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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

(www.cnbc.com)
597 points achristmascarl | 4 comments | 22 Aug 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.237s | source
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TulliusCicero ◴[22 Aug 25 17:30 UTC] No.44987256[source]▶
It's fascinating seeing all the comments elsewhere anytime Waymo starts testing in another city along the lines of, "ah, but how will they handle X, Y, and Z here?? Checkmate, robots!" despite having already launched service in several other cities.

Granted, NYC is the biggest city in the US, so maybe that sort of reaction is more reasonable there than when people in Dallas or Boston do it.

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testfrequency ◴[22 Aug 25 17:40 UTC] No.44987366[source]▶
Since Waymo is very reliable in LA and SF, you will be just fine in NYC.

Your grid system is far less of a challenge than the amount of hills, twists, narrow streets and low visibility back streets in California.

I genuinely think the most complicated challenge for Waymo in NYC will be…winter snow and ice.

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bytemut ◴[22 Aug 25 18:14 UTC] No.44987778[source]▶
NYC is a new set of challenges. As you already mentioned snow and ice is new. But also missing the high density of people and cars per square area. Behavior of drivers and pedestrians are different and much less polite. I can see it working in NYC but "just fine" is a bit of an over confidence... at least not for the first few years before they learn to deal with these issues that they don't face yet in LA and SF.
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1. testfrequency ◴[22 Aug 25 18:37 UTC] No.44988120[source]▶
We do have narrow streets in LA with double parked cars, cars parked in the street only allowing one car through the middle at a time, and plenty of construction closures and obstacles.

Why do so many NYC people think there’s comically no cars in LA or neighborhood streets?

Also, I can assure you LA drivers are a tad bit more aggressive than NYC drivers (less honking and flicking off though, LA people are more a drive you off the road or into the shoulder sort of passive aggressive).

I was born and raised in NYC and have lived in LA for quite some time, still going home often for family. I’m really struggling with reading these “NYC is unique” comments regarding Waymo traffic.

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2. xnx ◴[22 Aug 25 18:55 UTC] No.44988381[source]▶
There's a weird thing where people like to brag(?) that their city has the craziest, worst, drivers/roads.
3. nobody9999 ◴[22 Aug 25 21:17 UTC] No.44989912[source]▶
>Also, I can assure you LA drivers are a tad bit more aggressive than NYC drivers (less honking and flicking off though, LA people are more a drive you off the road or into the shoulder sort of passive aggressive).

>I was born and raised in NYC and have lived in LA for quite some time, still going home often for family. I’m really struggling with reading these “NYC is unique” comments regarding Waymo traffic.

Slightly OT, but that reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago (I can't remember the publication though :( )

It had two identical panels with two cars and two drivers on a road:

One panel was marked "Los Angeles" where the driver of one car had a "speaking" bubble that said "Have a nice day!" and that same driver had a "thought" bubble saying "Fuck you!"

The other panel was marked "New York," where the driver noted above's "speaking" bubble said "Fuck you!" and the the "thought" bubble said "Have a nice day!"

I've always thought it was a great metaphor. Then again, I'm a native NYer. ;)

4. dgunay ◴[23 Aug 25 00:13 UTC] No.44991607[source]▶
Having driven in both LA and NYC+NJ, LA drivers feel almost serenely calm to me most of the time.

In LA, as long as you don't do anything obviously stupid and give plenty of room for people to see you coming, people will just chill and leave you be. Every now and then I will see someone do something unfathomably crazy though.

In NYC (NJ especially), this didn't work. I had to be actively psychologically manipulating other drivers in order to get even a simple lane change done. Make the other guy think he won by signaling earlier than normal so he'll gun it sooner and leave space behind him, or don't signal until I'm halfway into the lane already.