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I’m also curious about school zones. The one near my house has a sign, “School” “Speed Limit 35” “7:00AM to 4:00PM School Days” Now, how does a robotaxi comp
by jmpman 1y ago
I’m also curious about school zones. The one near my house has a sign, “School”
“Speed Limit 35”
“7:00AM to 4:00PM School Days”
Now, how does a robotaxi comply with that? Does it go to the district website and look up the current school year calendar? Or does it work like a human, and simply observe the patterns of the school traffic, and assume the general school calendar?
I suspect it continues in Mad Max mode.
- isodev 1y agoAren’t they supposed to read signs? Otherwise they’d also ignore the overhead speed limits on the highway for traffic jams / air quality adjustments during the day.
- daemonologist 1y agoGP is saying that reading the sign is insufficient to determine whether it is a school day. You have to either guess based on the presence of students or busses, the lights being on, etc., or you have to source the school calendar somehow.
- isodev 1y agoI don't know how it is there, but here those signs near schools light up and blink during school hours (really can't miss it). And for signs that do not, I think school days are pretty fixed, shouldn't be difficult to program... and a default of just slowing down would be just fine too.
- jmpman 1y agoThis sign doesn’t have a flashing light.
- izacus 1y agoWait, how does that work? Every person in your city needs to know the exact calendar of that school?
- daseiner1 1y agothe sign says the hours for the reduced speed limit or, more commonly in my experience, has a light that activates during school hours.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoThe light and often even the sign itself are typically considered informational aids rather than strict determinants of legality. The driver is expected to comply with all the nitpicky details of the law regardless of whether the bulb is burned out or the school schedule changes. Needless to say, most people regularly violate some kind of traffic law, we just don't enforce it.
- daseiner1 1y agoof course. i'm confident slowing down near a school is pretty intuitive for the vast majority of drivers, though.
- AlotOfReading 1y agoSure, but the context here is a discussion about how a computer can know all of these "intuitive" rules humans follow. The answer is encoded in the map data in this case, but it's an interesting category of problems for autonomous vehicles.
- fragmede 1y agoNow I’m imagining the Waymo Driver calling out to Gemini to determine "school hours" by looking it up on the Internet, and wondering about the nature of life.
- tanseydavid 1y agoHave you had the experience of riding in a Waymo making a left hand turn against incoming traffic -- and how it handles the eventual yellow light? I was very impressed about the decision making in this situation. Seems very intuitive (at least superficially).
- buckle8017 1y agoThey should just always observe the lower speed limit. The difference is usually 5 or maybe 10 mph. Which over the distance of a school zone is nothing.
- bink 1y agoIt can be dangerous though. In my area we have roads with speed limits of 45 that drop to 25 "when children are present". My EV always assumes children are present as it has no real way to determine if they are. Driving 25 in a 45 is dangerous for many reasons.
- buckle8017 1y agoNeither do you, the lower speed limit applies when children are present inside the school. A building that looks the same with it without children inside of it.
- renewiltord 1y agoAre school days ever Sundays? If not, perhaps all drivers just treat every non-Sunday as school day. If so, they probably just slow every day.
- ninalanyon 1y agoIt can just read the sign surely? My ancient Tesla S can read simple speed limit signs and in France distinguishes between those that apply to it and those that apply only to lorries because of the notice below the speed limit sign. Then it really would be as simple as looking up the calendar or simply erring on the safe side that all weekdays are schooldays. Waymo only operates on fully mapped roads anyway so I think that Waymo could be reasonably expected to include such abilities.