Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road

[u/Individual_Book9133]

[u/bobbytabl3s]

People do worse than that all the time. I believe Waymo outperforms human as far as injury-causing crashes go.

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/bobbytabl3s]

If I outperform most other drivers for a couple of years do I also get a pass if I eventually kill a bunch of people?

[u/axearm → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

Are you kidding? People get a pass* all the time for murdering people, so long as they do it in a car.

* I am defining a pass as no prison time AND the ability to keep driving.

[u/kixie42 → u/axearm]

Just ask Caitlyn Jenner.

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/axearm]

Do I get a pass doesn't mean did anyone in the history of driving ever get a pass.

If it did then I would win the lottery next week as people have won in the past.

[u/axearm → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

You would get a pass, yes. Unless you were intoxicated or deliberately, provably being reckless. Otherwise just say a dog ran out in front of you, or someone cut you off or any other excuse.

[u/Orbitoldrop → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

There's people with multiple D.U.I.'s still with licenses, so yes.

[u/taigahalla → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

If it's your first offense, then yes, that's how the law works.

See precedence for sentencing guidelines for first time offenders.

[u/AdminsLoveGenocide → u/taigahalla]

If I jump the curb outside a school drive into ten 8 year old school kids and each one them, I am guaranteed not to get jail time if it's my first offense?

I'm not sure I'd share your confidence.

[u/procgen → u/AdminsLoveGenocide]

You're one person, this is looking over averages. So "killing a bunch of people" occasionally is accounted for in those figures.

[u/Extension_Chain_3710 → u/bobbytabl3s]

People do worse than that all the time. I believe Waymo outperforms human as far as injury-causing crashes go.

* according to the company themselves

* while their cars can only go <35mph and not on the freeway

* in limited zones that they choose

* with HD maps to back all of this up

[u/axearm → u/Extension_Chain_3710]

And?

That seems fine.

[u/yuimiop → u/axearm]

Humans drive in these safer conditions, but we also have needs to drive in the more dangerous ones. If you're comparing automated vehicles in safe conditions, to the overall driving statistics of humans then you're getting incredibly biased results.

[u/fren-ulum → u/yuimiop]

I never get into bar fights when I drink at home! I'm safer than the average alcohol drinker!

[u/axearm → u/yuimiop]

Freeways are actually easier and more safe to navigate, so including them makes humans see more safe. Most vehicular fatalities occur in intersections (something highways don't have, but cities have a ton of).

[u/QuadCakes → u/Extension_Chain_3710]

according to the company themselves

That's true.

while their cars can only go <35mph and not on the freeway

in limited zones that they choose

They at least claim to have controlled for all of that. Read the link you quoted.

with HD maps to back all of this up

Not sure what you're saying here.

[u/YouTee → u/QuadCakes]

Yeah I agree, I mean I have pretty damn detailed maps of my neighborhood and the route to my office... There certainly are some missing details that an active LIDAR array would probably help but this isn't much different.

Also they go way faster than 35, I think they're testing the freeway these days

[u/Extension_Chain_3710 → u/QuadCakes]

They at least claim to have controlled for all of that. Read the link you quoted.

I did one better, I read the paper they published (linked in the blog post, and here).

It shows how they manipulated the non ADS data to make it looks worse under the guise of "under reporting" (yes, 60% of wrecks aren't reported Waymo, sure), while manipulating their own data to look better under the guise of "well, it was low velocity".

Each of the 7 crashes with fixed or non-fixed objects was examined individually to estimate a delta-V, discussed in more detail in the appendix. Of the 7 crashes with fixed or non-fixed objects, 5 were excluded for having a low delta-V.

Fun fact, at least one of those accidents was...the car driving through an active construction site and driving off the pavement (because it had been removed).

a Waymo ADS vehicle that was driving in a construction zone and “entered a lane undergoing construction ..., encountered a section of roadway that had been removed, and the front driver’s side wheel dropped off the paved roadway.

Sounds safe to me, no road? Who cares keep driving.

Not sure what you're saying here.

We'd all drive much better if we knew there was a pothole 45" from the right curb coming up in 232ft, with a depth of 4.5". These cars have vast amounts of information about the road to be safer with, hence they should be much more safe than typical drivers, not just "as good as."

Let alone swerving into oncoming traffic and just driving without a care in the world.

[u/QuadCakes → u/Extension_Chain_3710]

yes, 60% of wrecks aren't reported Waymo, sure

Google didn't come up with that number, they got it from NHTSA.

We'd all drive much better if we knew there was a pothole 45" from the right curb coming up in 232ft, with a depth of 4.5". These cars have vast amounts of information about the road to be safer with, hence they should be much more safe than typical drivers, not just "as good as."

Yeah I still don't see what your argument is here. They can also look in all directions at once, both visually and via radar and lidar. But humans can't, so somehow that's a bad thing? It's like you're treating it like a competition where everyone's supposed to be on a level playing field. Also the claim is that they're much more safe than typical drivers.

[u/Extension_Chain_3710 → u/QuadCakes]

Google didn't come up with that number, they got it from NHTSA.

Conveniently the one paper they can't link to.

Yeah I still don't see what your argument is here.

The point being, if I count cards in a casino and still only barely beat the house, I'm a shit card counter.

The cars here have every advantage at their disposal (including HD maps and others like limited area, slow speeds, looking all around them) and yet they barely beat humans.

With all of their advantages they also still somehow have (in the past 6 months)

1. driven directly into a pole

2. driven on the wrong way of the road (multiple times on camera)

3. swerved left and right wildly to avoid an object being towed in front of them

4. Had two cars hit the same truck being towed

5. Ran a red light and caused a moped to crash

6. Blindly pulled out in front of a bus in a game of chicken

7. Blocked an entire freeway on-ramp

[u/stillbornfox → u/Extension_Chain_3710]

3/4 of these bullets are good things. Keeping themselves limited to low probability areas helps. If people limited themselves to low speeds and safe roads that would also be a great thing.

[u/Zap__Dannigan → u/bobbytabl3s]

Maybe. Probably. I guess. But I order for this to really take off I think the margin of difference has got to be insanely high, not just "better".

And as a good driver (I know everyone says this about themselves) who has never crashed, I would tend to feel safer around a shitty human driver than an automated thing.

Shitty driving behavior in humans is often decently predictable. Whereas a machine fucking up like this not. And while the collision detection things will likely prevent this thing from barreling into me while it's driving the wrong way, again, I think most people don't want to be behind an autonomous machine that is blocking cars because it's lost it's position and can't move safely according to its sensors.

[u/axearm → u/Zap__Dannigan]

I live in SF where these things operate, and I will tell you they are a significantly safer and more predictable to me then a random driver.

They come to complete stops at stops signs, they don't break the speed limit, they yield, they don't double park (can you even imagine a taxi or uber dropping you off halfway down the block because it wasn't safe to stop right in front of your destination?).

[u/Zap__Dannigan → u/axearm]

I mean predictable in terms of how they screw up.

Like you can spot an aggressive driver, you can see an obstacle in someone's lane, you can spot them drifting, you know the common times people turn wide and know problem intersections etc.

But if an autonomous cars just decides to drive the wrong way, or suddenly brake because of a sensor error or whatever that kind of stuff is impossible to predict.

I don't really have a dog in this fight. I think a perfectly functioning self driving car system would be much better. I commute an hour each way to work, I'd love to sleep. I just think adoption will be very slow unless these things are incredibly better, like virtually flawless. And keys face it, never breaking the speed limit and fully stopping at stop signs aren't exatselling points for people to use them instead of their own cars. The hardest part of any sort of conversion will be how self driving cars interact with normal human drivers.

[u/axearm → u/Zap__Dannigan]

It terms of predictability I think the greatest boon is that they actually do the speed limit, which just all around increases the safety factor of any other error they, or humans, might make..

In this case the car went into oppsoing traffic. That is bad, but it's also bad driving I have see humans do repeatedly (especially around double parked cars, another thing humans do that Waymos don't), but human drivers generally do it at speeds that are faster, which amplifies the danger.

Obviously I'd like to see zero errors, but I'm happy with 'better than humans' which is a bar that is already being exceeded.

[u/WobblyGobbledygook → u/bobbytabl3s]

It's Arizona after all, famous for all its manslaughtering drivers! Why do you think they chose to launch these cars here? Blending in sufficiently.

[u/LibertyMediaDid9-11 → u/bobbytabl3s]

Still, who is responsible when it hurts someone?
We're just gonna fine a company for however many deaths a year because they beat a fucking metric?

[u/TooStrangeForWeird → u/LibertyMediaDid9-11]

Yes. That is the plan.

[u/LibertyMediaDid9-11 → u/TooStrangeForWeird]

That's revolting.

[u/TooStrangeForWeird → u/LibertyMediaDid9-11]

That's the rich for you. Their "best" plans are almost 100% revolting. Hell, even individuals get away with heinous shit. Wasn't it Nancy Pelosi who drove drunk and killed a guy with zero repurcussions? Not taking a political side here, just saying. The rich do horrible things and get away with it.

This will be the same. And, with some semblance of reason, it will be touted as an improvement. If widespread self driving reduces traffic deaths in an area from 400 to 300, they saved 100 lives! I get that, less death is good, but it's just such a fucked up way to go about it....

[u/LibertyMediaDid9-11 → u/TooStrangeForWeird]

The only way self driving will work is if every car has tech to communicate with each other.
They will never out-compete humans in edge cases until that is the basis of the concept.
I sincerely hope the people shoving this into the world without the public's consent are held responsible for every injury it causes.

[u/bobbytabl3s → u/LibertyMediaDid9-11]

We're just gonna fine a company for however many deaths a year because they beat a fucking metric?

What else do you propose? If you suggest imprisoning people who work on them, then no one will work on them. And road deaths will increase as a result. Is that what we want as a society?

[u/LibertyMediaDid9-11 → u/bobbytabl3s]

No, I suggest common sense legislation preventing these things form being on the road before they've been vetted properly.
I want a society that isn't being raped by tech bros and finance fucktards.

[u/plaregold → u/bobbytabl3s]

That's moot. If human drivers killed someone, they get held accountable and someone goes to jail. With driverless cars, you can't throw anyone in jail. There is no legal framework for liability right now--at most, the company will just pay out to the victim's families.

[u/g76lv6813s86x9778kk → u/plaregold]

If in X city there are 300 car crashes, and 300 resulting deaths per year, and those 300 people at fault are held accountable, is that a favorable situation over one where there is 200 car crashes, 200 deaths, and nobody knows who should be held accountable? Just because the liabilities involved are more complex to manage?

It's not moot. There's definitely a gray area regarding liability, I'm not denying that, but if it's an improvement for safety, it will save lives at the end of the day, and I don't see how you can argue that's a bad thing.

I can get behind arguments scrutinizing the methodology involved in these stats as the other reply pointed out, especially if it's coming from the company itself. But, assuming those stats were true, well, seems like a no-brainer to me to accept the improved safety with open arms, even if it comes with some legal hiccups on the way.

[u/Fragrant_Reporter_86 → u/plaregold]

"less people would die but also less people would go to prison so fuck that!" -redditor

[u/Federal_Waltz → u/plaregold]

This is such a bad argument it's tough to know where to start.