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I think my problem is that it reacted after seeing the child step out from behind the SUV. An excellent driver would have already seen that possible scenario a

I think my problem is that it reacted after seeing the child step out from behind the SUV. An excellent driver would have already seen that possible scenario and would have already slowed to 10 MPH or less to begin with. (It's how I taught my daughter's to drive "defensively"—look for "red flags" and be prepared for the worst-case scenario. SUV near a school and I cannot see behind it? Red flag—slow the fuck down.)

kakacik 9mo ago
Yes and no. Tons of situations where this is simply not possible, whole traffic goes full allowed speed next to row of parked cars. If somebody unexpectedly pops up distracted, its a tragedy guaranteed regardless of driver's skills and experience. In low traffic of course it can be different. But its unrealistic to expect anybody to drive in expectation that behind every single car passed there may be a child jumping right in front of the car. That can be easily thousands of cars, every day, whole life. Impossible. We don't read about 99.9% of the cases where even semi decent driver can handle it safely, but rare cases make the news.
- JKCalhoun 9mo ago
  I kind of drive that way. I slow down, move as far away in my lane from the parked cars as possible. It's certainly what I would expect from a machine that would claim to be as good as the best human driver.
  - jobs_throwaway 9mo ago
    > a machine that would claim to be as good as the best human driver. Does Waymo claim that? If so I haven't seen it. That should of course be the goal, but "better than the average human driver" should be the bar.
    - JKCalhoun 9mo ago
      If they don't clim that, why would I be interested in their tech?
      - Aloisius 9mo ago
        Because replacing average drivers with a better than average one would save lives.
        JKCalhoun 9mo ago
        Ha ha, you should suggest that to them: "Waymo: better than average driving!"
        shawnz 9mo ago
        What's the joke here? If they are better than average drivers, that's a huge win which improves road safety for everyone
      - aembleton 9mo ago
        Because I'm only an average driver. Definitely not the best and have done no advanced driver training.
      - jobs_throwaway 9mo ago
        Because we can reduce crashes and fatalities without Waymo being Max Verstappen
- jsrozner 9mo ago
  I slow down considerably near parked cars. And I try to slow down much earlier approaching intersections where there are parked cars blocking my view of cross walk entries. I need to be able to come to full stop earlier than intersection if there happens to be a pedestrian there.
coryrc 9mo ago
First, it's still the automobile's fault. At least it was already slowed down to 17 mph to start. Remember that viral video of some Australian in a pickup ragdolling a girl across the road? Most every comment is "well he was going the speed limit no fault for him!" No asshole, you hit someone. It's your fault. He got zero charges and the girl was seriously injured.
- fennecbutt 9mo ago
  You mean the Aussie one where the guy was going an appropriate speed for the area and when the cops arrived the parents and their neighbors LIED TO THE POLICE and said he was hooning down the road at excess speed and hit the kid? And that he was only saved from prison by having a dash cam that proved the lies to be lies? That one? That logic is utter bs, if someone jumps out when you're travelling at an appropriate speed and you do your best to stop then that's all that can be done. Otherwise by your logic the only safe speed is 0.
  - coryrc 9mo ago
    [flagged]
- WheatMillington 9mo ago
  You seem to be implying that there are no circumstances in which a vehicle can hit a pedestrian and the driver not be at fault... which is absurd.
  - throwway120385 9mo ago
    No it's not. The same principle applies to rules of right of way on the water. Technically the 32 foot sailboat has right of way over a triple-E because the triple-E uses mechanical propulsion. You have a responsibility to be cautious in heavy equipment no matter what the signage on the road says, and that includes keeping a speed at which you can stop safely if a person suddenly steps onto the road in situations where people are around. If you are driving past a busy bar in downtown, a drunk person might step out and you have a responsibility to assume that might happen. If you have to go slower sometimes, tough.
jakewins 9mo ago
Aye, and to always look for feet under and by the front wheel of vehicles like that. Stopped buses similarly, people get off the bus, whip around the front of them and straight into the streets, so many times I’ve spotted someone’s feet under the front before they come around and into the street. Not to take away from Waymo here, agree with thread sentiment that they seem to have acted exemplary
- fennecbutt 9mo ago
  You can spot someone's feet under the width of a bus when they're on the opposite side of the bus and you're sitting in a vehicle at a much higher position on the opposite side that the bus is on? That's physically impossible.
  - WheatMillington 9mo ago
    I think you're missing something though, which I've observed from reading these comments - HN commenters aren't ordinary humans, they're super-humans with cosmic powers of awareness, visibility, reactions and judgement.
    - anthonyrstevens 9mo ago
      Or they hate cars/waymo/etc and will come up with any chain of reasoning that puts those things in a bad light.
  - spockz 9mo ago
    In normal (traditional?) European city cars, yes, I look for feet or shadows or other signs that there is a person in the other side. In SUVs this is largely impossible but then sometimes you can see heads or backpacks. Or you look for reflections in the cars parked around it. This is what I was taught as “defensive“ driving.
  - jakewins 9mo ago
    lol no, but if you are in a regular vehicle, you can see under the front of the bus as you pass it, it’s a standard safety practice? The first picture of the bus in this random article shows what I mean, you should be checking under the bus ahead of the front wheel as you pass: https://www.nvp.se/2026-01-08/bil-i-sparviddshinder-stoppade-bussarna-hander-jatteofta/ https://www.nvp.se/2026-01-08/bil-i-sparviddshinder-stoppade... Googling this turned up a presentation from Waymo saying they do exactly this: https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1kyapix/waymo_detects_pedestrian_from_foot_movement_under/ https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1kyapix/waymo_detect...
yibg 9mo ago
I don't see how that's feasible without introducing a lot of friction. Near my house, almost the entire trip from the freeway to my house is via a single lane with parked cars on the side. I would have to drive 10 MPH the entire way (speed limit is 25, so 2.5x as long).
- hombre_fatal 9mo ago
  It's hard to consider it "lots of friction" in a vehicle where you press a button to go faster and another button to slow down. A single lane residential street with zero visibility seems like an obvious time to slow down. And that's what the Waymo did.
  - yibg 9mo ago
    That's why the speed limit is 25 (lower when children are present in some areas) and not 35 or 40 etc. It's not reasonable to expect people to drive at 40% of the posted speed limit the entire way. We're also not talking about zero visibility (e.g. heavy fog). We're talking about blind spots behind parked cars, which in dense areas of a city is a large part of the city. If we think as a society in those situations the safe speed is 10 mph, then the speed limit should be 10mph.
    - thewebguyd 9mo ago
      It absolutely is reasonable to expect people to drive below the limit. Speed limits are just that, maximum upper bounds of how fast you legally can go, not "recommended" speeds or minimum speeds, nor are they necessarily "safe" speeds. It's just a legal upper bounds. It is a drivers responsibility to drive for the conditions. If conditions are calling for driving 40% slower, then that's what you do and suck it up. If too many roads have conditions that require that, take that up with your municipality to fix the situation. Or, even better, advocate for better public transit and trains, and designing cities to move people, not move cars.
      - Dylan16807 9mo ago
fennecbutt 9mo ago
>reacted after seeing the child step out from behind the SUV. Lmao most drivers I see on the roads aren't even capable of slowing down for a pedestrian crossing when the view of the second half of the crossing is blocked by traffic (ie they cannot see if someone is about to step out, especially a child). Humans are utterly terrible drivers.
- Sparkle-san 9mo ago
  They don't even stop when it's a crosswalk with a flashing light system installed and there are no obstructions.
- lesostep 9mo ago
  >> Humans are utterly terrible drivers Duh, driver is, essentially, a type of specialized profession. It's kinda unreasonable to think that everyone could learn to do it well Good thing we have public transport! :D
insane_dreamer 9mo ago
This is generally the problem with self-driving cars, at least in my experience (Tesla FSD). They don't look far enough ahead to anticipate what might happen and already put themselves in a position to prepare for that possibility. I'm not sure they benefit from accumulated knowledge? (Maybe Waymo does, that's an interesting question.) I.e., I know that my son's elementary school is around the corner so as I turn I'm already anticipating the school zone (that starts a block away) rather than only detecting it once I've made the turn.
- loeg 9mo ago
  Tesla FSD is leagues behind Waymo; generalizing based on your Tesla experience doesn't make sense.
  - dzhiurgis 9mo ago
    Intellectually this doesn't even compute. Waymo is tele-oped in like 5 cities and FSD works in 5 countries. It's not even close.
  - tmostak 9mo ago
    Evidence of this? I own a Tesla (HW4, latest FSD) as well as have taken many Waymo rides, and have found both to react well to unpredictable situations (i.e. a car unexpectedly turning in front of you), far more quickly than I would expect most human drivers to react. This certainly may have been true of older Teslas with HW3 and older FSD builds (I had one, and yes you couldn't trust it).
  - ajross 9mo ago
    So... the thing is it's really not. They're behind on schedule, having just launched in public. But FSD has been showing capabilities in regular use (highway navigation, unprotected left turns in traffic, non-geofenced operation areas based solely on road markings) that Waymo hasn't even tried to deploy yet. It's much more of a competition than I suspect a lot of people realize.
mattlondon 9mo ago
Yes I agree, but why 10mph? Why not 5mph? or 2mph? You'll still hit them if they step out right in front of you and you don't have time to react. Obviously the distances are different at that speed, but if the person steps out so close that you cannot react in time, you're fucked at any speed. 10mph will do serious damage still, so please for the sake of the children please slow yourself and your daughter's driving down to 0.5mph where there are pedestrians or parked cars. But seriously I think you'd be more safe to both slow down and also to put more space between the parked cars and your car so that you are not scooting along with a 30cm of clearance - move out and leave lots of space so there is more space for sight-lines for both you and pedestrians.

kakacik 9mo ago

Yes and no. Tons of situations where this is simply not possible, whole traffic goes full allowed speed next to row of parked cars. If somebody unexpectedly pops up distracted, its a tragedy guaranteed regardless of driver's skills and experience. In low traffic of course it can be different. But its unrealistic to expect anybody to drive in expectation that behind every single car passed there may be a child jumping right in front of the car. That can be easily thousands of cars, every day, whole life. Impossible. We don't read about 99.9% of the cases where even semi decent driver can handle it safely, but rare cases make the news.

JKCalhoun 9mo ago
I kind of drive that way. I slow down, move as far away in my lane from the parked cars as possible. It's certainly what I would expect from a machine that would claim to be as good as the best human driver.
- jobs_throwaway 9mo ago
  > a machine that would claim to be as good as the best human driver. Does Waymo claim that? If so I haven't seen it. That should of course be the goal, but "better than the average human driver" should be the bar.
  - JKCalhoun 9mo ago
    If they don't clim that, why would I be interested in their tech?
    - Aloisius 9mo ago
      Because replacing average drivers with a better than average one would save lives.
      - JKCalhoun 9mo ago
        Ha ha, you should suggest that to them: "Waymo: better than average driving!"
        shawnz 9mo ago
        What's the joke here? If they are better than average drivers, that's a huge win which improves road safety for everyone
    - aembleton 9mo ago
      Because I'm only an average driver. Definitely not the best and have done no advanced driver training.
    - jobs_throwaway 9mo ago
      Because we can reduce crashes and fatalities without Waymo being Max Verstappen
jsrozner 9mo ago
I slow down considerably near parked cars. And I try to slow down much earlier approaching intersections where there are parked cars blocking my view of cross walk entries. I need to be able to come to full stop earlier than intersection if there happens to be a pedestrian there.

coryrc 9mo ago

First, it's still the automobile's fault. At least it was already slowed down to 17 mph to start. Remember that viral video of some Australian in a pickup ragdolling a girl across the road? Most every comment is "well he was going the speed limit no fault for him!" No asshole, you hit someone. It's your fault. He got zero charges and the girl was seriously injured.

fennecbutt 9mo ago
You mean the Aussie one where the guy was going an appropriate speed for the area and when the cops arrived the parents and their neighbors LIED TO THE POLICE and said he was hooning down the road at excess speed and hit the kid? And that he was only saved from prison by having a dash cam that proved the lies to be lies? That one? That logic is utter bs, if someone jumps out when you're travelling at an appropriate speed and you do your best to stop then that's all that can be done. Otherwise by your logic the only safe speed is 0.
- coryrc 9mo ago
  [flagged]
WheatMillington 9mo ago
You seem to be implying that there are no circumstances in which a vehicle can hit a pedestrian and the driver not be at fault... which is absurd.
- throwway120385 9mo ago
  No it's not. The same principle applies to rules of right of way on the water. Technically the 32 foot sailboat has right of way over a triple-E because the triple-E uses mechanical propulsion. You have a responsibility to be cautious in heavy equipment no matter what the signage on the road says, and that includes keeping a speed at which you can stop safely if a person suddenly steps onto the road in situations where people are around. If you are driving past a busy bar in downtown, a drunk person might step out and you have a responsibility to assume that might happen. If you have to go slower sometimes, tough.

jakewins 9mo ago

Aye, and to always look for feet under and by the front wheel of vehicles like that. Stopped buses similarly, people get off the bus, whip around the front of them and straight into the streets, so many times I’ve spotted someone’s feet under the front before they come around and into the street. Not to take away from Waymo here, agree with thread sentiment that they seem to have acted exemplary

fennecbutt 9mo ago
You can spot someone's feet under the width of a bus when they're on the opposite side of the bus and you're sitting in a vehicle at a much higher position on the opposite side that the bus is on? That's physically impossible.
- WheatMillington 9mo ago
  I think you're missing something though, which I've observed from reading these comments - HN commenters aren't ordinary humans, they're super-humans with cosmic powers of awareness, visibility, reactions and judgement.
  - anthonyrstevens 9mo ago
    Or they hate cars/waymo/etc and will come up with any chain of reasoning that puts those things in a bad light.
- spockz 9mo ago
  In normal (traditional?) European city cars, yes, I look for feet or shadows or other signs that there is a person in the other side. In SUVs this is largely impossible but then sometimes you can see heads or backpacks. Or you look for reflections in the cars parked around it. This is what I was taught as “defensive“ driving.
- jakewins 9mo ago
  lol no, but if you are in a regular vehicle, you can see under the front of the bus as you pass it, it’s a standard safety practice? The first picture of the bus in this random article shows what I mean, you should be checking under the bus ahead of the front wheel as you pass: https://www.nvp.se/2026-01-08/bil-i-sparviddshinder-stoppade-bussarna-hander-jatteofta/ https://www.nvp.se/2026-01-08/bil-i-sparviddshinder-stoppade... Googling this turned up a presentation from Waymo saying they do exactly this: https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1kyapix/waymo_detects_pedestrian_from_foot_movement_under/ https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1kyapix/waymo_detect...

yibg 9mo ago

I don't see how that's feasible without introducing a lot of friction. Near my house, almost the entire trip from the freeway to my house is via a single lane with parked cars on the side. I would have to drive 10 MPH the entire way (speed limit is 25, so 2.5x as long).

hombre_fatal 9mo ago
It's hard to consider it "lots of friction" in a vehicle where you press a button to go faster and another button to slow down. A single lane residential street with zero visibility seems like an obvious time to slow down. And that's what the Waymo did.
- yibg 9mo ago
  That's why the speed limit is 25 (lower when children are present in some areas) and not 35 or 40 etc. It's not reasonable to expect people to drive at 40% of the posted speed limit the entire way. We're also not talking about zero visibility (e.g. heavy fog). We're talking about blind spots behind parked cars, which in dense areas of a city is a large part of the city. If we think as a society in those situations the safe speed is 10 mph, then the speed limit should be 10mph.
  - thewebguyd 9mo ago
    It absolutely is reasonable to expect people to drive below the limit. Speed limits are just that, maximum upper bounds of how fast you legally can go, not "recommended" speeds or minimum speeds, nor are they necessarily "safe" speeds. It's just a legal upper bounds. It is a drivers responsibility to drive for the conditions. If conditions are calling for driving 40% slower, then that's what you do and suck it up. If too many roads have conditions that require that, take that up with your municipality to fix the situation. Or, even better, advocate for better public transit and trains, and designing cities to move people, not move cars.
    - Dylan16807 9mo ago

fennecbutt 9mo ago

>reacted after seeing the child step out from behind the SUV. Lmao most drivers I see on the roads aren't even capable of slowing down for a pedestrian crossing when the view of the second half of the crossing is blocked by traffic (ie they cannot see if someone is about to step out, especially a child). Humans are utterly terrible drivers.

Sparkle-san 9mo ago
They don't even stop when it's a crosswalk with a flashing light system installed and there are no obstructions.
lesostep 9mo ago
>> Humans are utterly terrible drivers Duh, driver is, essentially, a type of specialized profession. It's kinda unreasonable to think that everyone could learn to do it well Good thing we have public transport! :D

insane_dreamer 9mo ago

This is generally the problem with self-driving cars, at least in my experience (Tesla FSD). They don't look far enough ahead to anticipate what might happen and already put themselves in a position to prepare for that possibility. I'm not sure they benefit from accumulated knowledge? (Maybe Waymo does, that's an interesting question.) I.e., I know that my son's elementary school is around the corner so as I turn I'm already anticipating the school zone (that starts a block away) rather than only detecting it once I've made the turn.

loeg 9mo ago
Tesla FSD is leagues behind Waymo; generalizing based on your Tesla experience doesn't make sense.
- dzhiurgis 9mo ago
  Intellectually this doesn't even compute. Waymo is tele-oped in like 5 cities and FSD works in 5 countries. It's not even close.
- tmostak 9mo ago
  Evidence of this? I own a Tesla (HW4, latest FSD) as well as have taken many Waymo rides, and have found both to react well to unpredictable situations (i.e. a car unexpectedly turning in front of you), far more quickly than I would expect most human drivers to react. This certainly may have been true of older Teslas with HW3 and older FSD builds (I had one, and yes you couldn't trust it).
- ajross 9mo ago
  So... the thing is it's really not. They're behind on schedule, having just launched in public. But FSD has been showing capabilities in regular use (highway navigation, unprotected left turns in traffic, non-geofenced operation areas based solely on road markings) that Waymo hasn't even tried to deploy yet. It's much more of a competition than I suspect a lot of people realize.

mattlondon 9mo ago

Yes I agree, but why 10mph? Why not 5mph? or 2mph? You'll still hit them if they step out right in front of you and you don't have time to react. Obviously the distances are different at that speed, but if the person steps out so close that you cannot react in time, you're fucked at any speed. 10mph will do serious damage still, so please for the sake of the children please slow yourself and your daughter's driving down to 0.5mph where there are pedestrians or parked cars. But seriously I think you'd be more safe to both slow down and also to put more space between the parked cars and your car so that you are not scooting along with a 30cm of clearance - move out and leave lots of space so there is more space for sight-lines for both you and pedestrians.