[HN Gopher] DMV approves Cruise and Waymo for commercial service...
___________________________________________________________________
DMV approves Cruise and Waymo for commercial service in parts of
Bay Area
Author : ra7
Score : 398 points
Date : 2021-09-30 19:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dmv.ca.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dmv.ca.gov)
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| So, when can I hail a Cruise vehicle?
| ehsankia wrote:
| after 10PM apparently.
| black_13 wrote:
| Auto-de-fe : Zelazney https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-
| Fe_(short_story)
| asdff wrote:
| Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car? It
| was always a joke in college how the dream was to get hit by a
| university bus and have your tuition paid off in a huge
| settlement. I'd imagine if a waymo car made its way around the
| more desperate parts of the bay area like the tenderloin and
| liability ends up shifting to huge company with billions of
| dollars, we might end up with a Russia sort of situation in terms
| of rampant insurance fraud. Maybe waymo et al will just respond
| by never servicing these areas, which will no doubt open an
| entire can of worms in the press and among the most virtuous
| online.
| dumdumdumdum wrote:
| > Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car?
|
| As is usually the case with the legal system, whoever has the
| least amount of political/economic power. So either the safety
| driver or the victim.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg
| 0_____0 wrote:
| The cars themselves are studded with every kind of camera and
| sensor you can imagine, it'd be pretty hard to pull of an
| insurance scam
| notatoad wrote:
| >a russia sort of situation
|
| in russia the rampant insurance fraud ended in everybody
| getting dashcams to defend themselves. waymo and cruise have
| _way_ more than just a dashcam - if you can successfully commit
| insurance fraud while being recorded on a dozen cameras as well
| as lidar and infrared sensors, you probably deserve the
| settlement.
| asdff wrote:
| Set a mark, people will aim for it.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Aim, sure.
|
| That doesn't mean enough people will hit it to matter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving
| car?_
|
| Short answer: in the U.S., it will depend on the facts and
| circumstances. Common law has many drawbacks. But organic
| adaptability is one of its advantages.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I mean, any pedestrian fatality will have a full 360 lidar
| recording of the context. I suspect fraudulent claims could be
| caught pretty easily.
| asdff wrote:
| How would you even discern fraud from the real thing? You
| could just get drunk and act drunker then stumble onto the
| road, you'd blow wet on the breathalyzer and the story is
| plausible enough that a public jury will side with you, the
| innocent guy on a night out or the guy down on his luck, over
| scary robot car company, then a precedent will be set.
| bialpio wrote:
| Who is liable now if this happened with a human driver
| involved? Aren't there any rules about it already?
| belltaco wrote:
| Isn't public intoxication against the law, as is
| jaywalking? What happens if the exact same situation
| happens today but to a normal car with a driver?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Except where there is specific law that mentions the
| violation of law and affects your fact pattern (e.g.
| stand your ground laws that require someone to be
| committing a crime for the law to apply to the self
| defense case) violating the law at the time doesn't
| really mean much when it comes to who pays up. The law is
| between you and the state. Deciding who pays up is
| between you and the other party.
|
| You can't just stumble onto the highway where the normal
| traffic flow is well in excess of the speed limit and
| expect to get a payday because whoever hits you will be
| speeding.
|
| That said, most of this goes out the window if you are
| committing a handful of crimes that society has decided
| exempt you from most of the protections of the legal
| system (terrorism, driving drunk, etc). If you are drunk
| and someone jumps in front of your car to commit
| insurance fraud it won't matter if you have 360deg 4k
| video of it, you will likely lose.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car?
|
| While this is not exclusive of other liability, probably one or
| both of:
|
| (1) The person hit, if they were breaking the law in a way
| which made it unreasonable to expect a driver to avoid hitting
| them,
|
| (2) The manufacturer of the self-driving vehicle, under normal
| defective product liability principles.
|
| The owner and/or, where different, operator of the vehicle, as
| well as other people in the chain of commerce may _also_ be
| liable, especially when (2) applies.
| amirhirsch wrote:
| Can this be used to move cargo from place to place without people
| in the car?
| Vargohoat wrote:
| Walmart already has a delivery pilot with an AV company (I
| think in AZ?). I'm not sure if it's without safety drivers yet
| though
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Given the hours of operation, I wonder what happens when your
| self-driving car shows up with puke in the upholstery from a
| previous rider
| joe463369 wrote:
| Open up your app. Hit 'Cancel ride', hit 'Unsanitary', wait for
| the replacement taxi. Really, it's the same problem Amazon had
| with delivering high value goods when people weren't in. If
| something goes wrong, assume the customer is telling the truth
| and try to make it right, but if they're at it, ban them from
| your service.
| bennyg wrote:
| I'm sure they have a process for "car unsafe" arrivals.
| asdff wrote:
| Ironic how by 'saving money' without the human driving the car,
| they end up probably spending a mountain more on engineers
| debugging this software constantly along with cleaning staff
| and maintenance for the entire fleet, legal staff for
| regulatory issues, and no doubt a huge insurance bill to pay.
| Sunk cost is a strong fallacy to see past I guess.
| bagels wrote:
| One driver, one car. One engineer, thousands of cars?
| cromka wrote:
| I don't think you grasp the scale of this change. You think
| that this "mountain of engineers" will equal to the
| (eventual) number of taxi drivers displaced? WORLDWIDE?
|
| Also, you think those engineers, capable of creating an
| autonomous car, somehow will find it too difficult to install
| liquid detectors all over the car and combine them with
| cameras inside to would allow for instantaneous, remote
| inspection of the car and imposing the penalties/taking the
| car offline - all of which are possible with existing
| technology?
| asdff wrote:
| All I'm saying is that when you look at other sectors with
| low cost labor, smart money like mcdonalds had the tech
| stack to replace their burger flippers with robots just
| like the auto industry in the 1970s, so there's probably a
| good reason why they still have human burger flippers
| today.
| Jensson wrote:
| Robots that can flip burgers are expensive. Robots that
| can drive us around already exists and so affordable that
| we see billions of them on the roads, they are called
| cars. All the road robots need is a better steering
| system, we don't need to invent tricky machinery. The
| burger flipping robots however would need tons of
| different new movable parts to be invented, mass produced
| and shipped all over etc. That would be expensive.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| You hit a button in the app and they send you a different car,
| while the dirty one goes to a cleaning station.
|
| Possibly they give you a small credit for the trouble, and
| maybe ding the previous rider somehow.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| Not that I think this problem is unsolvable, but I do think
| it's harder than you make it. And a problem only autonomous
| (really, unchaperoned) cars have.
|
| A car with a spill in it, bodily or otherwise, is probably
| out of commission for the night. Depending on the type of
| stain and time before treatment, it could take the car out of
| the fleet for a few days. Eventually self-driving cars have
| bus seats? idk.
|
| No problem, we can make the rider accountable. We have
| cameras in the car. First issue here is you can't trust users
| alone to provide accountability. Say I put my leftovers on
| the floor. You get in next and don't notice. The next rider
| however complains of a strong fish smell in the car. The car
| is taken out of service and your reputation is dinged since
| you were the last person in the car.
|
| That's no good, so we'll need humans to review video and find
| culprits. Spinning up such a team will require software,
| managers, and oversight. Being alone with your date in a
| self-driving car is _exciting_ so you definitely don't want
| your employees to freely copy or share private videos of
| riders.
|
| Like I said, this stuff is all solvable with centralized
| teams, but it cuts into the profit fantasy a bit. And it
| simply didn't exist when every car in your fleet came with a
| chaperone incentivized to take care of your/their car.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I think you're overthinking it. Yes, those are issues, but
| they're hardly blockers. Few rides will fuck up the
| interior, and fewer still will have a dispute about who's
| responsible for a mess. Compared to having one 'employee'
| per car at all times, there's still plenty of economies of
| scale to exploit for profit.
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| You're way overcomplicating things. Uber already handles
| this kind of stuff. Driver gets paid on the person who
| threw up's dime ($50-200), driver is responsible for
| cleaning it up. It'll just be a centralized maintenance hub
| instead of the driver. You won't get dinged unless you
| consistently get reported, because Waymo (like Uber) will
| follow the Amazon model of customer-is-always-right.
|
| These are all solved problems.
| marmshallow wrote:
| Sounds about right. No real difference from a human-driven
| Uber
| jamez1 wrote:
| It is logical to assume self driving cars start off in low risk
| areas, prove their concept, and gradually take on more and more
| use cases. Things like retirement villages and so on, where this
| incremental approach has already had success. Skepticism is easy
| when thinking about the grand scale but this incrementalism will
| surely win out in the end.
| kvogt wrote:
| Cruise founder here. This is kind of confusing. Short version:
|
| - Cruise permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public
| (fully driverless, nobody in the car)
|
| - Waymo permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public
| (human safety driver behind the wheel at all times)
|
| - Nuro permit is for robo-delivery, available to public (no human
| passengers)
| notyourday wrote:
| > Cruise founder here. This is kind of confusing. Short
| version:
|
| > - Cruise permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public
| (fully driverless, nobody in the car)
|
| We need to have fewer executives talking about their awesome
| safe technology and more executives being forced to use their
| awesome safe technology.
|
| It is extremely unfortunate that as the condition of the permit
| the DMV did not force dogfooding requiring that every executive
| of a company applying for driverless robo-taxi permit and
| executives' families, including their children, were mandated
| to give up their drivers licenses and all other modes of
| transportation ensuring that those executives and those
| executives families are the constant test subjects of the
| technology.
|
| Same goes for the likes of Musk.
| tryitnow wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification, but is there any public resource
| I can point people to in order to confirm the difference
| between Cruise and Waymo permits?
|
| I believe you, but skeptics won't be persuaded by "the founder
| said so on HN".
| ed wrote:
| It's literally the post you're commenting on
| ra7 wrote:
| Congrats! Curious why Cruise got a permit to operate only
| between 10 PM and 6 AM? Is it a DMV decision because you
| applied for driverless operations or did Cruise specify
| operating conditions?
| booi wrote:
| Easier to dispose of the bodies maybe
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| This is not reddit or 9gag bro/sis/them/their/nb.
| crakenzak wrote:
| You must be fun at parties.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where robo drivers
| will report suspiciously shaped carryon items (e.g. "CA-
| SF-69420 reporting in. passenger spotted carrying human
| shaped object wrapped in a tarp. bleep bloop."
| Method-X wrote:
| 10PM to 6AM sounds like a great time for testing a new
| technology.
| paxys wrote:
| I'm not looking forward to the self-driving AI vs drunk
| driver battle.
| foepys wrote:
| I on the other hand am looking for the drunk person
| taking the robo-taxi instead of their own car situation.
| sangnoir wrote:
| There's actually great synergy(sorry) between self-
| driving AI and would-be drunk drivers. The only downside
| may be the need for additional investment in cleaning
| services.
| oceanghost wrote:
| I was wondering if it could be my job actually to go to a
| bar, get intoxicated, and take a Cruise home.
| ra7 wrote:
| Definitely. But just wanted to know if this restriction is
| self-imposed by Cruise to start cautious or if it's imposed
| by the DMV.
| aripickar wrote:
| Is there a timeline for when you will be rolling out the
| availability to ride in one of your vehicles to the general
| public?
| thehappypm wrote:
| I'm rooting for you!
| guiomie wrote:
| will you not have a robo-taxi service with human safety driver
| at first?
| kvogt wrote:
| We have been running one for employees on and off since 2017.
| vntok wrote:
| So is that a yes or no to parent's question?
| arthurcolle wrote:
| How could you interpret it anything other than a 'yes' ?
| adriand wrote:
| Actually, answering "yes" to that question would have
| been extremely confusing given how the question is
| worded! Which makes the snarky request for a binary
| response even less reasonable.
| dang wrote:
| I take your point but it might not have been snarky - for
| example, HN has a lot of non-native English speakers and
| different languages handle affirmation-of-negation very
| differently.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas
| vntok wrote:
| Running a program "for employees" is pretty different
| than running it "for everyone"
| civilized wrote:
| Why the difference Cruise vs Waymo?
| [deleted]
| itisit wrote:
| Serious question: how much death are you budgeting for over the
| next 18 months?
| dylan604 wrote:
| wow. just wow. in the words of Archer, "phrasing!!"
|
| there's a way to ask a serious question to get a serious
| answer, and then there's your way.
| itisit wrote:
| Yes, the direct way. I'm sure it's in the budget. Would
| love to know the figure.
| manquer wrote:
| That is really for the insurance companies covering them.
|
| The actuaries at Insurance Co do that kind of analysis
| for all products for life/ medical to workplace/ product
| safety this would probably fall under.
|
| The courts also have fairly well known tables/methods for
| calculating cost/value of life used to compute
| compensation for injury/death.
| dylan604 wrote:
| While I can appreciate that, let me rephrase my post:
|
| There's a way of asking a question without being a total
| dick, and then there's your way.
|
| Being direct doesn't mean being an asshat. I have plenty
| of experience of doing it the wrong way, and yes, I'm
| suggesting yours is not the right way.
|
| Edit: "I'm sure it's in the budget."
|
| Actually, I'm guessing this would be covered in the
| liability insurance. So it's probably a much smaller line
| item in the budget than you are so dramatically inferring
| it to be.
| nexuist wrote:
| It's a useless question anyways, because the company
| gains nothing by "budgeting" for death, and loses
| everything by settling on a real number. It's like asking
| Boeing how many families they expect to send payouts to
| in any given quarter. The only answer is zero, and any
| answer above zero is itself negligent.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not exactly useless, as it is a serious business
| concern. However, asking it the way it has been phrased
| is useless, as you've stated, stating from the start that
| you are planning on paying out fees like this is just
| dumb. It is good business planning to be aware of the
| fact that it is a >0% chance of unintended bad things
| happening, so let's take out an insurance policy to cover
| for that contingency. There's a difference between
| planning for the fact that an accident is possible vs
| planning to cause an accident.
| manquer wrote:
| Exception events like are usually covered by Insurance.
|
| However companies do provision for payouts in potential
| cases whether private/ class action or government
| regulatory ones , they are legally required to do so and
| disclose it in their filings.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Insurance means the maths and plans are worked out by
| someone.
| coding123 wrote:
| You know back in CS class we had to go over the THERAC25
| problem a lot. It wasn't so much about the specifics of the
| incorrect code, but more about the hubris that it "couldn't
| have been the code".
|
| It seems like with self driving, it's like 45 companies
| just started making clones of the THERAC25 where they "are
| pretty sure it's fixed now, this is easy". It's the same
| damn ego.
| leesec wrote:
| Tho no one is behind the wheel, do you still have people
| operating the car remotely when there are issues?
| jacquesm wrote:
| 'No human passengers' -> except for those in all the other
| vehicles on the road; for cruise it is 'and the passengers of
| the vehicle'.
|
| On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that your service
| won't kill someone?
| paul7986 wrote:
| He's trying to be one of the pioneers of robot cars ... does
| he care how many people his robot cars are going to kill
| (drivers of them to the innocent drivers driving alongside
| them) in the name of progress? PUtting them on the road and
| learning and improving the AI is the progress needed to
| perfect them over Years, but its going to be deadly... unlike
| creating and fixing bugs on a videogame live streaming site.
|
| Maybe he does care, but how much?
|
| This is not to be flippant (i appreciated and used Justin.TV
| a ton back in the day..canceled Cable TV cause everything was
| there for one to watch ... 24/7 marathons of your favorite
| shows) but what I view of the harsh reality of putting these
| things on the road as Uber's self driving car already killed
| a pedestrian. Personally, I'm not sure I could in good
| conscious work for a robot car company (just was being
| recruited by such a company).
| [deleted]
| raldi wrote:
| On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that you'll
| never kill someone while you're driving?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Pretty good. With well in excess of a million km driven, a
| valid driving license (something which no software product
| so far has been able to achieve), zero alcohol, zero drugs
| and no smartphone to distract me while driving. I see
| driving as a 'full time occupation'. My vehicle(s) (and
| that includes by bikes) are kept in tip-top condition, no
| expense spared, I'm fully aware that it isn't just my life
| that's on the line. I also have a standing order to my
| eldest that he is to shred my driving license when I turn
| 70 no matter how much I protest, and that's only 14 years
| away.
|
| I'm all for self driving cars and I believe they are the
| future. I also believe they will be a decade or more in the
| coming and that we need at least one more level-up before
| AI sofware/hardware combos are solid enough that your
| typical self-driving solution will outperform an
| experienced driver.
| raldi wrote:
| Ah, then a fair question to ask might be how confident
| Kyle is that there won't be an at-fault crash _in the
| first million km driven._
|
| (Or even better, what he predicts will be the distance
| driven per serious at-fault crash.)
| jacquesm wrote:
| Fair enough.
| jensvdh wrote:
| 70 isn't too old to drive.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Neither is 71, 72, 73, 74 and so on, and then one day you
| really were too old to drive. In a country where driving
| is a necessity there is no way around this so you get a
| lot of people driving who really shouldn't be. To play it
| safe I've set the limit at 70 for myself because I think
| that if I don't put a hard line down I will always think
| 'one more year'. This avoids the gray area entirely,
| exactly because 70 isn't too old to drive.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I know a 62 year old that shouldn't drive. And I know a
| 76 year old that is fine. It really depends upon the
| person, but our dmv isn't fit to detect this.
| katbyte wrote:
| I know people in their 20s/30s who probably shouldn't
| drive...
| [deleted]
| belltaco wrote:
| Hope we apply the same metric to human drivers as well and
| don't allow anyone on the roads till they prove they are
| attentive 100% of the time and can maneuver like F1 drivers
| at all times. Monitored cameras every 100 feet would be a
| good start to find who's driving badly, and also a required
| driver face camera that records to a blackbox like device
| that cops can get the video from, and which the driver has no
| control over.
|
| >Fatalities from Crashes
|
| >In 2016, over 33,000 traffic crashes resulting in
| fatalities, major injuries or minor injuries were reported on
| Bay Area roadways.
|
| 10% of the crashes resulted in more than minor injuries, so
| 3.3K serious crashes.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes to the being attentive, no they don't need to maneuver
| like F1 drivers because they are not in a race.
|
| Drivers in the USA are - sorry - absolutely terrible, the
| driving license requirements are ridiculous.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Your profile says you're in the Netherlands, which is a
| completely different place.
|
| You may know this already but here in the US, even though
| driving is technically a "privilege", in reality it is a
| requirement in most locales due to lack of consistent and
| reliable alternatives. That's part of why getting a
| drivers license is fairly easy.
|
| It's also why your "I'll have my son shred my license
| after I turn 70" wouldn't work unless you were living in
| a place like NYC or Chicago, or were totally okay with
| having little social life (dependent on your kids' and
| friends' ability and willingness to drive you to places).
| jacquesm wrote:
| Collectively you decide what kind of country you want to
| create and individually you have the choice to move. FWIW
| I spent years on the Canadian/USA border and have driven
| there quite a bit.
| Sargos wrote:
| These autonomous cars do maneuver like F1 drivers so I
| guess they are a big improvement already
| Retric wrote:
| Only the same way a Boeing 777 is like a fighter jet.
|
| F1 cars can break 7g's cornering where street legal cars
| have trouble hitting 1/3 of that. They do 0-120 mph
| faster than most cars can hit 0-60.
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| Is this because you specifically asked for a driverless permit?
| From the post,
|
| > Cruise has had state authority to test autonomous vehicles on
| public roads with a safety driver since 2015 and authority to
| test autonomous vehicles without a driver since October 2020.
|
| > Waymo has had state authority to test autonomous vehicles on
| public roads with a safety driver since 2014 and received a
| driverless testing permit in October 2018.
| kvogt wrote:
| Yes. It's a very different permitting process. As you might
| expect, the bar is very high to jump from driverless testing
| to operating a driverless service available to the general
| public.
|
| More info at the DMV's website (although it's a lot to
| digest): https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-
| services/auto...
| gitfan86 wrote:
| What happens when the car runs into a problem that it
| cannot address (Damage to car, blocked by obstacle in road)
| Does the passenger call you, or are you monitoring the car
| remotely for problems?
| lanternfish wrote:
| presumably all cars are persistently monitored 24/7
| anyways.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Feel free to repost this, but here's what happens in AZ
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=zdKCQKBvH-A&feature=share
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Are there any extra conditions for the company or for
| riders? Like pre-vetting, or special responsibilities.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Super awesome seeing you on HN! As a previous Cruise employee,
| genuinely happy for you and the team on this great milestone!
| killion wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification! For the Cruise rides will they be
| booked through services like Lyft or the Cruise Anywhere app?
| tialaramex wrote:
| Two questions: 1. How do we see this detail about permits, such
| as for example that Cruise are permitted to have "nobody in the
| car" while Waymo are required to have "human safety driver
| behind the wheel at all times") ?
|
| 2. Where are Cruise's testimonials etc. for the presumably
| successful San Francisco non-commercial testing of this "fully
| driverless, nobody in the car" system you now have commercial
| deployment for?
| [deleted]
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > The DMV has now approved three deployment permits.
|
| Waymo, Cruise, and who?
| tschwimmer wrote:
| Seems like Nuro.[0]
|
| [0]https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-
| services/auto...
| badkitty99 wrote:
| Get these robot cars off the road, no thank you
| inezk wrote:
| "within designated parts of San Francisco" - as for Cruise, which
| parts of San Francisco those are?
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| > The California DMV said in a separate release that Cruise
| driverless "vehicles are approved to operate on public roads
| between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at a maximum speed limit of 30 miles
| per hour."
|
| At night only testing at super low speed. It's a good way to get
| started, but definitely not an autonomous taxi that title
| implies.
| grandmczeb wrote:
| The speed limit for most residential and commercial streets in
| SF is 25mph - something like 97% of all street segments in SF
| have a limit of 30mph or lower.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Yes but it means a Cruise would not be able to jump on 280
| and take you to SFSU or whatever.
| jonfromsf wrote:
| Thats the easy part of self driving.
| smilekzs wrote:
| No it's not.
|
| Source: actual ADV engineer
| nimithryn wrote:
| As an actual ADV engineer, do you think this is a
| reasonable launch? What do you think the timeline
| actually looks like for driverless and why?
| jensvdh wrote:
| I doubt a lot of passengers go to SF State at night
| dylan604 wrote:
| yes, no college student has ever needed to get back home
| at night
| manquer wrote:
| Significant portion of them should not be legally driving
| either, being Drunk/High etc.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Which is pretty much the business plan of self driving
| car service. Provide a method for people that 100% should
| not be driving a way of safely transporting themselves
| home.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Well, there is also the option to hail a cab or a uber
| driven by a not drinking now human
| [deleted]
| m463 wrote:
| I think one interesting property about nighttime driving is
| that lots of objects and markers are high contrast. Lights of
| other cars, highway markings, what can be illuminated by
| headlights/etc
|
| (aside from folks crossing the street in non-reflective dark
| clothing)
|
| I think the worst time to drive - as a human - is right when
| the sun is coming up or going down, or under tree cover when
| you go into and out of shadow.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Some recognition tasks might be easier at night but I expect
| that's not the reason permission was granted for those hours.
| It's almost certainly because there's less other traffic (and
| fewer pedestrians) at night.
| [deleted]
| nielsbot wrote:
| Aren't they relying on LIDAR tho? Night/day all (roughly)
| same.
| cromka wrote:
| I'd imagine they use both to improve accuracy.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > I think the worst time to drive - as a human - is right
| when the sun is coming up or going down, or under tree cover
| when you go into and out of shadow.
|
| Fatal accidents do indeed spike around these times, although
| they seem to be worse in the evenings than mornings, and more
| pronounced in southern states than northern ones.
| Retric wrote:
| 30MPH isn't super low speeds, it's plenty fast for collisions
| to be dangerous.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| For reference, a fall from about 30ft would take about 1.4
| seconds and you'd reach a velocity of 30mph.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| This is a disengenous comparison.
|
| The overwhelming majority of people who fall from 30ft do
| not attempt to decelerate in the last second or so.
|
| People who text their way into stopped traffic
| notwithstanding, 30mph is the kind of collision speed you
| see on roads where traffic moves low highway speeds. Edge
| cases notwithstanding (i.e. someone barreling through a red
| or whatever) collisions on roads where traffic moves 30-40
| typically happen at speeds 10-20mph below that because
| people generally brake but too late to prevent a crash.
| benatkin wrote:
| Changes quite a bit with getting sideswiped while walking
| around the roadway, my #1 fear as a pedestrian. Looked up
| some statistics and this is more common than getting hit
| while crossing the street. Two more things to figure out
| though:
|
| - How often is an accident while _walking along the
| roadway_ getting sideswiped, instead of just a full-on
| crash
|
| - The equivalent of being run over by a car doesn't happen
| when falling 30 feet. I wonder how much this accounts for
| getting hurt as a pedestrian.
|
| This is just what I thought of, it is also a threat to
| cars, but that would be offset more by the velocity of the
| car that got hit than it would be by the velocity of a
| pedestrian. (For example, a car that is going 25mph and
| gets rear-ended by a car going 30mph)
|
| Also there is often hitting the brakes before collision. So
| it will be slower sometimes.
| silisili wrote:
| Do these cars have billboards or indicators of some kind?
| If not, they really should. In my town I wait for cars to
| stop before crossing, and make eye contact or get a
| friendly wave to let me know they see me.
|
| If a driverless car just stops, I don't feel comfortable
| walking in front of it if there's no indication that it
| sees me.
|
| How could that be solved?
| smilekzs wrote:
| Drive.AI, before they went defunkt, had LED billboards
| not unlike what you described. It was a gimmick that
| didn't take off in the rest of the industry due to the
| universal presence of a safety driver.
| ummonk wrote:
| Are you referring to walking on the sidewalk or on the
| street?
| benatkin wrote:
| The street when there isn't a sidewalk, the sidewalk when
| there is one. There are a lot of places without
| sidewalks.
| mavhc wrote:
| Well, there's your problem, places built for cars, not
| humans, should fix that
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| That's a pretty great way to visualize the energy involved
| vkou wrote:
| For car-pedestrian, car-bicycle, and car-motorbike
| collisions, yes.
|
| For car-car collisions, not really. Yes, getting into a head-
| on 30-30 MPH collision is pretty bad, but you're more than
| likely going to walk away from it, especially if you're in
| the back seat.
| [deleted]
| google234123 wrote:
| "Pitt et al. (1990) examined about 1,000 urban crashes with
| pedestrians younger than 20 years of age taken from NHTSA's
| Pedestrian Injury Causation Study (PICS) data. They found
| that, compared to crashes with vehicle travel speeds of 10
| - 19 mph, the risk of serious injury (or death) was 2.1 for
| speeds of 20 - 29 mph, 7.2 for speeds of 30 - 39 mph, and
| 30.7 for speeds of 40 mph or more."
|
| https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.h
| t...
| mym1990 wrote:
| Have been a statistic in all of these buckets, can
| confirm that hitting things at faster speeds causes more
| injuries heh
| appletrotter wrote:
| Really not sure how valid this 30 year old study is
| anymore!
| bagels wrote:
| I think that is a good point, as materials and pedestrian
| safety features of cars have changed. Seems unlikely the
| relationship between speed and severity would change too
| though.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Reporting would change too. People don't report crashes
| where there's no damage other than a hood and some grill
| plastic (such a crash may have broken a hip back in "the
| day"). This is even more true now that cars with nonzero
| amounts of pedestrian safety features have made it to the
| bottom of the market where people don't have the luxury
| of being able to mindlessly report everything to
| insurance and the guy who got hit and has only a minor
| injury looks at the situation and doesn't see a potential
| payday.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Presumably from the title it's about a car hitting a
| pedestrian... I doubt there's been much significant
| innovation in that kind of safety since the 90s.
|
| Features to prevent/alert to collisions, sure, but I'd
| assume this is about hitting someone when going X speed;
| surely that's pretty similar now and then.
| darwinwhy wrote:
| In fact it's probably gotten worse with the growth in
| size of US cars. Larger cars kill pedestrians and
| cyclists at higher rates.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Braking distances have gotten much better as tires and
| ABS have improved. A kid darts out from between two cars
| and people hit them at speeds much lower than they used
| to.
|
| On the other hand the height and shape of the average car
| has changed to make them less pedestrian friendly.... but
| any one of these vehicles also sold in Europe includes a
| bunch of measures to lessen damage to pedestrians.
|
| So I feel very comfortable saying a study from the 90s is
| not relevant because too much has changed on both sides
| of the equation.
| renewiltord wrote:
| There were active changes to cars to reduce pedestrian
| harm. The most visible is probably the ban of pop up
| headlamps.
|
| Not taking a position on the study. Just felt like
| sharing.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I actually bounced off a car with modern safety maybe 10
| years ago or so, trashed a good jacket but I wasn't even
| shaken enough to bother getting looked over at an Urgent
| Care, I continued walking to lunch. Not a high speed
| collision of course, it was a quiet inner city street and
| I looked the wrong way (one way street, I looked where
| cars should be if it was a two way street, oops), but I
| suspect a 1970s car would have been markedly worse for a
| pedestrian.
|
| One key trick other than the pop-up headlamps going away,
| was a gap between the bodywork and harder internal
| surfaces. As I understand it that goes something like
| this:
|
| Think about a large steel panel such as a car bonnet
| (hood?), obviously it's no comfort blanket, smacking into
| that isn't a good idea, but it will bend and absorb lots
| of energy during impact. Now, think about an engine
| block, that's not going to bend at all. In a desire to
| give a more stream-lined look, older cars would mount
| that large panel almost touching the engine block and
| other large stiff elements, because why not. Well, dead
| pedestrians is why not. If you add a gap that gap absorbs
| lots of energy that otherwise is going to cause injuries
| to a pedestrian. I can't prove it, but I credit that for
| the difference between walking away with a damaged jacket
| and spending the rest of my working day in A&E being told
| I'm not dying so can't cut to the front of the queue, but
| I'm also not OK and so mustn't leave yet.
| zerocrates wrote:
| Crumple zones (or their British English equivalent if
| there is one) are a definite change from "classic"
| designs but my feeling is they were mostly in place by
| the 90s... but I could be misremembering.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Crumple zone for pedestrians (i.e. those big bulbous
| plastic front bodyworks that every modern car and
| crossover has) are new, like mid-00s new.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| A pedestrian will never actually get into the "hard
| parts" of a car even on an old car. But the "soft"
| internal bodywork that holds the radiator, headlights and
| front sheet-metal are more than enough to cause bad
| injuries.
|
| You're exactly correct that all that empty plastic in the
| top front of modern cars and crossovers is there to
| protect pedestrians (hood designs have been revised to
| facilitate this as well).
| heavyset_go wrote:
| There are also changes that increase pedestrian harm,
| like the arms race in the height of front ends of SUVs[1]
| and trucks.
|
| Recent trends in vehicle purchases also increase
| pedestrian harm, as the popularity of sedans has waned in
| favor of SUVs and trucks. These days 72% of vehicle sales
| are for SUVs and trucks[2], and the trend is expected to
| continue into the future.
|
| [1] https://www.codot.gov/safety/traffic-safety-
| pulse/2019/march...
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/business/suv-
| sales-best-s...
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Saying "72% of vehicle sales are trucks and SUVs" in the
| context of pedestrian safety is highly disingenuous when
| a huge slice of that is crossovers that are mostly sold
| globally and conform to European requirements for
| pedestrian safety.
|
| Hitting one's head on the windshield is/was the source of
| a lot of the pedestrian injury and fatalities and modern
| safety requirements try and prevent this outcome.
|
| Would you rather get hit by a'21 CRV or a '95 LeBaron?
| CRV seems like the obvious choice.
|
| Of course there's a lot more big trucks to hit you on the
| roads in 2021 but improvements in pretty much every
| smaller class of vehicle do a lot to balance that out.
|
| Looking at the data I don't see any clear trend that
| pedestrians are at more risk today than in the past.
|
| https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-
| users/pedestr...
| akira2501 wrote:
| 1/6 of fatal accidents are vehicle vs. pedestrian. I don't
| have great data on motorcycles, but speed and or alcohol
| are the most common factors in those accidents as opposed
| to other vehicles.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| If it is San Fransisco city than 30 MPH is not bad at all. I do
| not imagine other cars driving > 40mph.
| spike021 wrote:
| People have been crushed and killed just when their stopped car
| starts moving because it wasn't parked in gear or with their
| parking brake engaged.
|
| Speed being "slow" or "fast" here is unrelated.
| stooliepidgin wrote:
| Anton Yelchin
| spike021 wrote:
| Exactly who I was thinking of as a well-known example.
| toufka wrote:
| Of course speed is related to safety. See page 2 for the
| actual data:
|
| https://www.littlerock.gov/media/2484/the-relation-
| between-s...
| spike021 wrote:
| My point, however, was that the parent poster didn't seem
| to think so.
| sfblah wrote:
| I signed up for the waitlist to use this in San Francisco. Anyone
| here work at Waymo and know when/if I might get approved? I'm
| curious to try it out.
| stooliepidgin wrote:
| Driverless cars with passengers operating on the streets with
| pedestrians, insane taxi drivers, and the prototypical BMW cell-
| phone-shouting suit with a buzz-cut who just drive around
| everyone like they're not there. How could this possibly go
| wrong?
| zabzonk wrote:
| How mad would you have to be to get into one of these?
| raldi wrote:
| This is what people once said about elevators, airplanes,
| bicycles...
|
| How mad would you have to be to keep riding in human-driven
| taxis after the data shows AVs to be safer?
| asdff wrote:
| Honestly for the early ones those people were right.
| raldi wrote:
| If, after a year of testing, autonomous taxis prove to be
| exactly half as dangerous as human-driven taxis, would you
| ride in one?
| asdff wrote:
| That would depend on the rigor of the testing being done
| and where this thing is taking me
| raldi wrote:
| Let's say, for the type of journey you need to do (e.g.,
| traveling within a city at <= 30 mph in clear daytime
| weather), the AVs in question have provided over 100
| passenger-years of service, and across that dataset, at-
| fault crashes are half that of human-driven cars at every
| level of severity (fender-bender, injury crash,
| fatality...)
|
| At that point, would you choose to ride in one, or a
| human-driven taxi?
| zabzonk wrote:
| Do you feel unsafe riding in a human driven taxi? If not
| (I don't), why would you want to ride in a machine driven
| one? I simply do not understand the HN desire for sitting
| in machine driven cars, which have already demonstrated
| far, far poorer safety than human driven ones.
|
| Computers are good at some digital things. They are not
| good at others.
| raldi wrote:
| I feel unsafe any time cars are involved, whether I'm
| outside, a passenger, or driving. Cars are much more
| dangerous than a lot of things people worry about. I'm
| very happy to see computers making them much safer.
|
| _> machine driven cars, which have already demonstrated
| far, far poorer safety than human driven ones_
|
| Citation needed.
| asdff wrote:
| It depends on the context of the test once again. Is this
| thing trying to get onto a major artery road in LA? Hell
| no. 30mph would feel very dangerous when the other
| drivers are flying around weaving at 50-60mph. The thing
| would be cut off so much the average speed with the
| automatic braking every time someone cuts it off would
| probably be less than me walking on the adjacent
| sidewalk. Bus drivers in LA have to be aggressive and
| honk and muscle their way back into the lane for a cars
| to actually let them back in, sticking their bus out
| literally threatening cars to it it. I've seen them
| outright cuss drivers out plenty of times too.
|
| Freeway in LA in a self driving car? Absolutely not. Full
| stop. I've seen more variables play out on a given day
| than any training model can possibly consider with good
| support. If someone says they have good support with
| their model for an LA freeway I will laugh in their face.
| The freeway is chaos. You have people with scrap piled 12
| feet over their pickup truck doing 40mph in the middle
| lane, people with BMWs and a cell phone in one hand doing
| 100 splitting lanes with no signals, outright debris on
| the road (my roomate hit a log in the middle of the 101
| that took out another dozen or so cars one morning, how
| did a huge log even end up there?), not to mention
| construction conditions and less than stellar road
| markings during that making lane identification no small
| task for a self driving system.
|
| On a little loop through something like a zoo, sprawling
| corporate campus, or as a vehicle to get me from my
| parked car to the front of the venue, absolutely I'll hop
| right into a self driving car. On the road with the
| current state of the road in my city? I'll let someone
| else take the literal hit today.
| raldi wrote:
| Self-driving cars without a safety driver haven't been
| approved to operate in LA yet, nor on Bay Area freeways,
| nor anywhere that the speed limit is above 30mph; I think
| it's clear they won't get their approval to drive in such
| conditions until they've proven their ability to do so
| safely and without disrupting the traffic around them.
|
| What we're discussing right now is riding in one on Bay
| Area streets where they're already proven their safe and
| orderly track record.
| zabzonk wrote:
| > airplanes
|
| Have pilots.
|
| > bicycles
|
| You steer them.
| asdff wrote:
| And the early airplanes were canvas over wooden sticks,
| and the early bikes made you fall over if you leaned a
| little bit funny. I'll let other people break their
| bodies on the penny farthings of the day, I'll wait for
| the safety bicycle to come along and not miss out on much
| in the mean time I expect.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| At 30mph max in the back seat with the belt on? Not that mad I
| reckon.
| zabzonk wrote:
| As opposed to having one with a human driver?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _As opposed to having one with a human driver?_
|
| Given some of my recent Uber drivers in the Bay Area, I
| reckon a blender would be a safer ride.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| I dunno? I guess I'd have to look at the statistics. My
| sense is that the Waymo vehicles at least are statistically
| safer than a human driver at these speeds, although not as
| competent. (I.e. they are less likely to cause an accident,
| but more likely to encounter a situation they can't handle
| and get stuck.)
| asdff wrote:
| I'd love to see these vehicles handle situations where
| pedestrians or debris are all over the road. Like in
| front of a busy bar, construction area, or homeless camp.
| To the best of my knowledge the environments they've been
| test driving in have been pretty controlled and orderly
| and they still manage to find people to run over.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| You're wrong twice over: Waymo and Cruise have been
| testing in SF for a long time, and so far neither has run
| anybody over.
|
| Uber ran someone over, it turns out they were shockingly
| incompetent, and thankfully they don't have an AV program
| anymore.
| EchoAce wrote:
| Wait, I see them everywhere in SF and in completely
| random places too...
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| They're already successfully deployed in a subset of the
| Phoenix metro area, so not very mad, probably.
| georgehotz wrote:
| Full disclosure, I founded a somewhat competing company in the
| space, comma.ai
|
| Why is this progress? Evaluating progress in self driving cars is
| extremely complex. Why do people trust that the California
| government is able to do so?
|
| A milestone is a working product with many user videos on
| YouTube. This is a press release from the California DMV.
| machinelearning wrote:
| This isn't technical progress but is regulatory progress.
|
| Technical progress is the current limiting factor so I agree
| that it is more important to emphasize right now.
|
| On the other hand, I disagree that user videos on YouTube is a
| sign of progress. 1. There is an obvious selection bias as only
| a minority of people with access to the software actually
| upload videos. 2. The videos are qualitative in nature and it
| is not feasible for a single human to go through all of them
| and form an objective opinion on the state of the art. So it's
| prone to confirmation bias too.
|
| I'd argue that there isn't a common yardstick of technical
| progress for game theoretic reasons but I'd love to see one.
| ehsankia wrote:
| > A milestone is a working product with many user videos on
| YouTube
|
| So Waymo then?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=waymo
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Seems like it might be a bit difficult to have user videos on
| YouTube if you can't legally have users. Getting the permits
| issued is a good first step.
| georgehotz wrote:
| Tesla has tons of videos on YouTube from users showcasing
| similar technology, including in San Francisco.
|
| While FSD beta may still have issues, I see no reason to
| believe that this doesn't also have similar issues.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I wasn't aware that Tesla was operating commercial
| autonomous rideshare in SF. Can you link something? I've
| seen the FSD beta, but that's neither "L4" (whatever you
| think of the SAE levels) nor commercial. This announcement
| is specifically about safety drivers and commercial
| operation, because both Cruise and Waymo have been
| operating non-commercial fleets with safety drivers for
| awhile now.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Tesla is currently in beta everywhere, not just SF. Tesla
| is taking the path of improving the technology with
| driver monitoring, rather than focusing on getting a
| single city to label them as 'L4'
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Tesla FSD can't operate without a driver and isn't doing
| commercial rideshare, so it's not relevant in this
| discussion of a permit to operate a _driverless
| commercial fleet in SF_.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| George brought it up in the thread and you responded to
| him. Tesla and Comma.AI are building the exact same
| technology. Are you saying that we shouldn't discuss
| these other companies until they have a permit for SF
| driving?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| George asked why this announcement of the first permit to
| operate a driverless, commercial fleet is progress,
| citing Tesla. Unless Tesla has a commercial, driverless
| fleet somewhere, I'm not sure I understand the objection
| here. Having the permits to do those things in SF is
| literally the progress.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| There isn't an objection. There is a question. Can the
| public see videos of this? If not, why not?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Waymo has been doing commercial driverless ops in
| Chandler for 4-5 years now, so you can absolutely see
| videos of that. You just can't see it in SF because
| _until this announcement_ no one has had the permit to do
| it commercially, Tesla included.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| There must have been some sort of testing period and
| approval process that involved showing the cars are safe?
| Why can't you see that until after this official
| announcement?
| ahahahahah wrote:
| That's like saying the old motorola razr and an iphone 6
| are similar technology. While true, it's hiding a huge
| difference in that "similar".
| throwawaysdcman wrote:
| I'm sure there are still issues, but I'd bet they're
| dramatically more rare than what we see with the FSD beta.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Why would you think that? If they have much better
| technology, that they are deploying on public roads, why
| wouldn't they let the public know with easily accessible
| proof?
| jowday wrote:
| https://youtu.be/sliYTyRpRB8
|
| Obviously this is cherry picked, but you don't think a
| car equipped with LIDAR, imaging radar, more cameras,
| more compute, and temporally dense HD maps that has
| focused on the same area for its entire existence would
| perform better than a Tesla?
| BluSyn wrote:
| I would expect a strictly mapped system would perform
| significantly worse in an area like SF, where roads and
| obstacles frequently change. Human drivers are not rigid,
| they are adaptable, so building rigid AV systems is
| doomed to fail outside perfect conditions.
| throwawaysdcman wrote:
| They're not rigid - they use the map and fall back to
| onboard system when it's not accurate. That happens
| plenty of times in the video I linked.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| It's not technical progress, but it's progress nonetheless.
| There are significant legal / legislative barriers to get
| through aren't there? This would, at least in my mind, be
| progress on that front...
| georgehotz wrote:
| Once software capable of driving at a superhuman level (say
| 10x the average) exists, the regulatory side will be trivial.
| What regulator wouldn't want to save 30,000 lives?
|
| Sadly, that software is still a ways away. Don't fall for the
| trap believing that self driving is at all a regulatory
| problem. It is only a software one.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| Interesting. I was under the impression that self driving
| cars are not THAT far away from being a thing. Sounds like
| it's further than I am thinking.
| [deleted]
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| The disconnect seems to be your mental model of self-
| driving cars might be biased by your current focus. The way
| I feel most people see it, self-driving cars means three
| things:
|
| 1. As a developer, the hardware and software to accomplish
| it.
|
| 2. As a rider, the improved UX (i.e. safe, comfortable, and
| fast).
|
| 3. As a current-driver, taking over the liability.
|
| Based on the Comma 3 launch event, it seems clear that you
| and Comma.ai are hyper-focused on 1 and 2, but have no plan
| for 3 anytime soon. I think this is the big disconnect:
| Cruise and Waymo are focused on 1, 3, and 2 (in that
| order). DMV approval is entirely in the bucket of
| 'transferring liability', and this announcement is progress
| on that front.
|
| The chicken and egg problem of 'publicly facing data driven
| technical viability to then get transfer of liability' and
| 'transfer of liability to then get data at scale' is a
| fundamental problem of self-driving. Comma.ai and Tesla are
| tackling this problem with 100% 'publicly facing data
| driven technical viability' and 0% 'transfer of liability'.
| Then one day Comma.ai and Tesla may also try to tackle the
| 'transfer of liability'. However, why limit the
| competition? Cruise and Waymo want to start with 'transfer
| of liability'. Its useful work that needs to eventually be
| done. Might as well have some companies start early.
|
| Hopefully even if Cruise and/or Waymo mess up, the DMV will
| use those learnings to improve their validation strategies
| for future players looking to transfer liability (i.e.
| Comma.ai and Tesla when they choose to be ready).
| Forge36 wrote:
| It's a regulatory hurdle. Having passed it field tests and
| product viability can continue
| jacquesm wrote:
| I really respect your skills as a hacker but it is actually
| quite scary that you would not understand that DMV issuing
| these permits is actually a strong sign of progress, and that
| 'user videos on YouTube' would somehow be the yardstick by
| which you believe we should measure such progress.
|
| Does the same hold for the FAA? The FDA?
| georgehotz wrote:
| It depends what your opinions of those agencies are, and if
| you believe they have technical competence or not. After the
| 737 MAX fiasco, I've begun to seriously doubt it.
|
| "you would not understand that DMV issuing these permits is
| actually a strong sign of progress" explain to me why you
| believe this. Videos on YouTube convince me something is real
| and exists. A government press release convinces me that some
| process was followed, but perhaps one having nothing to do
| with the solution to the problem.
|
| Self driving is almost entirely a software problem. Testing
| that software is equally as complex. Do you believe the CA
| DMV has an army of good software engineers? Data scientists?
| If not, how did they evaluate it?
| waterhouse wrote:
| I don't think it's necessary to believe that the DMV's
| evaluation means anything about the quality of self-driving
| (and I don't think it means much).
|
| The fact that they're _permitting_ it means it will be
| happening in practice, which will generate lots of data
| points, which (a) will help the companies improve their
| software and (b) assuming it 's not a disaster, will get
| people used to seeing self-driving cars that really work,
| which (from a practical-politics perspective) will make it
| much easier to get permission from other regional
| governments, and to expand the permits.
| throwawaysdcman wrote:
| Assuming your argument is that all you need is cameras, at
| what point does it become entirely a software problem? Once
| you have cameras that cover a sufficient FoV around the
| car? Or can pivot so that they can, like human eyes? How do
| you know that the cameras you have meet that requirement?
|
| Even then, I'm not sure how you can say its always just a
| software problem when no one has accomplished it yet.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Agreed that the 737 MAX did not help, but this is _also_ a
| failure of all of the other regulatory agencies the world
| over that rubber stamped the FAA approval instead of doing
| their own. It certainly looks as though this served as a
| wake up call - it should! - and that a re-occurrence is
| relatively unlikely in the near future (until everybody
| becomes complacent again).
|
| Self driving may be a software problem, but that does not
| necessarily mean that we have the means to make that
| software a reality today. Given that fact that we know that
| intelligent beings make plenty of errors and that they are
| _much_ smarter than your average self driving system, the
| enormous range of conditions and inputs and the relatively
| limited amount of computing power that can be thrown at
| this problem I highly doubt that it is a 'mere matter of
| software engineering' at this point, taking into account
| the state of the art.
|
| Agreed that testing it is super complex, in fact, I think
| that testing is the key: without a fully representative
| test equivalent to a driving test none of this software
| should be on the street. That's what we agreed upon: pass
| the driving test and you are allowed to drive. American
| driving tests are ridiculously simple, so it should be easy
| to pass such a test and yet that hasn't even been made a
| mandatory requirement for certifying a self driving
| solution. Until then I don't think any of this stuff should
| be on public roads.
|
| I don't think the CA DMV needs an army of sofware engineers
| or data scientists, they are first and foremost a
| regulatory body that can hire external experts to give them
| guidance, and I suspect that they genuinely believe that
| self driving systems from these manufacturers are now solid
| enough to be given wider latitude during this experimental
| phase. I personally disagree with the decision, but I _do_
| think it is progress, that a regulatory body would dare to
| attach their name to such a decision rather than to play it
| safe, this is a clear shift in perception. Time will tell
| whether or not it was the right decision, if it turns out
| it wasn 't there will be a bigger set-back than this was a
| step forward.
| kjksf wrote:
| The difference between FAA/FDA and DMV is that they have
| subject experts whose jobs is to test and evaluate the
| technology.
|
| DMV consists of bureaucrats that seemingly just rubber stamp
| the permits hoping for the best.
|
| In that context, people actually using the technology,
| testing and evaluating its performance are like FAA/FDA and
| not DMV.
| dheera wrote:
| I mean, if you just look at the offices the DMV works out
| of, they look like jails. Classic white painted brick (wtf,
| who paints brick except for jails) and no windows.
|
| You can't expect the people working there to not be driven
| to insanity.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Subject experts can be hired, and I am assuming there are
| close contacts between DMV and the likes of NHTSA.
|
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-
| vehicl...
| gitfan86 wrote:
| I'm nobody and I have huge respect for both of you. I do
| think some transparency would be nice in regards to how they
| made the decision and with how much data.
|
| The shortcomings of Comma.AI and Tesla FSD are very clear due
| to YouTube. If Cruise has a much safer system, that is great,
| I would just like to see more data.
| young_unixer wrote:
| For reference: 30 mph [?] 48.2 km/h
| mike_d wrote:
| "In order to receive a deployment permit, manufacturers must [...
| Develop] a Law Enforcement Interaction Plan that provides
| information to law enforcement and other first responders on how
| to interact with the autonomous vehicles."
|
| So they get to write the rules on how law enforcement interacts
| with their vehicles? Can I do that too?
| slownews45 wrote:
| Yes - you may be able to.
|
| This involves automatically pulling over and stopping the
| vehicle when a cop is behind the car and flashes their lights.
| The vehicle will also roll down its windows so the cops can
| access the interior of the vehicle and have easy access to
| passengers.
|
| This also links in rider support automatically to communicate
| directly to law enforcement / rider support can also provide
| various commands to vehicle then.
|
| They can also open a door, which triggers a an autonomos
| driving cutout. They can also contact these folks directly to
| gain access (ie, remote unlock etc).
|
| To retrofit your vehicle so that law enforcement has this type
| of direct access may take some effort, but I doubt you'd have
| much objection - there currently is a real issue with drive
| offs and law enforcements ability to respond to those under
| vehicle chase rules. If you can set up your vehicle to override
| your drive-off efforts that will probably be welcomed,
| especially if it pulls over, stops, can unlock doors to provide
| LEO access to your person etc.
|
| Separately, rider support can give permission for a vehicle
| search as the owner of the vehicle, so you'd want to register
| vehicle with a service that would give consent automatically
| and then provide instructions on where to find registration and
| insurance in vehicle. Waymo I beleive does it on the visors.
|
| I'm not sure you fully grasp the implications of Law
| Enforcement Interaction Protocol efforts. In the future, the
| car may be able to drive you to a "safe" location for a car
| search and your arrest.
| mike_d wrote:
| Which should be codified into law based on police
| requirements with an eye as to what is legal.
|
| Police procedures should not be developed by way of an
| agreement between the state and a private company, who is in
| a position to error on the side of cooperation because they
| need a license. It is similar to the state granting a
| locksmith a license to practice under the condition that law
| enforcement be provided with copies to every key just in case
| they need them.
|
| There are some serious Fourth Amendment considerations when
| traveling in a vehicle for hire without a driver. Is a Waymo
| closer to a private automobile with implied consent, or is it
| similar to a bus where you can deny consent to a search? Is
| the provider (or virtual driver) in a position to consent to
| a search of your property? Is the virtual assistant that
| opened the doors and consented to a search now in a position
| to be charged with transporting narcotics for distrubtion?
| Who's license gets dinged if the passenger has no seatbelt?
| slownews45 wrote:
| The current setup is that Waymo owns and operates the
| vehicles, and they have protocols to cooperate pretty
| extensively with law enforcement.
|
| In other words, they WILL stop the vehicle, roll down the
| windows, unlock the doors etc for law enforcement, give
| permissions out for a search etc.
|
| There is a separate question (unrelated to Waymo) around if
| that is enough for example for LEO to search the vehicle.
| My guess is the resolution will be that like a taxi, LEO
| can search the vehicle and waymo will build that implied
| consent into terms of service if needed. Hopefully patting
| down an individual will still require consent or cause or
| similar.
|
| The OP seemed to imagine that these services are going to
| be some sort of lawless area, and they are not, they are
| going to track and record the start / finish / stops of all
| your trips, record you in the vehicle, record the space
| around the vehicle and will cooperate with LEO.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Do you really think this is helpful (much less a charitable)
| interpretation?
|
| This is asking the manufacturers for a user manual, like how to
| disable auto-piloting etc.
| mindslight wrote:
| At a time when it seems that police are unwilling to
| interface with regular human drivers, to the point they
| suggest that drivers need to preemptively place both their
| hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked, it's
| reasonable to ask why companies get to specify deliberate
| procedures. As in, why isn't the attack first and ask
| questions later standard good enough for them too?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > to the point they suggest that drivers need to place both
| their hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked,
| it's reasonable to ask why companies get deliberate
| procedures.
|
| I don't understand. Isn't "place both hands on the wheel,
| show me your license", etc precisely a "deliberate
| procedure"? It sounds like your complaint is that police
| are too procedural instead of engaging on a human level,
| but then you complain that theyre not _more_ procedural
| with humans?
| mindslight wrote:
| I'm talking about who is setting the procedures, not
| simply their existence.
|
| With autonomous vehicles, they're asking how to interface
| with them politely. Like if they signal one to stop and
| it's not stopping, here is a phone number to call where
| someone can gracefully shut it down. As opposed to just
| deploying spike strips or ramming as is their default.
|
| Whereas human drivers don't get the luxury of specifying
| any such protocols. And rather than reform their own
| procedures, police are attempting to compensate by
| creating protocols drivers are supposed to know and
| follow before an officer is even at the car.
|
| As a motorist I'd love to be able to choose a protocol
| that police would follow when pulling me over. For
| example, call this phone number first rather than just
| walking up to me and risking yourself getting spooked and
| me getting killed.
| slownews45 wrote:
| The protocols waymo and others are and will be offering
| will prevent passengers from trying to drive off. They
| will stop vehicle, unlock it and roll down the windows
| for the cops etc. They will also record outside and in
| some cases inside of vehicle.
|
| Again, I think you could write a similar protocol. Pull
| over, roll down windows to allow cops easy access and
| visibility to your person, and unlock all the doors so
| they can open them. Maybe do a dash cam plus interior cam
| to get cops the footage they need that way?
|
| Waymo also will automatically connect to a ride support
| operator who can do things like give permission for a
| vehicle search if needed. Not sure how you could copy
| that, maybe vehicle owners could put a sticker on their
| cars so regardless of what passenger wants the vehicle
| can be searched at any time?
| modeless wrote:
| Information, not rules.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Has there been any attempts to make hybrid autonomous train-cars?
| Like some sort of enclosed road/track highway or a caravan? Seems
| like a more safe goal versus the chaos that is urban
| environments.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Electric trolleys existed in many cities in the past.
| asdff wrote:
| There are already automatic subway systems. You could make BRT
| autonomous pretty easily too since it runs on its own separated
| grade in a fixed route. You could throw down some sensors in
| the road surface and call it a day like the technology used in
| the new disneyland star wars ride.
| apendleton wrote:
| As another responder said, lots of subways are autonomous, but
| if you're thinking of a car- _sized_ thing on a train guideway,
| these have been proposed but only a small number of actually
| been built:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Subways are good (not that automated in New York due to union
| pressure) but a lot of american cities are not designed
| around mass transit but unfortunately highways. I could see
| some system where cars drive onto a highway then get put into
| a caravan or special lane that automates the driving until
| their exit
| daveslash wrote:
| This is off topic _BUT DAT FONT SIZE!!!_ ~ I had to double and
| triple check my zoom settings in my browser. I 'm used to
| everything from the CA DMV being boring and mundane like Ben
| Stein. After poking around, I realize that's just the font size
| for DMV New Releases.... but wow... caught me off guard. Low
| quality comment, down-vote if you must; I've said what I came
| here to say.
| gumby wrote:
| The point release says they have issued three permits. Which is
| the third?
| czr wrote:
| nuro https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-
| services/auto...
| gumby wrote:
| Thanks. I see them driving around the neighborhood but
| haven't noticed anyone in the back seat, driver only.
| Animats wrote:
| Nuro has little self-driving delivery vehicles. But someone
| has to come out to them and take the stuff out, so they're
| not all that useful.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Hm. Not sure I would say that... there really isn't a one-
| size fits all unloading mechanism across trucking/delivery
| and there will be a human involved in that process till we
| really really standardized.
|
| The value is now cutting the labor number by 1/3rd. Need a
| loader and unloader, no more driver. In food delivery this
| essentially removes your labor cost since the restaurant
| and consumer are the loader/unloader.
| philovivero wrote:
| Zero comments?
|
| When the robotic overlords take over, it will not be to
| thunderous applause nor loud protestations, but rather quietly
| beneath the surface silence of billions of people distracted by
| something more interesting or enticing.
| reidjs wrote:
| It's self driving cars, not autonomous governments. Considering
| how distracted and impaired the average driver is, this might
| be a godsend.
| Falling3 wrote:
| You think no comments within 20 minutes of posting is enough to
| make that kind of claim over?
| yalogin wrote:
| > Verifying the technology is capable of detecting and responding
| to roadway situations in compliance with the California Vehicle
| Code, and a description of how the vehicle meets the definition
| of an SAE Level 3, 4 or 5 autonomous technology.
|
| How does the company prove this? Are there detailed criteria
| listed somewhere that these companies should then prove to meet?
| AFAIK, its all self reported. I mean, if the company is confident
| it can do it, I guess it's a good thing, but is it enough?
| m0zg wrote:
| I wonder what (if anything) they're going to do with the fact
| that these cars carry $200K in additional equipment (maybe more),
| which will be immediately sawed off and broken into by SF's
| extensive homeless population. BayArea seems like the one of the
| worst places in the US to leave expensive stuff unattended like
| this.
| sykseh wrote:
| Johnnycab: Hello I'm Johnnycab, where can I take you tonight?
| Doug Quaid: Drive, drive! Johnnycab: Would you please repeat the
| destination? Doug Quaid: Anywhere, just go, GO! Doug Quaid: SHIT,
| SHIT!!! Doug Quaid: SHIT, SHIT! Johnnycab: Im not familiar with
| that address, would you please repeat the destination?
| tlb wrote:
| Having to verbally specify your destination address was always
| a lousy UX. Uber's UX where you enter it in an app is much
| better and allows using your address book, upcoming calendar
| entry, or searching by name.
| obilgic wrote:
| > https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1442706542839701510
|
| And Tesla is rolling out FSD beta to cars based on drivers'
| safety score.
| esturk wrote:
| Marketplace actually had a segment this morning on this and why
| it's misleading. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-
| tech/teslas-fu...
| adfrhgeaq5hy wrote:
| Have you watched the footage of the current "beta"? It's a
| scam. It runs into stationary objects. It drives into oncoming
| traffic. It runs red lights, makes illegal turns, drives
| straight toward other cars, and can't stay on the road. And
| that's footage _recorded and edited by Tesla 's biggest fans_.
|
| "Full Self Driving" does not exist. Every indication is that it
| never will.
|
| I still can't believe no one's gone to prison over this.
| Tesla's "self driving" features are probably the biggest fraud
| in history with a body count to match.
| dzader wrote:
| lol
| machinelearning wrote:
| People don't fully appreciate how different driving in
| multiple locations/conditions is to a neural network.
|
| Since most drivers only operate in certain fixed conditions
| often (e.g. driving to work or along certain routes during
| the day/night), people are going to get vastly different
| experiences of the same software.
|
| This is why you get some people claiming FSD beta is a fraud
| and others claiming that it works well with 0 disengagements
| 99% of the time.
|
| I think their tech is probably a LOT better than what you're
| making it out to be but no where close to living up to its
| promise of full self driving.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I wouldn't say it's a 'scam' exactly, but 'actually an alpha
| labeled as beta' is probably accurate.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| People are terrible at driving. Releasing a half baked
| product to get data needed to improve it makes complete sense
| and deserves to be encouraged, even if people die. Because it
| the end it's likely that many lives will be saved.
| adfrhgeaq5hy wrote:
| You don't get to smash a 4,000 pound explosive into a
| preschool because you want to gather data.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| If that data saves more lives it seems like a positive to
| me.
| adfrhgeaq5hy wrote:
| If you ever find yourself in a position of power, please
| write these thoughts down. The prosecutor will find them
| helpful.
|
| We aren't dealing with hypothetical scenarios here. We
| are dealing with a real company that is really killing
| people in cold blood. People do not have the right to
| kill others because they guesstimate it's worth it. On
| planet Earth, not planet PH101, that's called murder.
|
| And that's being charitable. I don't believe for a second
| that Tesla's victims are sacrifices for the greater good.
| Tesla's technology is a dead end and the motivation is
| pumping the stock price.
| gibolt wrote:
| The difference is scalability. Tesla can manufacture full
| equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also
| already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on. They do not
| rely on HD maps.
|
| Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise, they can
| quickly dominate the driverless market.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise
|
| It's tough to anchor Tesla's arrival based on the rest of the
| industry's progress. Cruise and Waymo are heavily dependent
| on Lidar; Tesla is solving a fairly different technological
| problem.
| ra7 wrote:
| > Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for
| much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that
| could be turned on.
|
| This sounds like premature optimization. The real unsolved
| problem here is autonomous technology (software and
| hardware), not manufacturing equipped vehicles. No point
| having millions of vehicles if your self driving technology
| doesn't actually work.
|
| > They do not rely on HD maps.
|
| Precisely why FSD doesn't work and is still level 2. The AV
| players have shown fully autonomous driving needs HD maps and
| (inconspicuously) the only one not to graduate out of level 2
| self driving is the one that's not using HD maps -- Tesla.
| Creating/maintaining HD maps isn't nearly as hard as you
| think it is, but the benefits are incredible for safe
| driving.
| [deleted]
| serioussecurity wrote:
| Tesla is 5 years behind and has no plans to begin work on a
| number of the key challenges they're facing.
| cheeze wrote:
| What does this mean? Hasn't Tesla been selling FSD beta for
| like 5 years now?
|
| I don't really trust anything Elon says anymore. I feel like
| he's not followed through on commitments about FSD far too many
| times. I'd personally never buy a TSLA until they get things
| much more in order (build quality/fit and finish, and actually
| deliver FSD)
| jsight wrote:
| This version is much more advanced than their previous
| versions, but I generally agree with you. Its nowhere close
| to being able to get you through most drives without
| assistance.
| dcow wrote:
| For the vast majority of people Tesla's vehicles are a
| practical, real, available, easy, modern, electric, car
| experience that are _a near drop in replacement_ for ICE
| vehicles because you can road trip with them. There are zero
| competing offerings _available today_ that have the range of
| a Tesla and an extensive associated integrated hi-amperage
| charging network. The only gripe is that FSD hasn 't been
| delivered on the projected timelines (and may never be). I
| suspect you wouldn't buy a Tesla based on moonshot FSD claims
| anyway, so what's holding you back? The Elon hate train?
| rsj_hn wrote:
| The reason why "the vast majority of people" are not
| considering purchasing an electric vehicle have to do with
| uncertainty about the charging experience and long term
| maintenance and repair costs. It has nothing to do with
| FSD.
|
| Once the costs of ownership are well understood, that
| uncertainly will be resolved and the cars can be priced
| correctly. That will take time -- if I buy a 10 year old
| corolla with 100K miles I will know (after the usual
| mechanic inspection) what my expected maintenance costs
| will be, on average, for the next 5 years of ownership.
|
| You can't really say that for an out-of-warantee Tesla
| because there isn't a large group of independent mechanics
| that can service it and because there is a lot of
| uncertainty about the battery life and service costs. Over
| time, if Teslas remain popular, and if the company doesn't
| DRM them out of existence, such networks will develop and
| we will accumulate actuarial data on repair costs that will
| reduce risk.
|
| Until then, this market will remain primarily one of price
| insensitive or risk-insensitive customers -- e.g. wealthier
| people and possibly government or other large corporate
| fleet sales. That is exactly what you would expect for new
| technologies. But for most people, a car is a major
| proportion of their networth, one they need to get to work,
| and so they are going to be risk averse (which is exactly
| what they should be).
|
| My next car will most likely be a 10 year old Lexus or
| Acura product. Even if it's a different manufacturer it
| will be an ICE vehicle and not an electric vehicle.
| Purchasing an out of warranty Tesla isn't remotely close to
| a viable option as it's not possible for me to price it.
| But used car prices drive new car prices because most
| purchasers are not planning on driving the car until it has
| zero value, they are counting on the used car market to pay
| for half of their car purchasing costs. Really for new
| technologies, Tesla should focus on leasing their cars if
| they want to reach out beyond the price insensitive market.
| dcow wrote:
| I'm suggesting that people _are_ buying Teslas. I
| honestly can 't go on a 5-10 min drive these days without
| seeing one or two (more and more every week it seems
| like) and I don't live in some particularly affluent
| upper-middle-class area. Buying them just makes sense to
| a lot of people for various reasons. Most aren't worried
| about FSD and the track record so far for Tesla total
| cost of ownership seems to lean in Tesla's favor. The
| motor in a Tesla literally has one moving part... they
| don't need regular maintenance like an ICE engine with
| lubricants and sparkers and belts and fluids and
| transmissions. Even the brakes don't wear the same way
| because induction is breaking the car 99% of the time.
| The only big question for me is when does the battery
| lose so much charge that it affects the range quality of
| life and if that were to happen does the price of
| replacing it make sense (I am generally pretty optimistic
| that battery prices will have dropped in 8 years) or does
| it become a shorter range around town car (kept or sold
| as such) and we get a new one with fresh range. Even at
| half the range it's still directly competitive with all
| other EVs out there today, so that's a thing too.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| What percent of car owners drive Teslas? There are ~300
| million vehicles on the roads in the US. Pre chip
| shortage, ~17 million new cars sold each year. Of those,
| electric vehicles are what, 2% of the new car market and
| ~0.6% of the total market (used car market is twice as
| large as the new car market)? That is not "the vast
| majority of people".
|
| Where I live I see FJ cruisers, Porsches, and Bentleys
| every day, but I understand that my area is not typical.
| It's a wealthy area in which offroading is very popular.
| I also see Teslas and BMWs (more Mercedes than BMW and
| more BMW than Tesla).
|
| I also understand that those cars tend to be more
| memorable, so it's foolish to pretend that FJ Cruisers,
| Porsches, or Bentleys are suitable for _the vast majority
| of the public_ just because they seem suitable for many
| people in _my area_. In the same way, perhaps you should
| recalibrate your expectations as well when extrapolating
| based on what you see in _your_ area.
|
| Now what prevents a Porsche or Bentley from being
| suitable is that these are for niche performance or price
| insensitive markets. But what prevents something like the
| Tesla from being suitable is the charging network and
| repairability uncertainty. With a Bentley, you know you
| will pay through the nose for repairs which is why
| Bentleys depreciate so massively. But with Toyotas you
| know their reputation for durability, which is why used
| FJ Cruisers cost more than used Bentleys. But how much
| should a used Tesla go for? I honestly don't know -- and
| neither does anyone else right now. Unless you have a lot
| of money to play around with, that's too much of a risk.
| You don't spend 15-20% of your household net worth on
| something that you can't price.
| dcow wrote:
| > You don't spend ... that you can't price.
|
| I think you're massively overthinking things. Most people
| look at the Model 3, see it costs the same as a Toyota
| Camry, want to help the environment and have Spotify in
| their car, skip the dealership, go to tesla.com, see dirt
| cheap financing available, and make the purchase. If they
| don't it's because they're not comfortable giving up
| their gas car yet because that's what they know. Not
| because they can't "price it". Further in the current
| market Teslas depreciate noticeably _less_ than ICE
| vehicles _because_ they don't need maintenance.
|
| You may not be able to price a Tesla, and that's fine,
| but don't get some impression that just because you can't
| that other's cant and moreover that it's the sole factor
| contributing to why they allegedly don't buy. Where I
| live nobody is "pricing" their $65k Truck, they just want
| a big fucking truck 30% of their household net worth be
| damned! You're full of FUD.
|
| Lastly looking at overall population numbers is kinda
| silly. We're not going to wake up and everyone has
| replaced their perfectly fine car with a tesla. If you
| look at market share _growth_ Tesla shot up in 2017 with
| the Model 3. And it wasn't just a balloon, their growth
| has continued. They sold 500k cars last year, a little
| less than half of their previous total up to that year.
| Again: _people are buying Tesla and more people by
| percentage are buying every year_. A Tesla was a rarity 5
| years ago but that's no longer the case. The fact that we
| can observe this with only 1.5MM Teslas on the road is
| pretty cool.
| m463 wrote:
| The "safety score" is a really really creepy thing. Not only
| that they are using it for this, but that they're collecting
| this data in the first place.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a full
| page popup that explains what the safety score is and how
| data is shared.
|
| Just to clarify your position, you want to hand over beta car
| driving software to people that do not first pass a test for
| safe driving?
| basisword wrote:
| Nobody can drive a car without passing a test demonstrating
| they can drive safely. If passing the government approved
| driving test doesn't make someone good enough to use your
| software it probably shouldn't be allowed on the road.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a
| full page popup that explains what the safety score is and
| how data is shared.
|
| I don't think that's accurate. Tesla collects a whole host
| of telemetry on all of their drivers. "Shadow Autopilot",
| etc., etc.
|
| They show zero hesitation in releasing that telemetry to
| the media, or elsewhere, if there's the slightest hint it
| will put you under scrutiny rather than them. Even
| misleadingly so - witness a fatal accident where Tesla said
| "the driver was not paying attention - the vehicle had
| warned him about taking his hands off the steering wheel",
| neglecting the ever so slight detail that it had warned
| him, once, and that warning occurred a quarter hour before
| the crash.
|
| Tesla collect all this data constantly, not just for entry
| into the FSD beta program.
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| Tesla is getting some real competition
| brianwawok wrote:
| You can buy the Waymo software as a consumer, and put it in
| your own car right now?
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| no but I can't do that with Tesla software either .... I
| can with comma.ai though....
| adfrhgeaq5hy wrote:
| I'll sell you a self-driving car. Please be advised that it
| will drive into walls, fail to brake for stationary
| obstacles, drive straight off the road, and is in fact a
| Saturn with a brick on the gas pedal. I didn't say it was a
| _good_ self-driving car.
|
| Tesla doesn't have competition because they aren't in the
| game at all. They do not make self-driving cars and
| probably never will.
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| eventually, you won't have to buy a car... there will be
| self-driving cars everywhere waiting for you to hop on.
| marmshallow wrote:
| Tesla's business model (and stock valuation) is based on
| launching a robotaxi service. I'd say that this news
| introduces more competition for the robotaxi aspect, not
| the selling you a car aspect.
| modeless wrote:
| Huh, Cruise got a permit for "between 10 PM and 6 AM" up to 30
| MPH, while Waymo got no time limit and 65 MPH. Presumably
| Cruise's permit is actually for the 6 AM to 10 PM time period and
| not the 10 PM to 6 AM one!
| mindslight wrote:
| Why presumably? 10PM-6AM is a much easier time to drive around.
| And it's not like they'd be going for daylight hours the other
| way.
| modeless wrote:
| Well, because this is a permit for commercial service, not
| testing. They already have a testing permit. A commercial
| service that only operates in the middle of the night would
| not be very successful.
| [deleted]
| toast0 wrote:
| A commercial service in the middle of the night would be a
| great complement to scheduled public transit which tapers
| off in the evening.
| modeless wrote:
| Public transit tapers off because demand drops off. There
| will be a spike around closing time for bars but it seems
| unlikely that you'd want to launch a whole commercial
| service just based on that.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Presumably, they want to launch a commercial service to
| get some real-world data and a foot in the door; the
| intent is to expand both time and geography.
| bradlys wrote:
| > Public transit tapers off because demand drops off.
| There will be a spike around closing time for bars but it
| seems unlikely that you'd want to launch a whole
| commercial service just based on that.
|
| Public transit is also based on an order of magnitude
| larger transport. You're talking about buses that are
| made to move 50-100 people or trains made to move
| hundreds... not a car that will be moving 1-3. The reason
| many routes get cut down isn't because there's no demand
| at all - it's because the demand is below the threshold
| to run the service profitably. If you can cut down on the
| cost to run the service by cutting the driver out, making
| the vehicle cheaper to run the route, and so forth... the
| route will come back.
|
| I think this service will do fine. This is one the issues
| that SF has in a large part. Very hard to get around at
| night because public transit is dead before midnight.
| simfree wrote:
| Busses rarely run at a profit, if your metro service is
| very lucky user fares cover half the cost of bus service
| (lookup farebox recovery ratio), hence some US bus
| systems going fare free since it makes a minimal
| difference financially.
| bradlys wrote:
| > Busses rarely run at a profit
|
| Semantics. Profit, net zero, sustainable with tax
| dollars, etc.
|
| Doesn't matter. You get the idea dude. It's about routes
| not being worthwhile because the damn transport option is
| too costly for just a few people. Autonomous car is gonna
| be more effective for these scenarios.
| loeg wrote:
| Sure, but they still care about cost and utility.
| toast0 wrote:
| Rather than profitability, perhaps the right metric is
| utilization.
|
| Even if you don't care about the revenue, having only a
| handful of people on the bus per run in the evening makes
| it hard to justify the cost of operating the line. Having
| other options to get home is great.
| Vargohoat wrote:
| > it seems unlikely that you'd want to launch a whole
| commercial service just based on that.
|
| You're thinking about this the wrong way. There's immense
| value in getting _any_ commercial service out there, not
| just in PR but in a full end-to-end test of all the
| ops/logistical/product/etc that come from having to deal
| with customers in reality. A good chunk of a decade and
| billions of dollars have been poured into the research
| behind these services. I doubt anyone at Cruise or Waymo
| cares or even expects these limited services to be
| profitable, but that's entirely missing the point.
| oblio wrote:
| > great compliment
|
| Great complement. Otherwise your comment becomes very
| confusing :-)
| Vargohoat wrote:
| > A commercial service that only operates in the middle of
| the night would not be very successful.
|
| I doubt they're going straight for the meatiest market. A
| commercial service of any sort would be a huge coup for a
| self-driving car co (as the Tempe launch was for Waymo). In
| SF's case, it also provides a foothold in a market that's
| actually economically sustainable. Once the technology
| reaches the point where more complex and crowded scenes can
| be handled safely, expanding is relatively trivial compared
| to spinning up from scratch.
| mindslight wrote:
| I see where you're coming from. Although it could still be
| a type of scale-up testing or congestion control. What
| would be the point of not permitting overnight service
| though?
| [deleted]
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I suspect it's just a reflection of what they applied for.
| bberenberg wrote:
| Waymo has a safety driver, Cruise does not.
| bagels wrote:
| They have recently been operating without one.
| flappysolutions wrote:
| They've been operating without safety drivers in Phoenix,
| but not in SF. AFAIK, every Waymo car in SF has had a
| safety driver in it. Cruise has been testing driverless
| rides the past few months in that timeframe/speed limit.
| modeless wrote:
| This release does not indicate a requirement for Waymo to
| have a safety driver. I don't think there is such a
| requirement.
| modeless wrote:
| Too late to edit, but I was wrong, it seems that Waymo did
| not request a permit for cars without safety drivers.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Why does night seem less likely? I'd expect many of the sensors
| work equally well or better (no sun interference) at night, and
| there will be a lot fewer other cars to crash into/cause a
| traffic jam when the car shuts down and has to be recovered.
| ehsankia wrote:
| The fact that the speed limit is much lower I think backs up
| that Cruise's permit is actually less permissive, and is most
| likely for at-night only.
|
| Waymo has had driver-free cars in Phoenix for over a year, so
| it would be strange for Cruise (who doesn't have a driver-
| free robo-taxi service already) to get a more permissive
| permit than Waymo.
| colpabar wrote:
| > _Cruise in March submitted the applications for driverless
| operations, whereas Waymo in January applied for autonomous
| vehicle deployment with safety drivers behind the wheel._
|
| Wow, driverless actually means no driver here. But how does that
| work? What if it makes a mistake? Is there some fallback pilot
| somewhere that can take over and control it remotely?
| tacomonstrous wrote:
| According to the DMV press release (submitted elsewhere on HN),
| this is incorrect:
|
| >Waymo is authorized to use a fleet of light-duty autonomous
| vehicles for commercial services within parts of San Francisco
| and San Mateo counties. The vehicles are approved to operate on
| public roads with a speed limit of no more than 65 mph and can
| also operate in rain and light fog. Waymo has had state
| authority to test autonomous vehicles on public roads with a
| safety driver since 2014 and received a driverless testing
| permit in October 2018.
| [deleted]
| icyfox wrote:
| Waymo has a similar approach in Phoenix. Passengers can't
| directly intervene but can call tech support and they'll
| dispatch roadside assistance to override the car and drive it
| to safety. Will be interesting to see if Cruise copies this
| same model.
| kreeben wrote:
| >> can't directly intervene but can call tech support
|
| "Hi, yeah, car's gone berserk, we're approaching a river, all
| doors are locked, can't get out, need assistance."
|
| "Hi, thank you for calling. Please hold (your breath)."
| raldi wrote:
| What would be your plan if a taxi driver went berserk and
| did that?
|
| What makes you believe the autonomous car is more likely
| than a human driver to do that?
| mountainboy wrote:
| 1. not get in the car in the first place. unless proven
| out by 10+ years of human guinea pigs not getting killed.
|
| 2. life experience, software expertise, common sense.
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| Lots of people used to feel this way about automated
| elevators.
|
| https://medium.com/swlh/what-do-self-driving-cars-and-
| elevat...
| tialaramex wrote:
| Right, it's eerily similar. People say this about
| automated railways too. And as with the elevator on your
| hundredth trip you are not thinking "Oh no, this is
| automated, it might kill me", because _of course_ it 's
| automated, you're thinking about whether Jim meant to
| complement you or it was intended as an insult last
| night, and did you bolt the back door?
| ggreer wrote:
| I've tried to find the original source of that claim and
| come up missing. All of the online articles either don't
| reference a source or they eventually link to an out of
| print book.[1]
|
| At this point I'm pretty sure it's not true. If past
| public sentiment was so against automatic elevators,
| there would be at least one newspaper clipping or
| digitized article.
|
| 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585122
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Wait, when in the history of taxis were there 10+ years
| of humans not being killed by taxi drivers?
|
| Certainly not any _recent_ (consecutive) 10-year period.
| dhosek wrote:
| It's pretty rare though. It's far more likely that the
| taxi driver will be killed by a passenger.
| raldi wrote:
| In a typical year, NYC's human-driver taxis had a fatal-
| or critical-injury crash rate 3x the overall US average:
| https://www.ingberprovost.com/how-often-do-taxis-crash/
|
| The US average is about 36,000 auto-caused fatalities per
| year: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-
| statistics/detail/pedes...
| shkkmo wrote:
| Isn't Waymo also starting the same service in parts of San
| Francisco?
| asah wrote:
| with safety drivers = not the same
| shkkmo wrote:
| Nope, they announced driveless bay area testing several
| weeks back. A recent press release confirms this. [0]
|
| Waymo is allowed to test at all hours, in rain and light
| fog, within a limited geographic area.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28710098
| xeromal wrote:
| Testing is different than a permitted taxi service.
|
| The permitted taxi service allows them to scale up and
| charge a profitable fare. In the testing phase, their
| fares are severely reduce.
|
| Cruise can charge full price without a driver, but Waymo
| only has the permit for a backup driver at full proce.
| andrewnc wrote:
| Anecdata here, but every waymo car I've seen here in SF
| for the past several weeks (probably 30+ cars) has had a
| safety driver.
| godelski wrote:
| Didn't they have "chase" cars in the beginning? Maybe I'm
| thinking of a different company. Cars that would follow
| around the driverless cars and could respond immediately if
| something happened.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| IIRC they did chase cars when they started doing fully
| driverless operations, yeah.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Waymo also has remote driving navigators/coaches who don't
| directly steer the car, but can tell it where to go
| navigation-wise.
| dobs_bob wrote:
| How long does it take the "safety driver" to react at 65mph?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Per TFA, they're limited to 30 MPH and will not have safety
| drivers.
|
| And obviously the launch is conditioned on regulators' belief
| that the system can handle reacting, to a degree of safety
| that's similar to human drivers: otherwise they wouldn't get
| the permit. The reaction time of safety drivers is not what
| this approval pivots on.
|
| Though obviously the interesting question is: how did the
| company and the regulators get to this level of confidence in
| the system's safety
| matttb wrote:
| They are referring to the multiple parts in 'TFA' talking
| about Waymo using safety drivers and a 65mph limit.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Ah, thanks for clarifying. That makes way more sense.
|
| BTW, you seem to have been reading TFA as some sort of
| snark. It's a pretty well-established bit of internet
| jargon that's (at least in my experience) more winking than
| aggressive at this pt.
| unchocked wrote:
| Between the noise of self-driving singularlists, and that of
| self-driving impossibilists, it's great to see plodding,
| sequential progress like this.
| Animats wrote:
| Yes. I've been saying that for a few years, as Waymo's
| disconnect rate improved by a factor of 2 every 18 months or
| so. This is a hard engineering problem. Now that the "fake it
| til you make it" clowns have dropped out, there's real
| progress.
| raldi wrote:
| Where can I follow along with the latest data on disconnect
| rates?
| ddp26 wrote:
| The _reported_ disengage rate has improved a lot, but Waymo
| only reports disengagements it classifies as "related to
| safety", based on proprietary analysis and counterfactual
| simulations it does not share.
| ahahahahah wrote:
| This isn't really true. You may be thinking about the CA
| required disengagement report rules. From a recent waymo
| safety report:
|
| "In this paper, "disengagement" refers to any event in
| which the AV's automated driving mode is disengaged. This
| is broader than the definition used in certain California
| state regulations, where the term more narrowly refers to
| certain safety-relevant disengagements."
| jacquesm wrote:
| What about the accident rate per miles driven? If that is
| dropping too I'd see that as confirmation that it really is
| improving. If that isn't then it's just bookkeeping.
| anchpop wrote:
| not necessarily, they could be putting the car in more
| difficult situations as it becomes safer
| Animats wrote:
| You can read all California autonomous vehicle accident
| reports here.[1]
|
| Most Waymo reports are "stopped in traffic, was rear-
| ended". There are two reports this year where the Waymo
| vehicle was responsible. In both cases, it was backing up
| while doing a three-point turn in a narrow street and
| bumped into something at 2MPH. So they need better sensor
| coverage in back.
|
| [1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-
| services/auto...
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > Now that the "fake it til you make it" clowns have dropped
| out
|
| I am pretty sure they recently announced "Full self driving v
| 2.0 for real this time, seriously, guys" and did not drop out
| dylan604 wrote:
| you're forgetting the "Full self driving v2.0 for real this
| time, seriously, guys. Oops, v2.1 (bug fixes)"
| mavhc wrote:
| The one that says "this is beta, don't trust it at all"?
| spectramax wrote:
| I should start paying attention to these pesky plots then ;-)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle#/media/File.
| ..
| opinion-is-bad wrote:
| From personal experience seeing how their data is generated,
| I don't trust Waymo reports at all. They straight up lie
| about the capability and disengage rates to an astonishing
| degree. I left several years ago, but I see no reason they
| would have developed honest practices on the meantime.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I have some personal experience as well, and I didn't pick
| up on any dishonesty like you describe. There was a
| consistent emphasis on safety, and multiple levels of
| thorough testing. When I left, I had generally positive
| opinions about the project.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't know about the disengage rates, but just the
| training model of data scares the bejeebus out of me.
| There was training data released and posted here on HN
| some time ago. I'm pretty sure the post was talking about
| how bad the training data was. There were all sorts of
| crazy things like signage being indicated in the trees or
| other "to a human" obviously wrong data. However, this
| was the supposed training data for some ML system. It was
| at this point that I just shook my head and walked away
| from interest in the subject.
| opinion-is-bad wrote:
| They definitely care about safety. I don't doubt their
| dedication to preventing accidents. My objections come
| from their hand waving away disengagements from the
| official results, shared with both regulators and
| Alphabet leadership. This was done to make their lead
| look greater than it was and to hide the slow progress
| with simple, required driving maneuvers like yield signs
| and unprotected left turns. My position had me handling
| driver issues directly and what the reports said did not
| line up with their, or my own, extensive time in the
| actual car.
| kstrauser wrote:
| What's the "disconnect rate"?
| exporectomy wrote:
| Disengagement rate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Did you honestly believe you were clarifying in a less
| confusing manner than the original question with this
| response?
| tizzdogg wrote:
| The parent poster is correct though. "Disengagement rate"
| is the term used in the industry, and what would get you
| results in google searches. "Disconnect rate" is not what
| it's called, so it's helpful to correct that.
| klodolph wrote:
| I believe it's how often the system requires human
| intervention... e.g., once per 1,000 miles, or once per 250
| hours, or something like that.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Oh, that would make sense. Thanks!
| oblio wrote:
| I think most reasonable people aren't against self-driving,
| they don't consider it impossible.
|
| They're generally against "create a self-driving startup in
| 2021, IPO by 2024 at the latest". That's just snake oil
| salesmanship.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Also against the "move fast and crash into things, and
| people" attitude some of them have.
| smegcicle wrote:
| that's one way to both increase and decrease the homeless
| population
| gfodor wrote:
| Robocars shuttling around actual people in SF at night in 2021
| seems like it should surprise a lot of people who have been
| skeptics. The road to full, global, universal autonomy will
| probably take decades if we are going to use that as the
| standard, but the standard of being certain that autonomy will
| eat the world seems to be getting very close to being met.
| mountainboy wrote:
| until the first pedestrian gets killed...
| summerlight wrote:
| Tesla already did it. No one seems to care?
| notatoad wrote:
| I don't remember in incident where a Tesla killed a
| pedestrian?
|
| I know Uber did, and now they don't have a self-driving car
| program anymore. not necessarily causation, but it can't
| have helped.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> not necessarily causation, but it can 't have helped_
|
| I do think it was causal: when the official report came
| out it was clear that their system was completely
| inappropriate for autonomous driving.
| https://www.jefftk.com/p/uber-self-driving-crash
| jlmorton wrote:
| Because we don't know if it did it. All we know is that a
| Tesla was involved with a fatal crash involving a person
| changing their tire on the Long Island Expressway. [1]
|
| There's been no confirmation whether Autopilot was enabled.
|
| [1] https://apnews.com/article/technology-
| business-6127ae797c528...
| summerlight wrote:
| Just in case you're not aware of, Tesla has a long
| history of fatal cases driven by Autopilot[1] with the
| first case below: This entire incident
| occurred without any actual input or action taken by the
| driver of the Tesla vehicle, except that the driver had
| his hands on the steering wheel as measured by Tesla's
| Autosteer system. Indeed, the Tesla Model X was equipped
| with an Event Data Recorder (EDR) which is intended to
| enable Tesla to collect data and record information from
| its vehicles and also provides information on various
| processes of the vehicle's functioning systems when a
| crash occurs. The information regarding vehicle speed as
| extracted from the Tesla Model X provides proof of the
| foregoing facts[2]
|
| [1] https://www.tesladeaths.com/ [2]
| https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/04/Te...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I think it will matter whether or not the car was
| operating in FSD or not. People can chalk up AP failures
| to idiot drivers misusing a feature, and then blame that
| person. When it's Tesla claiming to be fully in control,
| that's a different story. Though I guess they're probably
| not making that claim yet for 'FSD'.
| peter422 wrote:
| >10 pedestrians are killed each year by human drivers in SF,
| and almost exclusively they are the drivers fault (not only
| by definition, but also based on an impartial assessment of
| the situations).
|
| People will not care, and I also do not think these automated
| cars are going to kill any pedestrians anyways.
| DamnYuppie wrote:
| Agreed most people will not care. The legacy auto
| manufacturers and their mainstream media lap dogs will jump
| all over it. There will be an outpouring of fabricated
| outrage. It is all so predictable I want to puke.
| jjulius wrote:
| Take a deep breathe, you're going to be OK.
| [deleted]
| wutbrodo wrote:
| The legacy manufacturers are pretty invested in the self-
| driving space at this point though, no? Cruise itself is
| owned by Honda and GM, among others. I believe waymo has
| similar investors.
|
| I think we'll see a situation more like nicotine vapes.
| Instead of trying to crush the industry, big cigarette
| manufacturers just bought them.
| jimmydorry wrote:
| Invested to not fall behind. They will snipe at their
| opponents, and I don't doubt they would do the numbers on
| torpedoing their own solution if it meant wiping the
| field clean. Long-term, self-driving cars taking will
| mean less cars sold to consumers. Between ride-sharing,
| commercial operations, etc. the end goal will be less
| cars on roads.
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| You "want to puke" because of a response to a problem,
| where you're simply imagining both the problem _and_ the
| response?
|
| Calm down.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| When a human kills someone "that's a bad driver, take away
| their license" when a machine kills someone "that's a bad
| machine, ban it"
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > People will not care
|
| I don't believe that.
|
| One pregnant woman gets hi, and she and her unborn child
| die, and there will be so much anger and pressure on the
| politcians, everything will get outlawed.
|
| Human drivers are individuals... John Doe killed someone,
| blame John Doe. Autonomous car kills someone, blame all
| autonomous cars!
| vmception wrote:
| Consensus is a gradient, and representative consensus is
| multiple gradients.
| oblio wrote:
| Techies are a very narrow band in any of these gradients.
|
| Regular people are very wide bands, and there's a reason
| horror sci-fi movies where robots kill humankind are
| extremely popular.
| gfodor wrote:
| You're both right and wrong at the same time. The media
| gets to decide, as always, what we're collectively
| outraged about. Or to be more specific, the people who
| control the media. So if you want to predict if people
| are going to care when someone gets killed by a robocar,
| it depends on who stands to make or lose money if they do
| or don't.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| It seems more likely that the manufacturer will blamed.
| Society already has experience dealing with inhuman harm
| from devices. If a phone explodes on its own, no one is
| calling for all phones to be banned.
| jimmydorry wrote:
| If a phone explodes, many businesses outlaw that brand
| and maybe narrow that to a model. With prior example, do
| you think the same won't happen with a self-driving car?
| themacguffinman wrote:
| That's my point. The manufacturer and model of the self-
| driving car will be blamed and possibly banned, but not
| all self-driving cars will be.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| A small number of Chevy Bolts have had their batteries
| ignite spontaneously, nobody has been killed, and now
| there are a bunch of parking garages that have banned
| Chevy Bolts from parking there.
|
| Maybe not all autonomous cars will be banned when someone
| is killed, but I wouldn't be shocked if the same thing
| happened to whatever company that built the car in
| question that happened to Uber after they killed an
| innocent bystander.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| > Maybe not all autonomous cars will be banned when
| someone is killed
|
| Well that's exactly my point. The manufacturer and model
| of the self-driving car will be blamed and possibly
| banned, but not all self-driving cars will be. The first
| pedestrian death isn't going to be blamed on all
| autonomous cars.
| bagels wrote:
| People will care a disproportionate amount, I think.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If you're setting the over-under at 0.5, I'll take the
| over...
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| If it is SF, I would worry more about people shitting in those
| cars or injecting themselves with heroine.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I read a perspective once that posed driverless cars would
| first be adopted on specific commuter routes as a point to
| point taxi, and it's seeming increasingly plausible there will
| be such a service available for SFO to select highway-adjacent
| points around the Bay before long.
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's very easy to just distribute waste using these systems.
| I'm still not convinced by the single-vehicle on-demand for
| single-rider model.
|
| There's got to be a way to make public transportation stop
| being the least attractive option in low to medium density
| urban settings.
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| First make public transportation as clean and safe as ride
| sharing, then you'll get demand. Nobody wants to sit next to
| people that smell like piss/weed/cigs/BO. If you were a
| Uber/Lyft driver that kind of thing would get you 1 star very
| quickly.
| gfodor wrote:
| Post-COVID who wants to sit next to anyone
| dx034 wrote:
| I do, because hopefully we'll wear masks for a bit longer
| which also prevents the spread of many other diseases.
| andbberger wrote:
| That's just classism in a thin veneer of pretention.
|
| Frequency and reliability are what actually drive ridership
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Have enough of your friends get robbed/raped/groped in
| public transit and spend enough time on transit with
| urine in the stations and blood stains on the seats, and
| you will come to understand that safety, security, and
| cleanliness also drive ridership.
| andbberger wrote:
| my friends are NUMTOTs who grew up in the bay and are
| unfazed by the poor people on bart. in fact we're amongst
| them.
|
| I will never come to understand why the cloistered folks
| of Palo Alto hate poor people so much and will always
| resent them for it
| gfodor wrote:
| The reason public transport safety is concerning to the
| people you are slandering is because they have children.
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| It's not the poor people you notice, it's the tweakers
| and homeless people shitting themselves you notice. And
| the criminals [1]. The poor people look just like any
| other person on a train so _you can 't tell they're poor_
| in the first place. Maybe they have crappier shoes and a
| crappier phone but that's irrelevant because _they behave
| like normal people_.
|
| Seriously, have you ever taken a BART train late at night
| where there was a guy tweaked out of his mind? Or sat in
| chairs that look like they were shit on 5 times and never
| properly cleaned? Why do you expect people to deal with
| that as if it's perfectly okay? Why do you expect people
| not to take alternative modes of transportation when
| that's what they have to deal with? This kind of anti-
| societal behavior is only accepted in the US, and nowhere
| else in the world.
|
| [1]: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-
| robbery-5...
| rsj_hn wrote:
| And my friends were sexually assaulted and mugged at
| gunpoint, yet we do not assume that this is acceptable
| behavior or should be tolerated because of someone's
| income level.
|
| Honestly, I don't understand people who try to normalize
| violence and argue on public forums that it's acceptable
| that public transit be an open sewer just because it
| gives them a faux edginess in liking "gritty" public
| spaces or sense of twisted moral superiority to those who
| do care about these things.
| wayne-li2 wrote:
| I really don't think this is a rich or poor issue. It is
| possible to have public transportation that can transport
| rich or poor equally, while maintaining safety and
| cleanliness.
|
| For example, public transportation that has locked
| "cabins" for people who want to feel additional security.
| For cleanliness, constant sanitization of seats and
| floors. Trash bins available on the train, with workers
| replacing them as needed during station time.
|
| No one is kicking a poor person off MUNI but if a
| homeless person pees on the seat, it gets cleaned up
| immediately. People that feel unsafe can go into the
| cabin. Unarmed security guards can be placed at every
| station, not to hassle riders, but to give assistance to
| people that ask.
|
| This is not some foreign concept -- some Asian countries
| do this quite well.
| dx034 wrote:
| I'm from Europe so not sure if that's a US thing but
| that's certainly not such a big topic over here. Yes,
| public transport can't be 100% safe, being in public
| never is. But rapes in public transport and blood stains
| on seats are so rare that I don't know a single person
| who avoids public transport because of it. It's always
| just convenience, sometimes price.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Yes, I'm also from Europe. Public transport in Europe is
| much safer than in some urban areas in the U.S., but that
| is often true in general for just walking down in the
| street in a place like Bern or Frankfurt than in New
| Orleans or Oakland (these are the two cities where I had
| friends assaulted on public transport).
|
| That's why it's so shocking when these things happen and
| are accepted by people who actually resist reform because
| they view enforcing standards of cleanliness and safety
| as being "anti-poor" and suggest that even complaining
| about these issues is being classist instead of just
| advocating for basic human decency and higher quality
| public transport.
| jshmrsn wrote:
| What... I've had so many incredibly bad and sometimes
| downright scary situations due to being locked in close
| proximity to people out of their minds on drugs. Those
| experiences have absolutely decreased my willingness to
| take public transit. If you want to call that classism,
| then fine, but that doesn't make the impact on ridership
| any less true.
| Laremere wrote:
| The economics of self driving cars will ensure a rise in
| public transit usage.
|
| A few years ago, I was helping my friend consider options for
| saving money. On the table was if they needed to keep their
| car. Most of their commute was via public transit. However we
| looked at the number of transits for which public transit was
| not viable per month (visiting friends on the other side of
| the metro area, running to stores), multiplied by the cost of
| using a ride share service. Comparing this number to the car
| payment, auto insurance, gas, and maintenance, it was no
| contest: even a few trips amortized the cost of the car and
| made it worth it.
|
| Every trip has a cost in dollars, time, and externalities
| (causing congestion, environmental impact, etc). People will
| tend towards being efficient with those costs, judged by
| their relative importance to them personally.
|
| The thing is, owning a car is mostly a fixed dollar cost per
| month. Once you pass the point where owning one is worth it
| for a few trips, the cost of additional trips is far less,
| while the time savings remain high. The only time I consider
| public transportation is when parking is a problem, as all
| other things considered driving is preferable.
|
| Once self driving cars reach a point where they are closer to
| the amortized cost of a trip when owning a car, the tradeoffs
| start to change. Those who use their cars for few, but
| necessary, trips will be the first to ditch owning. I suspect
| many multi-car families will downsize to a single car. Once
| you get rid of your car, and are using self-driving cars for
| the trips where they are necessary, the question for every
| trip becomes "public transit, or self driving?" Different
| trips will have different ways they play out. However lot of
| people who are currently eating the cost of owning a car and
| might as well drive anyways will suddenly be able to save a
| few bucks by using public transit instead.
|
| The final magic of all this is that if you're going anywhere
| more than a few minutes away, there are many other people
| going from approximately where you are, to approximately
| where you're going. The big killer in public transit speed is
| time. Time going to a common pickup point, time waiting for
| it to arrive, time spent not going on a direct route, time
| spent stopping for others to get on or off. With a
| sufficiently well used self driving car network, it could
| easily join a few rides together at a point nearby, and have
| self driving cars ready and waiting at the point near your
| destination. Two quick transfers, and that's it. If the self
| driving car app says "45 minutes, $20, or 50 minutes for
| $10", lots of people would save that $10. For destinations
| such as downtown, airport, sport stadiums, there's even only
| one transfer. Given car pool lanes and such, transferring to
| an express bus might actually be faster than driving
| directly.
| drusepth wrote:
| Groceries are probably my number one reason to keep a car.
| I _can_ ride busses to and from grocery stores, but the
| inconvenience level of not only lugging tons of bags to
| /from but also dealing with your typical city life on the
| journey makes just using the car immensely more palateable.
| I've basically driven once every other week for the last
| year; for everything other than groceries, I walk or take
| transit.
|
| However, there are a bunch of potential one-off situations
| that make owning the car (or at least having it on hand)
| important, too. For example, what can you do when you need
| an emergency vet visit? You're probably not going to be
| calling a rideshare or taking a bus for that. Those what-
| ifs are also a big reason I still have a car, even though I
| don't technically _need_ one.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| What about traveling to one-off destinations that may be a
| couple of hours away and not accessible by public
| transportation, like a trail head for a hike? Such trips
| just never happen in your scenario?
| Laremere wrote:
| If someone does this say, every weekend all summer long,
| it's likely that keeping one car in the family will still
| be economical.
|
| Once self driving cars remove the inconvenience of the
| last mile and difficulty of coordination, mixed modes of
| transport start to become really convenient. In your
| scenario, you might take a self driving cab from a suburb
| house to a small transfer station, transfer to an express
| bug/shuttle, which then takes you to a car rental. This
| hypothetical car rental wouldn't make much sense today,
| but consider a rental in a small mountain town, renting
| out off-road capable vehicles. From there you could go on
| your hike. Though this solution would be a little slower
| and less convenient than driving directly - on the larger
| scale for many people dealing with this 2 times a year
| would be better than the costs of owning a vehicle. Plus
| for many people it doesn't make sense to own a large
| rugged vehicle for driving in cramped downtown spaces -
| using the right vehicle for the job becomes an awesome
| option.
|
| More popular trailheads for which the drive is fully
| paved won't be the first area serviced by self driving
| cars, but would be eventually.
|
| The meta-point is this: Many people survive today just
| fine without owning a car at all, so it's reasonable to
| assume that self driving cars will expand the circle of
| people who's use cases will be fully covered by self
| driving cars. This will definitely not be everyone as
| soon as self driving cars come out.
|
| As this circle grows, various niches of transportation
| will reach a critical mass and be developed. Another
| example is transportation between major cities. Currently
| you have inconvenient greyhound busses, or the rare train
| in the US. Then once you get to your destination you have
| to deal with transportation within that city. Today it's
| just easier to drive a few hours, assuming you already
| own a car.
| jimmydorry wrote:
| This is fun to think about, but all falls apart when you
| have awkward luggage that you want to travel with.
|
| Pet to the vet?
|
| Musical instrument?
|
| Shopping / incidental purchases?
| [deleted]
| themacguffinman wrote:
| Why can't that be covered by self-driving cars? There
| will definitely be some places that are truly unmapped
| and out of bounds for self-driving cars, but common
| hiking entrances and exits shouldn't be a problem.
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