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Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

(techcrunch.com)
281 points nharada | 1 comments | 12 Nov 25 16:06 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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greesil ◴[12 Nov 25 16:57 UTC] No.45902531[source]▶
I have seen a Waymo do a very stupid thing where it darted across a busy street, and it left very little margin of error for the oncoming traffic, which happened to be a loaded dump truck that could not have stopped. The dump truck driver was clearly surprised. It was a move that I never would have made as a driver. Did they dial the aggression up? I'm sure they're safer than humans in aggregate as there are some dumb humans out there but it's not infallible.
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brokencode ◴[12 Nov 25 17:01 UTC] No.45902583[source]▶
Waymo continues to improve every year, but dumb drivers never will.
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izzydata ◴[12 Nov 25 17:04 UTC] No.45902626[source]▶
It is probably possible to get drivers to improve if the incentives were there or if they had no choice due to external factors. I bet it would be cheaper than money spent on self driving tech too.

Or public transit on a track.

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1. bluGill ◴[12 Nov 25 17:20 UTC] No.45902820[source]▶
Drivers can improve, but they won't. They will talk about the abstract just fine, but always in context of how "the other guy" is so bad, they resist any suggestion that they might not be good either. As soon as your point out something that nearly everyone is doing wrong (as backed up by statistics and traffic safety engineers who study this) and suddenly they will shut you down. As the other reply said: drivers vote and so any change that would affect all of them is impossible.

I'd love to see better public transit, but transit is so bad for most of us that it would take a massive investment before there is any return, and half measures won't work. You have to go all in on transit before you can see any significant change - if you invest in the wrong network you won't know until a massive amount as been invested and there is no return (leaving open the question of if a different investment would have worked).