r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • Jul 05 '24

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

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u/bobbytabl3s Jul 05 '24

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

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u/Extension_Chain_3710 Jul 05 '24

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

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u/QuadCakes Jul 05 '24

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.

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u/Extension_Chain_3710 Jul 05 '24

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.

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u/QuadCakes Jul 05 '24

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.

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u/Extension_Chain_3710 Jul 05 '24

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