that we were handing satisfactorily, to everyone's contentment, patient, family, bystanders... ... and escalate it into a law enforcement situation. One situation sticks in my mind. Person had broken a glass bottle on a curb. Family member was sweeping and cleaning that up while we dealt with laceration and planning for in-patient help (they were off their meds). LE shows up, and immediately starts yelling aggressively at the patient about the broken glass, liability for any tires, injuries. Patient makes some comments back, so LE gets in his face and yells more, leads to patient trying to push off a bit and saying "get out of my face", cop is arresting him for assaulting a police officer. Only with me and my partner talking to the Sergeant who showed up shortly after did it get de-escalated, but better believe the cop (and even the Sergeant) weren't happy with us about it.
  - Tiktaalik 1y ago
    Police quiet quitting and arbitrarily choosing what laws they feel like enforcing is a huge problem. The most effective fix vis a vis traffic is simply automating so much of it with speed averaging cameras and intersection cameras and taking police out of the equation and retasking them to more important things that only they can do.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      Don't police have quotas any more? 40 years ago everybody knew not to speed at the end of the month because a cop that would normally give you a warning for a small speed infraction would give you a ticket instead so they could make this month's quota.
- chrisshroba 1y ago
  This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using their phones at red lights and people running stop signs.
  - rahkiin 1y ago
    In europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - williamcotton 1y ago
      https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-violations.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-v...
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
      - jakelazaroff 1y ago
        Nobody thinks it's racist to enforce traffic laws. People think it's racist to selectively enforce traffic laws by race, which usually takes the form of police pulling over Black drivers at higher rates. (But it can also mean installing more traffic cameras in minority neighborhoods!)
    - prettyblocks 1y ago
      NYC is ramping up on this as well.
    - 0_____0 1y ago
- RankingMember 1y ago
  > Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends… I think this could be an interesting unintended consequence of the proliferation of Waymos: if everyone gets used to drivers that obey the law to letter, it could slipstream into being a norm by sheer numbers.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  If you look into the fleet size serving Waymo service areas, it's remarkably small. But because they work 24/7 they serve up a lot of rides, punching way above their weight in terms of market share in ride hailing. Their effect on traffic and how drivers behave will be similarly amplified. It could turn out to be disastrous for Waymo. But I suspect that low speed limits in New York will work to Waymo's favor.]
  - Scoundreller 1y ago
    Real question for waymo will be snow and ice, or do they just get parked in that situation when demand is highest?
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      I've seen reports that they've been testing Driver 6 in snowy places like around Lake Tahoe and the upper Midwest last winter. I suppose this year we'll find out how well that went.
- bko 1y ago
  Isn't that what speed cameras are about? Seem a lot more efficient and cheaper. I got a few tickets, nothing too serious just ran the yellow a little too close and 40 in 25. And if def changed my behavior
- nothrabannosir 1y ago
  Blocking the box is a ticket in London. It works. Edit: let me clarify: there is a camera on every intersection which automatically gives a ticket to everyone who blocks for >5sec. That works.
  - potatolicious 1y ago
    It is in NYC also, except it's entirely unenforced. We need a lot more red light cameras. The nominal regulations on automotive behavior is pretty sufficient throughout the US, the main problem is that in most parts of the country traffic law may as well be a dead letter.
    - joecool1029 1y ago
      > It is in NYC also, except it's entirely unenforced. It's enforced in the worst congested zones, the intersections around tunnel entrances and midtown, but as I said in my other comment usually by parking enforcement not NYPD. A workaround in the law is to throw your turn signal on if stranded in the box, this doesn't count as blocking the box.
  - joecool1029 1y ago
    It is in NYC as well and it's usually enforced by parking enforcement (doesn't carry points but it has a steep fine), if NYPD writes it also comes with points but in my experience they'd rather let the walking ticket printers do it.
  - limaoscarjuliet 1y ago
    I paid a ticket for this in NYC.
    - setgree 1y ago
      Great! and if enforcement were consistent, rule-breaking behavior would probably decline: > Quick, clear and consistent also works in controlling crime. It’s not a coincidence that the same approach works for parenting and crime control because the problems are largely the same. Moreover, in both domains quick, clear and consistent punishment need not be severe. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/what-was-gary-beckers-biggest-mistake.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/wh...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- polynomial 1y ago
  We don't go after moving violations anymore (in NYC) because the driver might have a bad reaction. True story.
  - nobody9999 1y ago
    >We don't go after moving violations anymore (in NYC) because the driver might have a bad reaction. True story. Who is "we"? And it's not a "true story." In fact, the NYPD issued almost 52,000 moving violation summonses in July 2025 alone and more than 400,000 year to date.[0] If 400,000 moving violation summonses just this year is your "true story" about moving violations not being issued to avoid "bad reactions", do you believe in the tooth fairy and santa claus as well? Or are you referring to the policy that NYPD cars shouldn't endanger the lives of everyone by engaging in high-speed chases on city streets?[1] Which is a completely different thing. [0] https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/traffic_data/mv-en-us-citysum.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/traffic_data/m... [1] https://nypost.com/2025/01/15/us-news/nypd-cops-ordered-not-to-chase-some-drivers-who-flee-after-spate-of-high-speed-crashes/ https://nypost.com/2025/01/15/us-news/nypd-cops-ordered-not-... Edit: Clarified prose.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  In many places outside the USA they just use cameras for box blocking, stop sign rolling, speeding...and there is a system for honking also. But many in the states think automation here is too Orwellian.
  - rco8786 1y ago
    We have all of those things in the states too. Just not ubiquitous.
    - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
      We don't have much of it, not compared to Europe or Australia. This is a solved problem, but we don't want to solve it.
  - bradleyjg 1y ago
    They do that in NY too. The worst offenders inevitably have fake/defaced/covered/no license plates. That should be cracked down on very hard but the police and prosecutors are strangely reluctant.
  - renewiltord 1y ago
    A sound solution in general, but the majority of police and firefighters and government employees with a connection to law enforcement cover their license plates with magnetic 'leaves' and so on. It's an undocumented perk for government employees.
- rabidonrails 1y ago
  If only Mitch Hedberg was still alive: https://youtu.be/zonQXdmIlqQ?si=EBrpJiCk2XlhGJIs&t=97 https://youtu.be/zonQXdmIlqQ?si=EBrpJiCk2XlhGJIs&t=97
- soupfordummies 1y ago
  Ultimately I wouldn’t support this level of snitching (especially in our current political env) but I’ve had the idea of: A bounty program to submit dash cam video of egregious driving crimes. It gets reviewed, maybe even by AI initially and then gets escalated to formal ticket if legit. Once ticket is paid, the snitch gets a percentage. Again, I am fundamentally against something like this though, especially now.
  - globular-toast 1y ago
    Snitching... Please. We're not in the school playground any more. We're talking about taking responsibility when it comes to operating a vehicle in public. There's a huge imbalance of power when it comes to car use especially and we need to restore the balance. People need a recourse against irresponsible and bad drivers.
    - genewitch 1y ago
      do you actually know every specific vehicle code and regulation everywhere you drive? I constantly remark to my dashcam about people breaking the law in my jurisdiction. Would you be bothered if someone was following you all day, making recordings every time you didn't signal for exactly 5000ms before a lane change, or 300' before a turn? how about not stopping for a full three seconds, or driving an extra 100' in the left lane than necessary? three felonies a day
      - soupfordummies 1y ago
        No I wouldn't be bothered because I actually do those things. As should anyone driving. And they're not felonies, they're cheap tickets that probably won't even add points to your license.
        genewitch 1y ago
        Three felonies a day: ISBN 978-1594035227 and i'm sorry, i can't take anyone seriously that claims they both know and always follow every vehicle code, wherever they are and wherever they travel. I do understand it allows one to shake their head in disdain for the unwashed cars driven by the lesser drivers of our society. I can follow anyone, including federal agents, local and state law enforcement, CDL drivers; i will catch something that is a violation of the vehicle code. If you live anywhere near the gulf coast, i'd be happy to tail you for a couple of days and point out every violation you make.
- Breza 1y ago
  Here in Washington DC, we've installed a variety of different kinds of traffic cameras. And the local police engage in targeted enforcement actions against things like driving on the highway shoulder or recklessly operating a moped. It makes a difference. An unexpected upside is that the regular police spend a lot less time catching speeders and stop sign runners, which frees them up for more serious situations.
phkahler 1y ago
>> could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when the light is yellow and you know you're going to block the crossing traffic? I wonder how many Waymos following the rules would be needed to reduce gridlock.
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  Waymo in SF pretty much drives like a human, and that includes doing human things like cutting lanes, stopping wherever it feels like, driving in the bus lane etc. I think it’ll be fine in NYC
  - kingkawn 1y ago
    SF traffic is but a single speck of nyc
    - Grazester 1y ago
      Traffic? The issue half the time in NYC is the drivers. I can't compare it to SF since I haven't been there in a while but I still thought it was not as congested to compared to NYC. NYC has a greater population and also has a greater number of registered cars compare to SF however.
      - cj 1y ago
        As a comparison, I feel safe riding a motorcycle in SF. I don’t think I would ever ride a motorcycle in NYC. Riding safely requires predicting what the cars around you are about to do. I find it an order of magnitude harder to predict driver behavior in NYC.
  - kenhwang 1y ago
    Waymo in LA also drives pretty much like a human here would, which includes: not yielding for pedestrian-only crosswalks, running red lights, driving in the oncoming traffic/suicide/bike lane, occupying two lanes, blocking entrances/driveways/intersections, and stopping/parking in no-stop/parking curbs. They're only really phenomenal at not hitting things; they really aren't good/courteous/predictable drivers under most conventional definitions. Still, I think rollout in NYC will be fine. NYC generally drives slower and much less aggressively than LA, and slower gives the Waymo plenty of reaction time to not hit things.
QuantumSeed 1y ago
I was in a Waymo in SF last weekend riding from the Richmond district to SOMA, and the car actually surprised me by accelerating through two yellow lights. It was exactly what I would have done. So it seems the cars are able to dial up the assertiveness when appropriate.
- scarmig 1y ago
  It doesn't seem impossible technically to up the assertiveness. The issue is the tradeoffs: you up the assertiveness, and increase the number of accidents by X%. Inevitably, that will contribute to some fatal crash. Does the decision maker want to be the one trying to justify to the jury knowingly causing an expected one more fatal incident in order to improve average fleet time to destination by 25%?
  - mlyle 1y ago
    Nah, it's not that simple. Excessive passiveness causes ambiguity which causes its own risks. You want the cars to follow norms, modifying them down slightly for safety in cases where it's a clear benefit.
  - cellis 1y ago
    Reinforcement learning is a helluva drug. I'm sure by now Waymos can time yellows in SF to within a nanosecond, whereas humans will only ever drive through so many yellows will never get that much training data.
    - devilbunny 1y ago
      A human can know the yellows on a few routes. A Waymo can pull over, observe a given intersection for an hour, and tell every other Waymo that exists precisely how long that light lasts. It's not just collecting the information; it's the ability to spread it.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  An autonomous vehicle's hivemind knows the exact duration of all yellow lights, even ones that vary based on traffic flow.
Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
My wife and I took a road trip that included time in SF last year and seeing a Waymo was pretty neat. To save some money, we stayed in downtown Oakland and took the BART into San Francisco. After getting ice cream at the Ghirardelli Chocolate shop, we were headed to Pier 39. My wife has a bad ankle and can't walk very far before needing a break to sit, and we could have taken another bus, we decided to take a Waymo for the novelty of it. It felt like being in the future. I own a Tesla and have had trials of FSD, but being in a car that was ACTUALLY autonomous and didn't merely pretend to be was amazing. For that short ride of 7 city blocks, it was like being in a sci-fi film.
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  Why does tesla pretend to be autonomous? My friends with tesla fsd use it fully autonomously. It even finds a spot and parks for them.
  - dazc 1y ago
    It's just pretending to do that, seemingly?
  - nutjob2 1y ago
    It's a level 2 system, it can't be operated unattended. Your friends are risking thier lives as several people (now dead) have found out.
    - bananalychee 1y ago
      Wikipedia lists two fatal crashes involving Tesla FSD and one involving Waymo.
      - jedberg 1y ago
        They key difference is that the Teslas killed their passengers, the Waymo hit someone outside the car (and it wasn't the Waymo's fault, it was hit by another car).
whyenot 1y ago
Each Waymo is equipped with multiple cameras (potentially LPR), LIDAR, etc. The car knows when the vehicles around it are breaking traffic laws and can provide photographic/video evidence of it. Imagine if Waymo cars started reporting violators to the police, and if the police started accepting those reports. Someday they might.
- paffdragon 1y ago
  Isn't it too dystopian to have cars follow you around and report you to authorities? I can easily imagine some bad scenarios.
  - whyenot 1y ago
    Yes it could potentially be very dystopian for human drivers. That doesn't mean it won't happen. Police departments could make a lot of extra money from the additional traffic tickets; there is a financial incentive for them to do this.
    - paffdragon 1y ago
      Making money from tickets is supporting the wrong behavior of trying to find excuses to ticket you for anything to get extra money - this is often leading to cops looking for cheap ways to get the extra cash where they can get it easily, instead of doing more important work where their chance to ticket you is lower even if more important for safety.
nkozyra 1y ago
Driving in most of the city isn't that bad. Even most of Manhattan is fairly regular driving compared to most of the country. It really isn't until you're near midtown that the insanity kicks up.
baron816 1y ago
I was on Market Street yesterday on my bike next to a Waymo. A bunch of cars were blocking the intersection when we had the green. The light turned red and the cars blocking the intersection were able to move. I decided to stay, but the Waymo sped through despite the light being red. I regretted not crossing.
ivape 1y ago
occasionally ride Waymo in SF and I pretty much always have a good time Surreal. You have to step back and absorb what you just said. We have self driving cars, insane.
tverbeure 1y ago
I had my second Waymo ride in SF 2 weeks ago and I had to press the support button: it was behind a large bus that was backing up to parallel park. The bus was waiting for the Waymo to get out of the way while the Waymo was waiting for the bus to move forward. It took only a few seconds for a human to answer the support request and she immediately ordered the Waymo to go to a different lane. Very happy with the responsiveness of support, but there's clearly still some situations that Waymo can't deal with.
- daheza 1y ago
  Eventually the waymo would determine the bus wasn't moving and go around. I had the same situation happen with a garbage truck, but I didn't press the button. It can handle the scenario if you just wait.
DrewADesign 1y ago
People complain a lot about drivers in dense eastern states, such as Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, etc. but compare the traffic fatality statistics: https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/deta... Having grown up driving in these places, I can confirm that people drive a whole lot more aggressively, but what blows my mind driving damn near anywhere else in the country is how inattentive many drivers are. Around here, our turns are tight and twisty, the light cycles at our 6-way intersections are too short, most streets are one lane but on the ones that aren't, lanes disappear without warning, some lanes that are travel lanes during the day have cars parked there at night... all of this means that you need to a) be much more attentive, and b) be more aggressive because that's the only way anybody gets anywhere at all. It's a cultural difference. Almost any time I've encountered anyone complaining about rudeness in a busy northeastern city it was because they were doing something that inconvenienced other people in a way that wasn't considered rude where they're from: pausing for a moment in a doorway to check a phone message, not immediately and quickly ordering and having their payment method ready when they reached the front of the line at a coffee shop, not staying to the right on escalators if they're just standing there and not climbing/descending... all things that are rude in this environment and people are treated the same way rude people are treated anywhere else. That culture expresses itself in the driving culture. If those 3 extra people didn't squeeze through after that red for 3 or 4 light cycles, suddenly you're backed up for an entire light cycle which is bad news. Waymo cars are designed for a different style of driving. I'm skeptical that they will easily adapt.
- ndileas 1y ago
  This is an interesting point of view, and I think it intuitively makes sense. But it breaks down when considering people who block the flow of traffic by running red lights and clogging the intersection - that's just straightforwardly worse for everyone except the blocker.
  - DrewADesign 1y ago
    People do that everywhere I’ve ever driven. Not getting in other people’s way is a core cultural tenet here more than most places but there are self absorbed jerks everywhere. Consider the vitriol unleashed on people that do that. It’s not acceptable.
spaceywilly 1y ago
Honestly the train system in NYC is so good, I have only taken a cab a few times since I moved here. I’ll probably take a waymo once if they roll it out here for the novelty of it, but I’d rather see people getting exciting about public transit. Life is so much better when you don’t have to depend on cars to get you places.
smsm42 1y ago
Tried Waymo in SF and LA, and the service was great. The only problem I noticed is that sometimes it tells you they'd pick you up in 5 minutes, and then when it's almost over they tell you "sorry, it's actually going to be 20 minutes now". Since it's still new technology, I always gave it enough buffer so it never actually was a problem for me, but they probably could do better than that... Another weird thing was it chooses strangest places to stop. E.g. I asked it to pick me up at the hotel once, and it drove right past the hotel way to the end of the block where by coincidence a couple of homeless people were camping. Not that it led to any problems, just weird, it could have stopped right where hotel had a convenient place for loading/offloading of people. Maybe eventually that gets sorted out.
thrown-0825 1y ago
Imagine somewhere like Bangkok with millions of motorcycles that completely ignore traffic laws. Self-driving is a non starter in many parts of the world.

setgree 1y ago

Semi-related, but just once in my life, I want to hear a mayoral candidate say: “I endorse broken windows theory, but for drivers. You honk when there’s no emergency, block the box, roll through a stop sign — buddy that’s a ticket. Do it enough and we’ll impound your car.” Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends…

wahnfrieden 1y ago
NYPD cops don't like enforcing traffic violations: https://i.redd.it/w6es37v1sqpc1.png https://i.redd.it/w6es37v1sqpc1.png (License holders and drivers on the road are up in the same period that summonses are down, too. Traffic is up since pre-covid.) Now that I live in Toronto we face the same challenges. Politicians may introduce traffic laws to curb dangers and nuisances from drivers, but police refuse to enforce them. As they don't live in the city, cops seem to prefer to side with drivers over local pedestrians, residents or cyclists who they view antagonistically. Broken window works for them because they enjoy harassing pedestrians and residents of the communities they commute into. So there is a bigger problem to solve than legislation.
- miltonlost 1y ago
  Part of the problem is we have police doing far too many jobs. We need to separate out traffic enforcement, mental health responses, and other works into their own focused units. Especially the mental health responses, as far too often police refuse to or (at best) don't know how to de-escalate in those situations.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    Bringing a gun and a taser to every problem guarantees that a lot of problems will be "solved" with the wrong tools. It's impossible to train enough people to carry guns and tasers and use them wisely.
    - Scoundreller 1y ago
      It’s also expensive training and on-going cost when you add it all up. Canada budgeted the cost of arming its border officers at ~$1 billion. In the first 10 years, they fired them 18 times. 11 were accidents and the rest were against animal, usually to euthanize it rather than defend. Works out to ~$55 million per bullet. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-guards-guns-1.4201882 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-border-guards-guns-1.4...
  - saila 1y ago
    I agree we need to separate these responsibilities, but when it comes to mental health response, the police themselves are often opposed to alternatives, even while they complain that they're not mental health providers and often can't do anything in those types of situations. In my city, we've had an underfunded street response program for a few years now, but a lot of people (including a lot of people who don't live here) see it as antagonistic to police and police funding, when really it should just be part of a holistic system to address social issues. It makes no sense to me that the people who ostensibly care the most about addressing crime and "disorder" on the streets are often the most oppositional to programs that might actually address some of the underlying issues (not all of course, but some).
  - jkaplowitz 1y ago
    The current Democratic nominee and frontrunner for NYC mayor plans to do exactly that! He plans to create a Department of Community Safety to take over mental health responses from NYPD.
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    As a paramedic, multiple times I've watched police walk into a mental health emergency that we were handing satisfactorily, to everyone's contentment, patient, family, bystanders... ... and escalate it into a law enforcement situation. One situation sticks in my mind. Person had broken a glass bottle on a curb. Family member was sweeping and cleaning that up while we dealt with laceration and planning for in-patient help (they were off their meds). LE shows up, and immediately starts yelling aggressively at the patient about the broken glass, liability for any tires, injuries. Patient makes some comments back, so LE gets in his face and yells more, leads to patient trying to push off a bit and saying "get out of my face", cop is arresting him for assaulting a police officer. Only with me and my partner talking to the Sergeant who showed up shortly after did it get de-escalated, but better believe the cop (and even the Sergeant) weren't happy with us about it.
- Tiktaalik 1y ago
  Police quiet quitting and arbitrarily choosing what laws they feel like enforcing is a huge problem. The most effective fix vis a vis traffic is simply automating so much of it with speed averaging cameras and intersection cameras and taking police out of the equation and retasking them to more important things that only they can do.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Don't police have quotas any more? 40 years ago everybody knew not to speed at the end of the month because a cop that would normally give you a warning for a small speed infraction would give you a ticket instead so they could make this month's quota.
chrisshroba 1y ago
This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using their phones at red lights and people running stop signs.
- rahkiin 1y ago
  In europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - williamcotton 1y ago
    https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-violations.page https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-v...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
    - jakelazaroff 1y ago
      Nobody thinks it's racist to enforce traffic laws. People think it's racist to selectively enforce traffic laws by race, which usually takes the form of police pulling over Black drivers at higher rates. (But it can also mean installing more traffic cameras in minority neighborhoods!)
  - prettyblocks 1y ago
    NYC is ramping up on this as well.
  - 0_____0 1y ago
RankingMember 1y ago
> Who knows, maybe we’ll start taking our cues from our polite new robot driver friends… I think this could be an interesting unintended consequence of the proliferation of Waymos: if everyone gets used to drivers that obey the law to letter, it could slipstream into being a norm by sheer numbers.
Zigurd 1y ago
If you look into the fleet size serving Waymo service areas, it's remarkably small. But because they work 24/7 they serve up a lot of rides, punching way above their weight in terms of market share in ride hailing. Their effect on traffic and how drivers behave will be similarly amplified. It could turn out to be disastrous for Waymo. But I suspect that low speed limits in New York will work to Waymo's favor.]
- Scoundreller 1y ago
  Real question for waymo will be snow and ice, or do they just get parked in that situation when demand is highest?
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    I've seen reports that they've been testing Driver 6 in snowy places like around Lake Tahoe and the upper Midwest last winter. I suppose this year we'll find out how well that went.
bko 1y ago
Isn't that what speed cameras are about? Seem a lot more efficient and cheaper. I got a few tickets, nothing too serious just ran the yellow a little too close and 40 in 25. And if def changed my behavior
nothrabannosir 1y ago
Blocking the box is a ticket in London. It works. Edit: let me clarify: there is a camera on every intersection which automatically gives a ticket to everyone who blocks for >5sec. That works.
- potatolicious 1y ago
  It is in NYC also, except it's entirely unenforced. We need a lot more red light cameras. The nominal regulations on automotive behavior is pretty sufficient throughout the US, the main problem is that in most parts of the country traffic law may as well be a dead letter.
  - joecool1029 1y ago
    > It is in NYC also, except it's entirely unenforced. It's enforced in the worst congested zones, the intersections around tunnel entrances and midtown, but as I said in my other comment usually by parking enforcement not NYPD. A workaround in the law is to throw your turn signal on if stranded in the box, this doesn't count as blocking the box.
- joecool1029 1y ago
  It is in NYC as well and it's usually enforced by parking enforcement (doesn't carry points but it has a steep fine), if NYPD writes it also comes with points but in my experience they'd rather let the walking ticket printers do it.
- limaoscarjuliet 1y ago
  I paid a ticket for this in NYC.
  - setgree 1y ago
    Great! and if enforcement were consistent, rule-breaking behavior would probably decline: > Quick, clear and consistent also works in controlling crime. It’s not a coincidence that the same approach works for parenting and crime control because the problems are largely the same. Moreover, in both domains quick, clear and consistent punishment need not be severe. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/what-was-gary-beckers-biggest-mistake.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/wh...
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polynomial 1y ago
We don't go after moving violations anymore (in NYC) because the driver might have a bad reaction. True story.
- nobody9999 1y ago
  >We don't go after moving violations anymore (in NYC) because the driver might have a bad reaction. True story. Who is "we"? And it's not a "true story." In fact, the NYPD issued almost 52,000 moving violation summonses in July 2025 alone and more than 400,000 year to date.[0] If 400,000 moving violation summonses just this year is your "true story" about moving violations not being issued to avoid "bad reactions", do you believe in the tooth fairy and santa claus as well? Or are you referring to the policy that NYPD cars shouldn't endanger the lives of everyone by engaging in high-speed chases on city streets?[1] Which is a completely different thing. [0] https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/traffic_data/mv-en-us-citysum.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/traffic_data/m... [1] https://nypost.com/2025/01/15/us-news/nypd-cops-ordered-not-to-chase-some-drivers-who-flee-after-spate-of-high-speed-crashes/ https://nypost.com/2025/01/15/us-news/nypd-cops-ordered-not-... Edit: Clarified prose.
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
In many places outside the USA they just use cameras for box blocking, stop sign rolling, speeding...and there is a system for honking also. But many in the states think automation here is too Orwellian.
- rco8786 1y ago
  We have all of those things in the states too. Just not ubiquitous.
  - seanmcdirmid 1y ago
    We don't have much of it, not compared to Europe or Australia. This is a solved problem, but we don't want to solve it.
- bradleyjg 1y ago
  They do that in NY too. The worst offenders inevitably have fake/defaced/covered/no license plates. That should be cracked down on very hard but the police and prosecutors are strangely reluctant.
- renewiltord 1y ago
  A sound solution in general, but the majority of police and firefighters and government employees with a connection to law enforcement cover their license plates with magnetic 'leaves' and so on. It's an undocumented perk for government employees.
rabidonrails 1y ago
If only Mitch Hedberg was still alive: https://youtu.be/zonQXdmIlqQ?si=EBrpJiCk2XlhGJIs&t=97 https://youtu.be/zonQXdmIlqQ?si=EBrpJiCk2XlhGJIs&t=97
soupfordummies 1y ago
Ultimately I wouldn’t support this level of snitching (especially in our current political env) but I’ve had the idea of: A bounty program to submit dash cam video of egregious driving crimes. It gets reviewed, maybe even by AI initially and then gets escalated to formal ticket if legit. Once ticket is paid, the snitch gets a percentage. Again, I am fundamentally against something like this though, especially now.
- globular-toast 1y ago
  Snitching... Please. We're not in the school playground any more. We're talking about taking responsibility when it comes to operating a vehicle in public. There's a huge imbalance of power when it comes to car use especially and we need to restore the balance. People need a recourse against irresponsible and bad drivers.
  - genewitch 1y ago
    do you actually know every specific vehicle code and regulation everywhere you drive? I constantly remark to my dashcam about people breaking the law in my jurisdiction. Would you be bothered if someone was following you all day, making recordings every time you didn't signal for exactly 5000ms before a lane change, or 300' before a turn? how about not stopping for a full three seconds, or driving an extra 100' in the left lane than necessary? three felonies a day
    - soupfordummies 1y ago
      No I wouldn't be bothered because I actually do those things. As should anyone driving. And they're not felonies, they're cheap tickets that probably won't even add points to your license.
      - genewitch 1y ago
        Three felonies a day: ISBN 978-1594035227 and i'm sorry, i can't take anyone seriously that claims they both know and always follow every vehicle code, wherever they are and wherever they travel. I do understand it allows one to shake their head in disdain for the unwashed cars driven by the lesser drivers of our society. I can follow anyone, including federal agents, local and state law enforcement, CDL drivers; i will catch something that is a violation of the vehicle code. If you live anywhere near the gulf coast, i'd be happy to tail you for a couple of days and point out every violation you make.
Breza 1y ago
Here in Washington DC, we've installed a variety of different kinds of traffic cameras. And the local police engage in targeted enforcement actions against things like driving on the highway shoulder or recklessly operating a moped. It makes a difference. An unexpected upside is that the regular police spend a lot less time catching speeders and stop sign runners, which frees them up for more serious situations.

phkahler 1y ago

>> could you imagine the audacity of actually not driving into an intersection when the light is yellow and you know you're going to block the crossing traffic? I wonder how many Waymos following the rules would be needed to reduce gridlock.

darth_avocado 1y ago
Waymo in SF pretty much drives like a human, and that includes doing human things like cutting lanes, stopping wherever it feels like, driving in the bus lane etc. I think it’ll be fine in NYC
- kingkawn 1y ago
  SF traffic is but a single speck of nyc
  - Grazester 1y ago
    Traffic? The issue half the time in NYC is the drivers. I can't compare it to SF since I haven't been there in a while but I still thought it was not as congested to compared to NYC. NYC has a greater population and also has a greater number of registered cars compare to SF however.
    - cj 1y ago
      As a comparison, I feel safe riding a motorcycle in SF. I don’t think I would ever ride a motorcycle in NYC. Riding safely requires predicting what the cars around you are about to do. I find it an order of magnitude harder to predict driver behavior in NYC.
- kenhwang 1y ago
  Waymo in LA also drives pretty much like a human here would, which includes: not yielding for pedestrian-only crosswalks, running red lights, driving in the oncoming traffic/suicide/bike lane, occupying two lanes, blocking entrances/driveways/intersections, and stopping/parking in no-stop/parking curbs. They're only really phenomenal at not hitting things; they really aren't good/courteous/predictable drivers under most conventional definitions. Still, I think rollout in NYC will be fine. NYC generally drives slower and much less aggressively than LA, and slower gives the Waymo plenty of reaction time to not hit things.

QuantumSeed 1y ago

I was in a Waymo in SF last weekend riding from the Richmond district to SOMA, and the car actually surprised me by accelerating through two yellow lights. It was exactly what I would have done. So it seems the cars are able to dial up the assertiveness when appropriate.

scarmig 1y ago
It doesn't seem impossible technically to up the assertiveness. The issue is the tradeoffs: you up the assertiveness, and increase the number of accidents by X%. Inevitably, that will contribute to some fatal crash. Does the decision maker want to be the one trying to justify to the jury knowingly causing an expected one more fatal incident in order to improve average fleet time to destination by 25%?
- mlyle 1y ago
  Nah, it's not that simple. Excessive passiveness causes ambiguity which causes its own risks. You want the cars to follow norms, modifying them down slightly for safety in cases where it's a clear benefit.
- cellis 1y ago
  Reinforcement learning is a helluva drug. I'm sure by now Waymos can time yellows in SF to within a nanosecond, whereas humans will only ever drive through so many yellows will never get that much training data.
  - devilbunny 1y ago
    A human can know the yellows on a few routes. A Waymo can pull over, observe a given intersection for an hour, and tell every other Waymo that exists precisely how long that light lasts. It's not just collecting the information; it's the ability to spread it.
Zigurd 1y ago
An autonomous vehicle's hivemind knows the exact duration of all yellow lights, even ones that vary based on traffic flow.

Sohcahtoa82 1y ago

My wife and I took a road trip that included time in SF last year and seeing a Waymo was pretty neat. To save some money, we stayed in downtown Oakland and took the BART into San Francisco. After getting ice cream at the Ghirardelli Chocolate shop, we were headed to Pier 39. My wife has a bad ankle and can't walk very far before needing a break to sit, and we could have taken another bus, we decided to take a Waymo for the novelty of it. It felt like being in the future. I own a Tesla and have had trials of FSD, but being in a car that was ACTUALLY autonomous and didn't merely pretend to be was amazing. For that short ride of 7 city blocks, it was like being in a sci-fi film.

kjkjadksj 1y ago
Why does tesla pretend to be autonomous? My friends with tesla fsd use it fully autonomously. It even finds a spot and parks for them.
- dazc 1y ago
  It's just pretending to do that, seemingly?
- nutjob2 1y ago
  It's a level 2 system, it can't be operated unattended. Your friends are risking thier lives as several people (now dead) have found out.
  - bananalychee 1y ago
    Wikipedia lists two fatal crashes involving Tesla FSD and one involving Waymo.
    - jedberg 1y ago
      They key difference is that the Teslas killed their passengers, the Waymo hit someone outside the car (and it wasn't the Waymo's fault, it was hit by another car).

whyenot 1y ago

Each Waymo is equipped with multiple cameras (potentially LPR), LIDAR, etc. The car knows when the vehicles around it are breaking traffic laws and can provide photographic/video evidence of it. Imagine if Waymo cars started reporting violators to the police, and if the police started accepting those reports. Someday they might.

paffdragon 1y ago
Isn't it too dystopian to have cars follow you around and report you to authorities? I can easily imagine some bad scenarios.
- whyenot 1y ago
  Yes it could potentially be very dystopian for human drivers. That doesn't mean it won't happen. Police departments could make a lot of extra money from the additional traffic tickets; there is a financial incentive for them to do this.
  - paffdragon 1y ago
    Making money from tickets is supporting the wrong behavior of trying to find excuses to ticket you for anything to get extra money - this is often leading to cops looking for cheap ways to get the extra cash where they can get it easily, instead of doing more important work where their chance to ticket you is lower even if more important for safety.

nkozyra 1y ago

Driving in most of the city isn't that bad. Even most of Manhattan is fairly regular driving compared to most of the country. It really isn't until you're near midtown that the insanity kicks up.

baron816 1y ago

I was on Market Street yesterday on my bike next to a Waymo. A bunch of cars were blocking the intersection when we had the green. The light turned red and the cars blocking the intersection were able to move. I decided to stay, but the Waymo sped through despite the light being red. I regretted not crossing.

ivape 1y ago

occasionally ride Waymo in SF and I pretty much always have a good time Surreal. You have to step back and absorb what you just said. We have self driving cars, insane.

tverbeure 1y ago

I had my second Waymo ride in SF 2 weeks ago and I had to press the support button: it was behind a large bus that was backing up to parallel park. The bus was waiting for the Waymo to get out of the way while the Waymo was waiting for the bus to move forward. It took only a few seconds for a human to answer the support request and she immediately ordered the Waymo to go to a different lane. Very happy with the responsiveness of support, but there's clearly still some situations that Waymo can't deal with.

daheza 1y ago
Eventually the waymo would determine the bus wasn't moving and go around. I had the same situation happen with a garbage truck, but I didn't press the button. It can handle the scenario if you just wait.

DrewADesign 1y ago

People complain a lot about drivers in dense eastern states, such as Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, etc. but compare the traffic fatality statistics: https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/deta... Having grown up driving in these places, I can confirm that people drive a whole lot more aggressively, but what blows my mind driving damn near anywhere else in the country is how inattentive many drivers are. Around here, our turns are tight and twisty, the light cycles at our 6-way intersections are too short, most streets are one lane but on the ones that aren't, lanes disappear without warning, some lanes that are travel lanes during the day have cars parked there at night... all of this means that you need to a) be much more attentive, and b) be more aggressive because that's the only way anybody gets anywhere at all. It's a cultural difference. Almost any time I've encountered anyone complaining about rudeness in a busy northeastern city it was because they were doing something that inconvenienced other people in a way that wasn't considered rude where they're from: pausing for a moment in a doorway to check a phone message, not immediately and quickly ordering and having their payment method ready when they reached the front of the line at a coffee shop, not staying to the right on escalators if they're just standing there and not climbing/descending... all things that are rude in this environment and people are treated the same way rude people are treated anywhere else. That culture expresses itself in the driving culture. If those 3 extra people didn't squeeze through after that red for 3 or 4 light cycles, suddenly you're backed up for an entire light cycle which is bad news. Waymo cars are designed for a different style of driving. I'm skeptical that they will easily adapt.

ndileas 1y ago
This is an interesting point of view, and I think it intuitively makes sense. But it breaks down when considering people who block the flow of traffic by running red lights and clogging the intersection - that's just straightforwardly worse for everyone except the blocker.
- DrewADesign 1y ago
  People do that everywhere I’ve ever driven. Not getting in other people’s way is a core cultural tenet here more than most places but there are self absorbed jerks everywhere. Consider the vitriol unleashed on people that do that. It’s not acceptable.

spaceywilly 1y ago

Honestly the train system in NYC is so good, I have only taken a cab a few times since I moved here. I’ll probably take a waymo once if they roll it out here for the novelty of it, but I’d rather see people getting exciting about public transit. Life is so much better when you don’t have to depend on cars to get you places.

smsm42 1y ago

Tried Waymo in SF and LA, and the service was great. The only problem I noticed is that sometimes it tells you they'd pick you up in 5 minutes, and then when it's almost over they tell you "sorry, it's actually going to be 20 minutes now". Since it's still new technology, I always gave it enough buffer so it never actually was a problem for me, but they probably could do better than that... Another weird thing was it chooses strangest places to stop. E.g. I asked it to pick me up at the hotel once, and it drove right past the hotel way to the end of the block where by coincidence a couple of homeless people were camping. Not that it led to any problems, just weird, it could have stopped right where hotel had a convenient place for loading/offloading of people. Maybe eventually that gets sorted out.

thrown-0825 1y ago

Imagine somewhere like Bangkok with millions of motorcycles that completely ignore traffic laws. Self-driving is a non starter in many parts of the world.