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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

(www.cnbc.com)
597 points achristmascarl | 3 comments | 22 Aug 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.602s | source
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meagher ◴[22 Aug 25 18:48 UTC] No.44988282[source]▶
This is great long term for having cars that follow traffic laws since human drivers in NYC are awful (kill/injure pedestrians, bikers, and other street users all the time).

Not so great for getting cars out of NYC and pedestrianizing more of the city/moving towards more “low traffic neighborhoods” as I imagine Waymo and other similar companies are going to fight against these efforts.

Edit: Lots of people talking about human drivers taking advantage of self-driving cars being more cautious/timid. Good news is that once you have enough self-driving cars on the road, it probably slows down/calms other traffic (see related research on speed governors).

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Workaccount2 ◴[22 Aug 25 18:51 UTC] No.44988337[source]▶
Believe it or not, NYC is actually the safest city in the country for pedestrians and bicyclists.[1]

[1]https://www.wagnerreese.com/most-dangerous-cities-cyclists-p...

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meagher ◴[22 Aug 25 18:54 UTC] No.44988366[source]▶
I’d believe it, but the fact that any pedestrians/bikers are killed/injured by cars in NYC is unacceptable.
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1. Dylan16807 ◴[22 Aug 25 19:42 UTC] No.44988954[source]▶
Do you mean that in the sense of "anyone getting killed is unacceptable" or the sense of "we need complete separation between cars and pedestrians/bikers, somehow"?
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2. bryanlarsen ◴[22 Aug 25 20:10 UTC] No.44989226[source]▶
The rule of thumb for almost completely eliminating pedestrian fatalities is complete separation or a 20mph speed limit. A 20mph speed limit is far more feasible for the 5 boroughs than most other American cities.
3. woodruffw ◴[22 Aug 25 20:12 UTC] No.44989244[source]▶
I think there's a third more charitable reading: that current injury and fatality rates are still too high, even if they compare favorably to the rest of the US's rates. It's unrealistic to have no traffic injuries ever; this doesn't imply that NYC can't do better.