14 ms·

Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

• Der_Einzige 6mo ago
  Expecting bike riders to follow traffic laws is also unrealistic. This is why they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities, including in localities with good bike infrastructure.
  • Cockbrand 6mo ago
    Apart from the obvious whataboutism: > [...] they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities Higher than what?
  • jMyles 6mo ago
    > Expecting bike riders to follow traffic laws is also unrealistic. This is why they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities, This is an unconscionable degree of victim-blaming. Psychotic-level.
    • mattlondon 6mo ago
      Victims are not the ones running red lights, cutting across pedestrian sidewalks/pavements at 20+ mph, going down one-way-streets the wrong way, screaming at pedestrians to get out the way so they don't have to slow down when pedestrians are crossing on a green man etc etc etc. At least in London the cyclists are absolutely lawless. Yes a lot are injured and some sadly die, but many many many totally ignore the rules (assuming they've even bothered to find out what the rules actually are). It's only got worse with ebike hire (Lime at al) as people will hop on after drinking, or have never even got a driving license etc so have no actual idea on the rules that car drivers have to prove etc before they're let behind the wheel at all. And when they're done with their lime bike they literally just dump them wherever they're done with it, blocking sidewalks/pavements for everyone. This antisocial cycling social-ill is very much at a "scourge" stage in London and is getting a lot of press.
      • messe 6mo ago
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        • xscott 6mo ago
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          • messe 6mo ago
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            • xscott 6mo ago
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              • messe 6mo ago
                This isn't an example of that. You claimed something in your initial comment. You did not back it up. I'm asking you to back up your initial claim. If you had addressed it you'd have a point, and that would be a correct example of sealioning. But you haven't, so don't accuse me of sealioning. This isn't me arguing in bad faith. This is me asking you to back up the claim you made in your first comment. That's arguing in good faith, if you only you are willing to provide the other side of the argument. Which you have avoided so far.
                • tomhow 6mo ago
                  The “sealion” link and the abusive parts of their earlier comment are unacceptable and I've replied to their comment to make that known. However, these lines in your comment are also clear breaches: > Back up your fucking claim. > Really? Do you actually want to argue your point or is negative attention your fetish? > ^this kind of argument is not fucking productive. > So CITE YOUR SOURCES. Please don't fulminate or post flamebait on HN, or use capitalization for emphasis. The entire purpose of HN is to engage in curious conversation about topics we find interesting, and to avoid furious battle like this.
  • vinni2 6mo ago
    > Expecting bike riders to follow traffic laws is also unrealistic. Can you cite the research to back up your claim? Because I have the research claiming the opposite the cyclists are more compliant with traffic rules than cars [0]. Including in US [1] [0] https://www.bicycling.com/news/a46443761/science-proves-motorists-break-traffic-laws-a-lot-more-often-than-cyclists/ https://www.bicycling.com/news/a46443761/science-proves-moto... [1] https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/cyclists-comply-traffic-laws-more-drivers/ https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/cycli...
  • messe 6mo ago
    > This is why they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities It wouldn't perhaps be because they're (a) forced to share a space with cars and (b) cars have crumple zones, unlike cyclists?
• itopaloglu83 6mo ago
  We can keep autonomous cars out of bike lanes like we keep normal drivers, keep fining them for every incident. It’s not like they don’t keep the video evidence.
  • jsbisviewtiful 6mo ago
    If I was struck by an autonomous vehicle while riding in the bike lane I would sue and sue like I was taking aim at a corporation rather than an individual driver. I -or my partner, assuming I died- would retire very early on that money.
  • seanmcdirmid 6mo ago
    Are you proposing or saying this is how it already works? Because in my experience, it doesn’t work like this at all. The countries that have good bike infrastructure like the Netherlands seem to focus on actual physical separation. They do fines also, they just don’t rely on fines (and lawsuits) like Americans seem to.
  • janice1999 6mo ago
    And base the fines on the companies valuation, otherwise it'll just be written off as an operating expense. Normal fines and penalty points work as deterrents for everyday people, not multi-billion dollar companies. I also would not count on the availability of video evidence - see Tesla's withholding of evidence from investigators and courts. https://electrek.co/2025/08/04/tesla-withheld-data-lied-misdirected-police-plaintiffs-avoid-blame-autopilot-crash/ https://electrek.co/2025/08/04/tesla-withheld-data-lied-misd...
  • bushbaba 6mo ago
    Do they get 1 point per infraction and have license suspend after so many points?(like human rivers)? If so, it'd be rather quick for the full fleet suspension.
• senthil_rajasek 6mo ago
  I live in the U.S. road.cc seems to be a cycling news site primarily for U.K. When I am driving a car or use a rideshare I expect to share the bike lane when turning or getting off. I wish the title had included these additional words "In some situations..."
  • kevin_thibedeau 6mo ago
    I live in the US and bike lanes are not shared lanes for turning or stopping where I live.
    • ghaff 6mo ago
      If you're making a right-hand turn in the US as a driver and there's a protected bike lane you're crossing through that lane to turn. And, when I sit outside in the summer at one of my usual restaurants with sidewalk seating, there are any number of horrifying combinations of bicycles, ebikes, escooters, and things that look like electric motorcycles routinely blowing through the red light at the adjacent intersection--cause they're in a bike lane I guess.
      • kevin_thibedeau 6mo ago
        You cross through the intersection. You don't treat it like an extra lane to pass traffic on the left which some drivers like to do when there is sufficient space or no curb.
        • ghaff 6mo ago
          The road signage even says to get in the right lane after the bus stop where the bike lane temporarily ends.
    • IcyWindows 6mo ago
      They are where I live
  • NegativeK 6mo ago
• l1n 6mo ago
  this is a pointer to https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/04/22/waymo-is-not-in-the-vision-zero-toolbox-data https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/04/22/waymo-is-not-in-the-v... In San Francisco, the vehicles often pull into bike lanes to pick up and drop off passengers — because that’s what they’re programmed to do, according to advocates who’ve asked the company for an explanation. Waymo has told advocates that expecting it to respect bike lanes is “too high a bar” because customers expect to be dropped off in them, said Christopher White, executive director of the San Francisco Bike Coalition. “People always point out that unlike human driven cars, the AVs stop at lights and obey the speed limit. However, they are really only as good and effective and safe as they are programmed to be,” White said. “Waymos pull over into bike lanes all the time for pickups and drop-offs and that’s neither legal nor safe but the companies say that is a normal practice and that’s what customers expect.” Can't find a Waymo article about this, but Lyft and Uber (let alone trad taxis) also do this. I'm not sure that this is a particularly autonomous-car-shaped sin.
  • davidw 6mo ago
    > Can't find a Waymo article about this, but Lyft and Uber (let alone trad taxis) also do this. I'm not sure that this is a particularly autonomous-car-shaped sin. Yeah I think it'd probably actually be easier to prevent Waymo from doing this. Once you change the programming, they all stop doing it.
    • wiml 6mo ago
      What that means is that Waymo is intentionally choosing illegal behavior, at a corporate level. Uber/Lyft are merely turning a blind eye to the illegal behavior of their employees... er, "contractors".
  • jMyles 6mo ago
    > Can't find a Waymo article about this, but Lyft and Uber (let alone trad taxis) also do this. I'm not sure that this is a particularly autonomous-car-shaped sin. It depends on expectations. If the pitch is (and, let's face it - it is) that automs will be less violent, then this is a problem. If we're OK with them just adopting the existing levels of misery and death visited upon our communities by cars, then the upside is far less than we've been sold.
• antibull 6mo ago
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• kibwen 6mo ago
  I can't wait to carry a set of orange cones on me at all times so that I can put any misbehaving autonomous cars in Road Jail. After all, expecting cyclists not to resort to vigilantism to keep themselves safe from billion-dollar companies is unrealistic.
  • 243423443 6mo ago
    That, and wear a sweater with a stop sign on it.
  • amelius 6mo ago
    I'm going to put an orange cone on the back seat of my bicycle.
  • spankalee 6mo ago
    Are you going to cone the Uber drivers too?
    • kibwen 6mo ago
      If only Uber drivers parked in the bike lanes were as easy to pacify.
  • wavemode 6mo ago
    Seems easier to just toss a sheet over the roof camera. (Or spraypaint it, since both the sheet and cones are trivial for someone to come along and remove.)
• jackyinger 6mo ago
  I thought the point of driverless cars is that they are supposed to be better than humans. This should be excepted fork that goal. If this is accepted, what would be the next thing to be deemed unrealistic?
  • dzhiurgis 6mo ago
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• jmclnx 6mo ago
  So the real statement is "Following the law is unrealistic". Well if waymo was in my city, I will make sure I ride my bike in the middle of the lane in front of a waymo vehicle. Doing that is legal were I am.
  • lostlogin 6mo ago
    Sharing a lane with a car is a recipe for disaster. If there isn’t space to overtake, take the middle of the lane or get off the road. It’s 30,0000km since I was last hit by a car, it’s working for me. People who can’t judge the width of their own vehicle are common, and they commonly buy huge vehicle. Also, buy a bike radar like a Garmin Varia or similar. They vastly improve your awareness in traffic.
  • xscott 6mo ago
    As a cyclist, I'm sure you're tolerant and polite to people walking in the middle of the multi-use paths, right? /s For a long time I thought cyclists were hypocrites because they play the victim when they're on roads while being complete jerks on walking paths. But really, it's not hypocrisy - it's self-entitlement in both cases. It's honestly very consistent behavior.
    • ghaff 6mo ago
      I don't find cyclists especially obnoxious on the rail-trails I often walk on. But I have walked on rail-trails with a lot of bicycles where various people got pretty pissy because I wouldn't step off the trail every minute.
      • xscott 6mo ago
        I don't understand: They get pissy, but you don't find that obnoxious? If cyclists got off the roads every time a car comes by, that would be consistent with their expectations for walking paths.
        • ghaff 6mo ago
• randyrand 6mo ago
  Otherwise, you'd be doored during passenger drop-off.
• seanmcdirmid 6mo ago
  We know how to keep cars out of bike lanes (curbs, barriers), and we already know that bike lanes co-located with on street parking is dangerous. We (well Americans) also don’t believe in creating pick up and drop off spots on our roads.
• claw-el 6mo ago
  I wonder if cities would want to create even more short term pick up and drop off points on the road for USPS, UPS, FedEx, DoorDash, Uber, Lyft, Waymo and other similar short term parking needs, this would mean removing some long term street parking options and potentially conflict with some bike lanes in some areas. Would cities be willing to give up on the parking fines revenue they are generating right now? How should cities be incentivized to change with the changing mobilities needs of the people living inside dense cities?
• ilovecake1984 6mo ago
  Periodic reminder to the Americans.. Self driving cars are only safer than regular cars in the US because your standards of driving are so bad. It’s very unlikely to be the case in the UK.
  • dude187 6mo ago
    These kind of comments do not belong here
    • ilovecake1984 6mo ago
      They absolutely do. Tech and business are sensitive to culture. Some business just don’t translate. Where is my factual error? US driving is objectively appalling.
  • lukevp 6mo ago
    You really don’t believe that software is or can become safer than human drivers?
    • ilovecake1984 6mo ago
      I’m dying that the bar of being safer may be met in the US, because it is a low bar.
• amelius 6mo ago
  To what extent is the data of these driverless vehicle companies available to external researchers?
  • nvr219 6mo ago
    I’m pretty sure to zero extent.
    • Jensson 6mo ago
      > I’m pretty sure to zero extent. There is a lot, waymo gives out a bunch of data. https://waymo.com/open/ https://waymo.com/open/ You can see people testing it in videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNwCDacDE2g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNwCDacDE2g Google gives out a massive amount of data from many of their parts for free, so not sure why you would think they wouldn't do so here. They don't give out all of it but large parts, they are very research friendly.
• yieldcrv 6mo ago
  Most of driving is being predictable to other drivers and pedestrians and cyclists. Waymos do that very well in their respective cities, and by programmed they mean the training set of drivers in that city If waymos are dropping off in bike lanes, it’s because that’s the behavior in that city It’s far better that the robots aren’t literal pedants. They act far smarter than a neurodivergent savant trying to do everything literally legal because being unadaptable is not intelligence
• alistairSH 6mo ago
  How do other countries solve this? I have a fuzzy memory of lanes being shared in the UK. Overlapping bike, parking, bus stops, etc. Not claiming that's better, only that's what I recall. I don't recall what Amsterdam does, but the bike lanes were mostly separated, so I imagine they have dedicated short-term parking. They also have a good light rail system in the city, so much less need for taxis.
  • cyanydeez 6mo ago
    does it matter? we already gave cars unnecessary leeway in designing cities; should we continue bowing to the least efficient mode of transport because a technology cant actually replace thw already extravagent allowances it is afforded?
    • alistairSH 6mo ago
      Assuming they've solved the problem, fully or partially, then of course it matters.
  • ilovecake1984 6mo ago
    The uk has both, so it depends. There is going to be more of this though. In London you really have to force your way out at junctions. This is not legal, but without it a waymon might never make progress. I don’t see this being solved. It relies on human eye contact to work.
  • Zopieux 6mo ago
    Other countries have public transit that works, such that taxis are only needed in specific situations warranting an expensive private chauffeur, autonomous or meatbag.
  • weberer 6mo ago
    In Finland bike lanes are on the sidewalk and cyclists have to respect pedestrian traffic signals. Its the safest solution for everyone, in my opinion.
    • 6mo ago
• black3r 6mo ago
  What the actual fuck? Customers' expectations shouldn't matter at all if the things they expect is illegal. And this is already a solved problem. The city I live in (Bratislava, Slovakia) has some pedestrian-only zones in the "old town", and if you're in one of them, calling an Uber/Bolt forces you to pick a pickup spot where cars can go... (arguably this still has issues with Uber/Bolt allowing you to choose bus stops as pickup spots, which is explicitly illegal - only buses can stop on bus stops, but it's still better than driving onto a road which does not allow cars in the first place). EDIT: i mistakenly thought this was about driving on dedicated bike paths, idk why, but this is still a solved problem, the applications already allow to designate some roads as places which can't be picked as pickup/dropoff points...
• exabrial 6mo ago
  I think Waymo expecting people to avoid flipping Waymo cars and burning them is unrealistic.
• hiddencost 6mo ago
  Separated bike lanes. It is time.
• spankalee 6mo ago
  Cities that want to keep cars out of bike lanes should keep all cars out of them, autonomous or not, by ticketing them. But they don't, so taxis and delivery drivers stop in them. That's traffic enforcement's fault. Given that human drivers stop in bike lanes, Waymo then has a tradeoff: 1) Be the only ones to follow the letter of the law, break a lot of people's expectations, and catch backlash for disrupting traffic. 2) Follow the most common expectation, even if wrong, and incrementally add to the problem. IMO, cyclists shouldn't lobby Waymo directly, but should lobby cities to actually enforce the rules on everyone. Then Waymo would fall in line naturally. And if they're inclined to take direct action against Waymo's they should also act against Uber and DoorDash drivers who are a far bigger problem by volume (and wait time for deliveries).
  • nandomrumber 6mo ago
    Share the road. It works both ways.
    • Arubis 6mo ago
      It does not work both ways. One party to this is a high-inertia, potentially high-velocity metal box that, in an impact with the other party, typically results in an property insurance claim. The other is a low-inertia flesh bag that, in an impact with the other party, results in a medical insurance claim, and possibly a funeral.
      • nandomrumber 6mo ago
        All the more reason to be aware of who you’re sharing the road with. I spent a decade cycling for commute in a capital city in Australia. I’m also a tradesman, so I’m well aware that some people actually work on the road. By being a pedestrian or cyclist, you’re literally in other people’s workplace. Delivery drivers, construction workers, breakdown services, road maintenance, electricians, crane operators, cars for hire, emergency services, light rail operators. As a pedestrian or cyclists, or motorbike rider, you’re particularly vulnerable. Sometimes you need to get out of the way. Share the road.
• kccqzy 6mo ago
  As a bicyclist I kinda agree with Waymo. Unless there is a strong separation (physical barrier) between the car lane and the bike lane, the rules of the road is that one always overtakes on the left; this implies that if a car is stopped, one has to overtake on the left. If the car is stopped within the bike lane, I can bike into the car lane and overtake. If the car is stopped in the car lane, well then I have to merge across two car lanes in order to overtake. I don’t stay in the bike lane because I could be doored, and my expectation is that the car could decide to drive into the bike lane to make room for overtaking traffic. So the solution is either make it impossible for a car to drive into the bike lane through barriers, or just allow cars into the bike lanes anyways.
• cyberax 6mo ago
  Eh. Just start removing bike lanes. They're destroying businesses and making life worse for everyone. And yes, I have numbers. In Seattle, the business receipts from areas with bike lanes declined faster than receipts from areas nearby that do NOT have bike lanes. Correlation shmorellation.... I bet you were going to cite studies that were showing how bike lanes improved the business and how proprietors were surprised at the percentage of customers on bikes, right?
  • SilverElfin 6mo ago
    Yep, I have friends who ran small businesses who sold in cities (Seattle, Portland, SF) specifically because of how bike lanes destroyed their business. People who are busy need to get around quickly and aren’t going to tolerate biking around. And it’s especially impractical with kids - not that this stops bike activists from trying to gaslight everyone into saying it’s totally possible and exactly the same effort. The bikes lanes almost always either displace traffic lanes or parking, so driving gets worse. And customers realize they have better things to do and alternative choices on where they spend money. The bike lanes themselves are of course, often very poorly utilized. So traffic gets worse, businesses suffer, and it’s all for nothing. Now all these cities have left is intentionally crippling driving with low speed limits, speed bumps, and other hostile designs. It’s a way to try and claim that driving is no faster, even though it is trivial to keep driving fast and efficient.
• mschuster91 6mo ago
  Yeah screw them. Respect the rules of the road or GTFO. And the AI peddlers are amazed why people seem to hate them. That right here is the answer.
• nmstoker 6mo ago
  This is ridiculous - passengers want to be dropped off in the zig zag lines either side of pedestrian crossing too, but that's illegal. Just because sneaky minicab drivers do it should not be justification for self driving cars - they need to be designed to obey the laws of the road. I want Waymo to succeed but you don't do that by bending over to the passengers' whim!
• loxodrome 6mo ago
  Bicycles and automobiles should not share the same roads at all.
  • SilverElfin 6mo ago
    Yes the bikes belong on the sidewalk, restricted to walking speeds for safety.
    • ghaff 6mo ago
      Which isn't unusual in Japan. You see bicycles sometimes trying to force themselves through swarms of people going at maybe 1 mile per hour.
  • nandomrumber 6mo ago
    Not an entirely unreasonable goal. But also not present reality. Share the road. It works both ways.
• nharada 6mo ago
  At least here in SF the ideal thing would be that any vehicle dropping off in the bike lane gets fined or ticketed. This includes Waymo, Uber, cabs, personal cars, whatever. In practice it's very rare to get a ticket for this, which is why customers expect it from both Waymo and Uber.
• stego-tech 6mo ago
  People need to understand that this is a corporate-friendly variation of, “there are no incentives for us to stop that outweigh the profits we make from the harm caused, and so we won’t.” A “fuck you and fuck off”, in other words. Asking companies nicely to stop being dickbags is never going to work. You have to regulate them - directly via new and targeted laws, or indirectly via accountability for existing laws. If Waymo started getting tickets for obstructing bike lanes every time it happened, they’d stop immediately. This is why I’m generally in favor of citizen reward schemes like NYC does for some violations. Give citizens a slice of the fine, and you’ll both reduce bad behavior and improve civic engagement, all without creating creepy mass surveillance systems like Flock.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• Slow_Hand 6mo ago
  As a cyclist and a driver it’s not immediately apparent which Waymo behavior I prefer for passenger dropoffs/pickups. While it’s annoying in the moment to pedal around a parked car, I’m fine with it. However, having a Waymo dropping off clear of the bike lane sounds good, until the exiting passenger accidentally doors a cyclist who isn’t prepared for that possibility. I suppose I’d rather suffer the inconvenience of going around a parked car than risk the devastation of being doored.
  • daemonologist 6mo ago
    Going around a parked car is not merely an inconvenience, it introduces an extra risk of being hit from behind (obviously you should check over your shoulder before moving into the lane, but this is the imperfect real world, and even the act of checking over your shoulder is a small risk) or by a vehicle pulling out of a cross street which didn't see you through the stopped car. However I agree that there isn't an obvious solution without making major improvements to infrastructure - right now where the bike lane is just paint everyone parks in it (Uber, taxis, delivery drivers, etc.).
    • Saline9515 6mo ago
      It's also possible to use a feature that is present on the bikes, even if rarely or never used by urban cyclists: braking and waiting for the passenger to drop off, before continuing for your destination. Something car drivers and pedestrians do, usually.
      • datsci_est_2015 6mo ago
        Not in my city. Taxis and ride shares tell you to get out on the right hand side so that you don’t get swept by cars passing you on the left. Also often difficult to tell as a bicyclist how long that car will be sitting there. Sometimes it’s a delivery or pickup or something inane that will have you looking like a doofus for waiting.
    • crazygringo 6mo ago
      No. Going around a parked car is a basic ability you need to have as a cyclist. If you can't do that safely, then you have no business riding in the first place. Looking behind you is not optional, as you seem to suggest it is. And if it is actually a "small risk", then you are going way too fast. Again -- if you don't have the environmental awareness to go around a parked car, then you shouldn't be riding a bicycle in the first place. Full stop.
• ironman1478 6mo ago
  This article is about London, but it's a problem in SF too. The problem is that cities aren't made for ride sharing, robo or otherwise. If the cities actually wanted to make ride sharing less annoying they'd have designated drop off zones on streets and make an effort to build truly separate bike lanes. That requires actual work though, so very cities will proactively do this.
• Havoc 6mo ago
  >respect cycle lanes is “too high a bar” Maybe just run over cyclists & pedestrians too while you're at it because it makes the code simpler? Kinda had it with these shitty big tech companies that feel they don't need to respect local laws when they're not convenient.
• altairprime 6mo ago
  This is the same Waymo that outright refuses to honor No Thru Traffic and No U-Turns signs in favor of “I was ticketed at coordinates xyz” reports. I assume eventually one’s going to get crushed by an oncoming train after willfully ignoring a No Turn On Red sign. Not only are they saying that unenforced laws are void, they’re also having people do ticketable things in order to collect enforcement data for others. Weirdly, the U.S.-nationwide enemy behind the curtain here is AAA, the driver’s association that’s spent member fees for decades lobbying against automated ticketing systems that would force everyone, not just Waymo, to start honoring the traffic laws it avoids. How crass of Waymo to so brazenly exploit that, but certainly their argument lacks fault from a corporate non-person’s “you can’t hurt me in any way that matters” viewpoint.
• Stratoscope 6mo ago
  I won't comment on the pick up / drop off situation, but another important scenario is right turns. In California, drivers are legally required to merge into the bike lane when making a right turn. This is for the safety of the bicyclists, to avoid the dreaded "right hook" collision. Dylan Taylor, a beloved Menlo-Atherton High School football coach, was killed last year in one of these collisions: https://www.almanacnews.com/atherton/2025/05/08/m-a-athletic-coach-killed-in-traffic-collision/ https://www.almanacnews.com/atherton/2025/05/08/m-a-athletic... (Scroll down to the comment by "T R" which describes better than the article itself what likely happened.) Unfortunately, I've almost never seen a driver follow this law. Everyone studiously avoids the bike lane and then cuts across it. The bike lane marker changes from a solid white stripe to a dashed line as you approach an intersection. This is supposed to be a hint to merge into the bike lane. It isn't working. I post a reminder on Nextdoor once or twice a year about this. I'm taking the opportunity to also post it here for my California neighbors. It would be interesting to see if the Waymo Driver follows this law. My bet is that it does. The San Francisco Bike Coalition has an excellent page on this topic: https://sfbike.org/news/bike-lanes-and-right-turns/ https://sfbike.org/news/bike-lanes-and-right-turns/
  • jiveturkey 6mo ago
    huh i didn't know about a specific bike lane law. but i do know the law that right turns must be taken as "close as practicable" to the right side of the roadway. plus there's the hint of the dashed line. Sneaking into the extra space to the right isn't a shortcut -- it's required by law, ie even without a bike lane. in california, which is where the incident in TFA occurred.
  • vinay427 6mo ago
    I don’t live there, but for what it’s worth, this seems to be followed fairly consistently in the San Diego area whenever I’ve visited.
  • ghaff 6mo ago
    In the nearest fairly large city, there's a (sometimes separated) bike lane, a bus lane, traffic lane, and turning lane which all intersect to various degrees. It's all clear as mud especially after dark when both bicycles and pedestrians are frequently darting into traffic from behind cars without lights. I'm just surprised there aren't more accidents.
• SomeHacker44 6mo ago
  As a pedestrian, I fear cyclists the most. Please do block the bike lane while I am getting in and out so cyclists won't hit me. I have been almost killed by cyclists many more times than cars. My office building hires someone with a sign to stand in the crosswalk in front of the building where cyclists almost never respect the crosswalk. Cyclists here regularly ignore red lights and also go the wrong way on streets and even in bike lanes.
  • teachrdan 6mo ago
    You are either very paranoid or very bad at math. The odds of a pedestrian getting killed by a cyclist are minuscule. The best data I could find making an apples-to-apples comparison showed that pedestrians are *160 times* more likely to be killed by a car than a bicyclist. https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/collision-matrix-2019.pdf https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/collisio...
    • Saline9515 6mo ago
      Odds are conditional though. As a father, I think that the odds are quite high that a 3 years old child will get hit by a cyclist, especially if they ride on the sidewalk. I have had several stressful close calls with my son, and my pregnant wife was hit by a cyclist who didn't respect the red light (as it is the custom among the high lords of the road).
      • teachrdan 6mo ago
        > I think that the odds are quite high that a 3 years old child will get hit by a cyclist You should see the odds of a child being hit by a car! Here in the US, about 6 children a day are hit and killed by a motor vehicle. And yet the number of children hit and killed by bicycles is unavailable -- perhaps because it is close to 0? I understand that "as a father" you may become paranoid about things that are objectively unlikely. But if you are more worried about getting killed by a bicycle than by a car -- something 160 times more likely to kill you! -- then perhaps you need to recalibrate.
• jiveturkey 6mo ago
  bit of an absolutist argument in california. can't speak to the UK. it's obviously safer (for cyclists) for taxis or even carpools to drop off and pick up at the far right, ie into the bike lane. i think we can generally consider it to be "parking" not "driving" and thus within the letter of the law as well. (parking is explicitly allowed.) we know this very well, and that's why there are curb-separated lanes and they tried a center lane on van ness for awhile. it just generally sucks to share bikes and cars and we have to live with compromises.
  • pavlus 6mo ago
    I don't believe there is a country in the world, where parking on bike lanes is explicitly allowed. Merging before turns and stops for drop/pickup/load/unload sure. But not parking.
    • jiveturkey 6mo ago
      CVC 21209.a.1
• tcfhgj 6mo ago
  This really makes me angry and more sympathetic towards the tyre extinguishers
• markvdb 6mo ago
  Looks like busy times ahead for Cycling Mikey [0]! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyclingMikey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyclingMikey
• hackerbrother 6mo ago
  CAN you always avoid a bike lane? I don't think so. There's lots of shared bike lanes/right turn lanes, bike lanes that terminate unexpectedly, etc.
• jdalton 6mo ago
  Why is it when they can't make software solve a problem, they then basically blame the problem.
  • basisword 6mo ago
    I think the actually problem is incredibly poorly thought out cycling infrastructure. There are long stretches of cycle lanes in some cities at least where you'd need to get out a significant distance from your destination. It's not feasible for lots of reasons. If they're completely segregated it would be better for everyone.
• twoodfin 6mo ago
  Waymo didn’t “say” this. Or at least the article this article references doesn’t claim they did. It’s a now third-hand paraphrase from an SF bike advocate who says he heard it from some unnamed representative of Waymo. If someone has something more direct, happy to read it, since this seems to be clickbait napalm at the moment.
  • basisword 6mo ago
    Thank you! I've seen this all over the place the last few days. It's clickbait from a cycling group and very few people have actually bothered to read it.
    • xnx 6mo ago
      I never expected cycling groups to be some of the loudest anti-safety (anti-Waymo) voices. Shameful. I love to bike, but I'm really embarrassed to be grouped with these people.
  • guelo 6mo ago
    Well we have to take whatever scraps of info we can get from these secretive PR managed companies with huge public impact.
    • digitalPhonix 6mo ago
      Putting words in their mouths makes it harder to get the actual statements, which seems counter to getting actual information about (or from) these companies.
• dang 6mo ago
  I've taken a clumsy crack at condensing the title into HN's 80 char limit. Better alternatives are welcome! (Submitted title was "Waymo says expecting driverless taxis to stay out of bike lanes is unrealistic", but this leaves out the reason they give.)
• mystraline 6mo ago
  Completely fair, since city buses and nearly every other vehicle does the same. The YouTube Channel "Not Just Bikes" calls these abominations 'Painted Bicycle Gutters'. They should be completely abolished in favor of multiuse pathways.
• c0balt 6mo ago
  A simple yet almost hard to imemt solution (given the view of an outsider on most U. S. cities respect for bicycles) is to "just" provide actual, hard seperation for the bike lane. This can done with carve outs/ gaps for public service buses, a somewhat cheap implementation are Pop-Up bikelanes but concrete barriers of 10-15 cm also do the job well.
• crazygringo 6mo ago
  There's no way to judge this without looking at any particular street. I live in a city with bike lanes. But some of them are one-lane (well, one vehicle lane, one bike lane), one-way streets. If a car or taxi or delivery vehicle or anything at all is going to pull over, it's necessarily going to be in the bike lane. (It's either that, or stop literally all traffic on the street.) As a cyclist, I quickly stopped getting mad at it. I just, you know, go around it. Most streets don't have bike lanes. So turning into the regular lane is not a problem. Even when I drive a car, sometimes I'll have to drive around a car stopped in a regular lane. Such is life. Obviously if Waymo is pulling over into a bike lane when there's no other place to pull over, it's fine. The highway code in the article literally says it's allowed when it is "unavoidable". Without seeing examples of where Waymo is actually pulling over, and if there are safer alternatives it should be using instead, I can't judge whether it's misbehaving or not.
  • mmmattt 6mo ago
    Or you know, stop somewhere else ?
    • crazygringo 6mo ago
      OK, where? A lot of streets simply don't have separate shoulders to pull over on. Or if they do, they're 100% occupied by on-street parking. The bike lane is effectively doing double-duty as the shoulder. Is Waymo supposed to drop you off 5 blocks away after circling for 20 minutes looking for an available parking spot, just to stop for 30 seconds to let you out?
      • deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
• pseudocomposer 6mo ago
  The “cars stopping in random places everywhere in any remotely urban area” thing has become a huge problem in general. It’s probably our clearest sign of the fundamental scalability problems of car-centric design. Assuming we can’t significantly reduce car usage (and noting that you can still prioritize bike/pedestrian-friendliness and assume this), we really need regular car equivalents to bus stops. For Waymo or human rideshare drivers, or just non-transactional human families, say, dropping grandma off at a brunch restaurant. And significant fines + license points for anyone who stops anywhere outside them, like they do now, once established. The idea is no different than frequent trash cans and significant littering fines, really. (I’m just spitballing here and am open to being wrong, just putting the idea out there as someone who’s noticed how much worse driving in cities has become over time.)
  • Saline9515 6mo ago
    In France, especially in Paris, you have large "delivery" parking places where you are allowed to stop but not to park. Unfortunately, with the rise of bike lanes, those spots are not quite dangerous, as the delivery person has to cross the lane to access the sidewalk and bicycles refuse to slow down, as usual.
• jacknews 6mo ago
  Isn't it illegal? I'm sure they just get away with it because of the low chance of 'getting caught', getting a ticket. But in fact the evidence is in the GPS logs, so they should be either required to stop doing something illegal, or prosecuted using that data.
• crq-yml 6mo ago
  I don't really see this as a Waymo story(although they are a bad actor) because this kind of blockage is mostly a combination of urban design, infrastructure and norms. Traffic is experienced individually as "that guy cut me off" or "you parked in the bike lane" or "stop riding on the sidewalk" but the accidents and delays are about the times when two people both end up taking the same risk at a conflict point. Those are things that have to be addressed long before the incident, and some countries have done so, while others have not and prefer to displace it onto "individual responsibility", which doesn't change how people drive, it just favors being the biggest on the road and relying on insurance to cover the rest. The principal thing that changes in this story is that Waymo centralizes the responsibility for the risk-taking, and therefore is easier to hold accountable than a horde of interchangable gig workers, impulsive teenagers, etc. When a Waymo car actually does damage, they don't enjoy the same cost structure as the rest of us. The probability is high that they reached a utilitarian conclusion on the bike lane issue favoring their current approach as "the best across all key metrics". Those metrics can be changed by enforcement, or by fixing the streets. They can use words like "unrealistic" but they are mostly speaking within a particular legislative and infrastructural reality. That reality can change if we expect it to, but it means going back on the individual-responsibility outlook.
• tmsbrg 6mo ago
  Kind of weird article. If you want cars to stay out of bike lanes, make them protected like in here in the Netherlands. But also why do people expect to be taken to a bike lane rather than a parking space? Also seeing a lot of ignorance about cycling here in the comments. Would recommend some people to watch some Not Just Bikes videos. Building better cycle infrastructure is better for everyone, cars and cyclists included. Less people die, and cars don't have to deal with cyclists on the road. Ex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
• stingrae 6mo ago
  I think this is a bigger factor for Lyft/uber where the passenger rating impacts the driver directly. Passengers are annoyed anytime their pickup isn’t directly in front of them on the street. They will down rate a driver that pulls into a legal spot farther away then a spot blocking a bike lane directly in front of them. This is less of an issue for Waymo, because the passenger rating doesn’t mean as much except customer satisfaction with the service as a whole.
• t0mas88 6mo ago
  I'm not sure how this works in the UK, but over here in the Netherlands we have cyclists everywhere and a lot less drama. Here it's OK to stop on a bike lane and to merge onto it when turning right, but not to park on it. Merging means you give way to bikes first, then drive between them. And the other way around, if the bike lane is blocked, bikes merge into the car lane and cars drive behind them. Consider it a two lane road, where you give way when you merge into the other lane and you slow down behind slower traffic that's in your lane. Except that when both lanes are available each type of traffic prefers "their" lane due to the speed difference. That speed difference is decreasing in the bigger cities recently. Ebikes drive 25 km/h and many shared streets are reducing from 50 to 30 km/h for cars. It probably helps that a lot of the bigger streets aren't shared, there are many separated bike lanes here.
• tim333 6mo ago
  As a London cyclist I don't really mind the odd taxi / Waymo dropping off in the bike lane. It's an annoyance but I guess they have to drop off somewhere.
• panick21_ 6mo ago
  Fucking ridiclous. Police, Waymo and everybody else need to keep out of the bike lanes. Bike lanes are vital transportarion infrastructure that if used correctly can have more threwput then car lanes by far whipe being cheaper and better in literally every way for a city.
• toofy 6mo ago
  if this is the case, they should say “won’t” rather than “can’t” “Waymo won’t avoid bike lanes…” would be much more accurate. obviously the can’t part would be nonsense. they can avoid lanes where traffic flows the opposite direction so obviously they can. to me this means we should take their license away. if they said “we won’t avoid oncoming traffic, we would take their license away. just like one way streets are for cars traveling in one direction, bike lanes are for bikes. if you or i drove the wrong way down a one way repeatedly we would rightfully be in trouble. why do these companies keep behaving like they don’t have to follow the same rules you and i do?
• geor9e 6mo ago
  As a bicyclist who hates cars, I'm totally fine with this. I've been riding alongside Waymos in San Francisco for seven years now, and they are the most polite and protective drivers ever. If I'm merging into traffic and I can get in front of a Waymo, it's the best feeling in the world. Waymo will see you from any direction with lasers and always yield to you. It's better they block the whole bike lane momentarily so I can pass them on the left, rather than have their passenger surprise swing their door into the bike lane.
• bastawhiz 6mo ago
  This is kind of silly. If you can pull over "into" a bike lane, it's a half assed bike lane. Bike lanes should be protected. If you can't, as a city, put any physical barrier between cars and bikes at all, you're really not doing anything to benefit cyclists. Splashing some green paint on a strip of road is just an excuse to pat yourself on the back and call yourself a "bike-friendly city".
• NoPicklez 6mo ago
  Why can't Waymo's sense a blind spot issue or an incoming cyclist and prevent the door from being unlocked and opened when the car comes to a stop. Just when it comes to dooring cyclists.
• RandomGerm4n 6mo ago
  This statement should be grounds for immediately banning Waymo from operating. If a driver says they can’t follow traffic rules they should lose their driver’s license until they’ve proven they’re fit to drive again. I can’t think of any reason why it should be any different for autonomous systems. If they can’t follow traffic rules they shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
• rsynnott 6mo ago
  This is absurd. Will they have per-jurisdiction settings? Because while this may not be enforced in SF, it very much is enforced in some places. > if(scofflaw) { .. }
• ralferoo 6mo ago
  This is basically the same argument as a drug dealer saying "we can't not sell drugs because some of our customers expect drugs". The law is the law. Passengers should be dropped off somewhere where the car can legally pull over and let them out. The law doesn't allow any other car to stop in a bike lane to drop off passengers, why should a robo-taxi be given an exemption to do so?