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>and cause WAY fewer traffic incidents than human drivers. Ironically the best way to verify this is that when they do cause traffic issues, it becomes nationa

>and cause WAY fewer traffic incidents than human drivers. Ironically the best way to verify this is that when they do cause traffic issues, it becomes national news. Imagine breaking down and blocking an intersection in Edgewood Georgia, and then getting a call that night from your Uncle in Oregon saying he saw your breakdown on the news...

alex1138 3mo ago
There was a story here about it hitting a child (I think) but it was determined to be much less serious than if a human driver was involved
- heaney-555 3mo ago
  https://medium.com/the-generator/a-waymo-vehicle-hit-a-kid-but-thats-not-the-full-story-8ea4c189c2e9 https://medium.com/the-generator/a-waymo-vehicle-hit-a-kid-b... "As the Waymo approached the double-parked SUV, a child ran out from behind the SUV and into the roadway, directly in front of the Waymo." Waymo cannae change the laws of physics. Braking distances exist for AI-driven vehicles just as much as human-driven ones.
  - waterhouse 3mo ago
    And if anything, I'd expect machines to have faster reflexes than humans. The Medium article is walled off, but I found another source[1]: "The child reported minor injuries and did not require transportation to a hospital. ... Waymo said at the time that the child ran into the street from behind a double-parked SUV and that the vehicle braked hard before contact, reducing speed significantly before impact." Edit: Waymo's blog[2] says it "reduc[ed] speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made", and that "our peer-reviewed model[3] shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph". [1] https://ktla.com/news/local-news/new-details-released-in-waymo-vehicle-crash-with-9-year-old-near-santa-monica-school/ https://ktla.com/news/local-news/new-details-released-in-way... [2] https://waymo.com/blog/2026/01/a-commitment-to-transparency-and-road-safety/ https://waymo.com/blog/2026/01/a-commitment-to-transparency-... [3] https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/ https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/
  - mlyle 3mo ago
    > Braking distances exist for AI-driven vehicles just as much as human-driven ones. Reaction times differ, though, and abilities to blend deceleration and turning and awareness of what else is around. (Waymo's tendency to be a good defensive driver and bleed a few miles per hour at anything odd help too... though it is worth noting that if Waymo was 1MPH slower, that 6MPH collision wouldn't have happened at all).
- graton 3mo ago
  https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY26FH008.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY26FH008.aspx
echelon 3mo ago
> Edgewood Georgia, I love when HN mentions my state or city, but that's the road and neighborhood one block down from me. I feel seen. To add something more substantive to this thread, apparently Google's deal with Uber for distribution has become incredibly adversarial in our state. Uber won't explicitly let you book a Waymo or let you know if you're in the Waymo range.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Thank you so much for revealing your location. This data point has been added to your shadow profile. Kind regards, Palantir.
  - echelon 3mo ago
    I've been on this site for 15 years. The damage is already done.
  - zymhan 3mo ago
    Buddy, be real.
- zymhan 3mo ago
  Definitely never seen it written as "Edgewood Georgia" before but I there really is only one. Okay two, Avenue and the shopping center.
slg 3mo ago
Would we apply this same logic to Tesla Autopilot? As a disclaimer, this is neither an anti-Waymo comment or a pro-Tesla comment, I just find in interesting how these small sample size incidents are both covered and perceived in the absence of actual verifiable safety statistics.
- jackp96 3mo ago
  I'm under the impression (worth a check) that we do have verifiable safety statistics and that Waymos are significantly safer than Teslas at this point? That's not to say that Tesla's autopilot isn't safer than the average human driver—it might be—but I thought it was settled territory that Waymos are better on safety.
  - Fogest 3mo ago
    Not really a fair comparison between Tesla's autopilot and Waymo though. You'd have to compare Tesla's Robotaxi but I believe they have been running for a far shorter period and I'm not sure how much data is out yet or how reliable it would be at this stage. The Robotaxi runs I believe a different version of autopilot meant to not have a human driver and has a lot more work that goes into making sure it's highly tested in the area it is being deployed. Whereas the Tesla Autopilot I believe can work in pretty much any area, so it may have more potential issues that come up. Also a common thing I see happening with the Tesla Autopilot for an accident is that it's often not the fault of the autopilot. It's often the fault of the human driver who takes over last second. Naturally the driver will lie or not even realize they were the problem as they may have had auto pilot active 1 second before the crash. I think it's that natural human instinct when you see something happening to crap the wheel or hit the pedal in that "oh shit" kind of reflex. And that sometimes causes the driver to make a mistake. I actually was in a crash with a person driving a Tesla vehicle where I think this was the cause. 3 lane highway, they were in the center lane, I was in the left lane, transport truck in the right lane. The transport truck slightly drift towards the edge of their lane and the Tesla driver freaked out and over corrected their steering wheel to the left and came swerving into my lane and was losing control of their car between both lanes until they suddenly slammed on their brakes in front of me. I gotta say, the Tesla brakes combined with the regenerative braking have some impressive stopping power. Unfortunately that also meant they stopped way faster and so suddenly that I hit their rear a bit. I got very lucky that insurance ruled in my favour and had them 100% at fault. Apologies for the tangent, just trying to illustrate a point via a personal story of how even when the system is working well and keeping the driver safe, they can still make a human-like overreaction which overrides the autopilot and leads to a crash. I get pretty annoyed when I see news articles with the headlines "Tesla crashed while auto pilot activated", but then there has yet to be an investigation and we actually don't know whether autopilot was in fact active or not yet. It's a clickbait style headline that I think makes people more hesitant about the progress of Waymo and Robotaxi vehicles.

alex1138 3mo ago

There was a story here about it hitting a child (I think) but it was determined to be much less serious than if a human driver was involved

heaney-555 3mo ago
https://medium.com/the-generator/a-waymo-vehicle-hit-a-kid-but-thats-not-the-full-story-8ea4c189c2e9 https://medium.com/the-generator/a-waymo-vehicle-hit-a-kid-b... "As the Waymo approached the double-parked SUV, a child ran out from behind the SUV and into the roadway, directly in front of the Waymo." Waymo cannae change the laws of physics. Braking distances exist for AI-driven vehicles just as much as human-driven ones.
- waterhouse 3mo ago
  And if anything, I'd expect machines to have faster reflexes than humans. The Medium article is walled off, but I found another source[1]: "The child reported minor injuries and did not require transportation to a hospital. ... Waymo said at the time that the child ran into the street from behind a double-parked SUV and that the vehicle braked hard before contact, reducing speed significantly before impact." Edit: Waymo's blog[2] says it "reduc[ed] speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made", and that "our peer-reviewed model[3] shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph". [1] https://ktla.com/news/local-news/new-details-released-in-waymo-vehicle-crash-with-9-year-old-near-santa-monica-school/ https://ktla.com/news/local-news/new-details-released-in-way... [2] https://waymo.com/blog/2026/01/a-commitment-to-transparency-and-road-safety/ https://waymo.com/blog/2026/01/a-commitment-to-transparency-... [3] https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/ https://waymo.com/blog/2022/09/benchmarking-av-safety/
- mlyle 3mo ago
  > Braking distances exist for AI-driven vehicles just as much as human-driven ones. Reaction times differ, though, and abilities to blend deceleration and turning and awareness of what else is around. (Waymo's tendency to be a good defensive driver and bleed a few miles per hour at anything odd help too... though it is worth noting that if Waymo was 1MPH slower, that 6MPH collision wouldn't have happened at all).
graton 3mo ago
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY26FH008.aspx https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/HWY26FH008.aspx

echelon 3mo ago

> Edgewood Georgia, I love when HN mentions my state or city, but that's the road and neighborhood one block down from me. I feel seen. To add something more substantive to this thread, apparently Google's deal with Uber for distribution has become incredibly adversarial in our state. Uber won't explicitly let you book a Waymo or let you know if you're in the Waymo range.

inigyou 3mo ago
Thank you so much for revealing your location. This data point has been added to your shadow profile. Kind regards, Palantir.
- echelon 3mo ago
  I've been on this site for 15 years. The damage is already done.
- zymhan 3mo ago
  Buddy, be real.
zymhan 3mo ago
Definitely never seen it written as "Edgewood Georgia" before but I there really is only one. Okay two, Avenue and the shopping center.

slg 3mo ago

Would we apply this same logic to Tesla Autopilot? As a disclaimer, this is neither an anti-Waymo comment or a pro-Tesla comment, I just find in interesting how these small sample size incidents are both covered and perceived in the absence of actual verifiable safety statistics.

jackp96 3mo ago
I'm under the impression (worth a check) that we do have verifiable safety statistics and that Waymos are significantly safer than Teslas at this point? That's not to say that Tesla's autopilot isn't safer than the average human driver—it might be—but I thought it was settled territory that Waymos are better on safety.
- Fogest 3mo ago
  Not really a fair comparison between Tesla's autopilot and Waymo though. You'd have to compare Tesla's Robotaxi but I believe they have been running for a far shorter period and I'm not sure how much data is out yet or how reliable it would be at this stage. The Robotaxi runs I believe a different version of autopilot meant to not have a human driver and has a lot more work that goes into making sure it's highly tested in the area it is being deployed. Whereas the Tesla Autopilot I believe can work in pretty much any area, so it may have more potential issues that come up. Also a common thing I see happening with the Tesla Autopilot for an accident is that it's often not the fault of the autopilot. It's often the fault of the human driver who takes over last second. Naturally the driver will lie or not even realize they were the problem as they may have had auto pilot active 1 second before the crash. I think it's that natural human instinct when you see something happening to crap the wheel or hit the pedal in that "oh shit" kind of reflex. And that sometimes causes the driver to make a mistake. I actually was in a crash with a person driving a Tesla vehicle where I think this was the cause. 3 lane highway, they were in the center lane, I was in the left lane, transport truck in the right lane. The transport truck slightly drift towards the edge of their lane and the Tesla driver freaked out and over corrected their steering wheel to the left and came swerving into my lane and was losing control of their car between both lanes until they suddenly slammed on their brakes in front of me. I gotta say, the Tesla brakes combined with the regenerative braking have some impressive stopping power. Unfortunately that also meant they stopped way faster and so suddenly that I hit their rear a bit. I got very lucky that insurance ruled in my favour and had them 100% at fault. Apologies for the tangent, just trying to illustrate a point via a personal story of how even when the system is working well and keeping the driver safe, they can still make a human-like overreaction which overrides the autopilot and leads to a crash. I get pretty annoyed when I see news articles with the headlines "Tesla crashed while auto pilot activated", but then there has yet to be an investigation and we actually don't know whether autopilot was in fact active or not yet. It's a clickbait style headline that I think makes people more hesitant about the progress of Waymo and Robotaxi vehicles.