7 ms·

I live in one of the areas they are actively testing/training in. Their cars consistently behave better and more safely than most human drivers that I’m forced

I live in one of the areas they are actively testing/training in. Their cars consistently behave better and more safely than most human drivers that I’m forced to share the road with. As semi-autonomous and autonomous cars become the norm, I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road.

Natsu 1y ago
If you actually ride in one, you do notice some off behaviors that I didn't pick up while just driving alongside them. That said, I agree that the bad human drivers have done things far, far worse than any of the cars. The biggest gripe with riding in one is that they're slow, both because of super cautious driving and because they won't take freeways yet.
- mgens 1y ago
  A month ago I saw a Waymo turn left into a tiny alley in Palo Alto and continue at full 25mph speed, which was alarming. I guess the alley is marked as a regular road in the software? Highlights how even if it's safer than humans on average, they need to minimize these weird behaviors in order to get socially accepted and avoid $$$ liability when there is an accident.
  - vesrah 1y ago
    New speedbumps were installed in a school zone near my housing complex recently, we're a heavy Waymo area and I watched one of them launch itself over one without slowing down.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      They installed one of those near my friends house. There's a couple mechanic shops in the vicinity used it for diagnosis while driving exactly the posted speed limit. It lasted about a month until the people who complained it into existence complained it out of existence.
- mulmen 1y ago
  I have only taken a couple Waymos but I had the opposite experience. They were much faster and more decisive than I expected. They do apparently learn from surrounding drivers and this was LA so maybe that explains the difference.
  - jen20 1y ago
    It wouldn't surprise me if each Waymo has one of a pool of aggression settings - I've noticed the difference between cars as a rider.
    - mulmen 1y ago
      Interesting. I hadn’t considered it but that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if that happens per car or per ride. Do aggression settings adjust to apparent passenger comfort?
      - jen20 1y ago
        Unclear, I’ve noticed both timid and aggressive on the same day in different cars so maybe not?
gibolt 1y ago
The real issue is all the current bad drivers. A requirement to start re-testing normal people in addition to the elderly would be a large benefit to society.
- HiroshiSan 1y ago
  Yeah the mindset is essentially drive to spec in the test and then skirting the law from then on.
  - soupfordummies 1y ago
    I think a lot about this (bad drivers) and I’m not really sure how to fix it since I think it’s really a problem of underlying selfishness and perceived-exceptionalism mixed with overestimation of skill.
    - dgfitz 1y ago
      Nailed it. Mostly the selfishness part. The whole idea of being courteous with other people on the road just doesn’t exist. Sadly, this also extends to bicyclists. Entitled instead of courteous.
    - UltraSane 1y ago
      cars can easily be programmed to detect bad driving.
- rs186 1y ago
  Complete unrelated, I just wish every driver on the road re-learn that cyclists have the same rights of being on city roads like cars.
  - Foofoobar12345 1y ago
    And I wish cyclists would re-learn that pedestrians have more rights of being on sidewalks. That said, the bigger plague on sidewalks are e-scooters. Additionally, most cyclists I see never stop at stop signs no matter how busy the intersection is.
ilamont 1y ago
Traffic enforcement, which used to correct some bad driving, has basically evaporated in many parts of the U.S. This has been a long-term trend. A friend who's a cop told me that only when their department got specific state grants would they set up stings of drivers driving in a pedestrian walkway while someone was crossing the street. Here's an example of one such grant program, which is actually funded by the federal government: https://www.mass.gov/doc/ffy26-municipal-road-safety-grant-application-for-grant-funds-agf/download https://www.mass.gov/doc/ffy26-municipal-road-safety-grant-a... Crosswalk Decoy Operations: These operations may involve a plainclothes officer acting as a civilian pedestrian and a uniformed officer making stops OR involve a uniformed officer serving as a spotter to observe and relay violations to an officer making stops. ... All Pedestrian and Bicyclist enforcement must be conducted during overtime shifts, meaning grant-funded activity occurs during hours over and above any regular full-time/part-time schedule. At other times, he said he would only pull someone over if they were doing something batshit crazy and they happened to be behind the vehicle where it was easy to pull them over. Minor stuff and speeding they would rarely ticket. The U.S. and other countries need to use automated methods of detecting and applying penalties. Some busy intersections have cameras for this, but it seems to be very limited, maybe because of cost. Years ago New York used to calculate if you were speeding the NY State Thruway based on the time between toll booths. They cancelled this program for some reason. Although more recently, the New York State Police have speed cameras set up in a few highway work zones, which is effective (double fines applicable, see https://wnyt.com/top-stories/where-are-automated-speed-cameras-located-on-new-york-highways-and-interstates/ https://wnyt.com/top-stories/where-are-automated-speed-camer...) but it still requires a person driving a car to set up the gear.
- hombre_fatal 1y ago
  I grew up in a Texas city, lived abroad for over a decade, and recently moved back to the same city because my girlfriend randomly got a job here. The number of people who run red lights is giving me culture shock. You have to sit and wait at your own green light because 1-3 vehicles are still running their red light, and it's every time. As a teen, I saw cops everywhere camping out for traffic violations. I got a few tickets myself for tiny infractions that don't compare to running a red light. Of course, the icing on the cake is that Texas outlawed red light cameras in court.
orangea 1y ago
Don't you think that the vast majority of dangerous human drivers would be perfectly capable of changing their behavior during a driving test? Even without any malicious intent most people would be more careful during a test.
- pb7 1y ago
  No, I don't actually. Can't turn off stupid.
  - beeflet 1y ago
    You can turn on drunk
- overfeed 1y ago
  I want a camera on every traffic light and stop light - or better, cameras on a random 20% subset of intersections. The system would automatically flag infractions for human review. Combined with docking points off people's licenses and/or fines based on income/wealth percentage, this would be a decent deterrent.
segmondy 1y ago
be careful what you wish for, you are giving up your freedom to movement in the name of security. you might make the argument that you can hail a cab. that's more expensive than owning your own car and with self driving cabs you will lose your privacy when you use them. any movement between 2 points will always be recorded with at least video and as you are moving, someone else other than you can pinpoint your exact location. with your own vehicle, you could unplug your phone and car GPS/tracking device and have some privacy.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > you are giving up your freedom to movement in the name of security Driving in American cities is the opposite of freedom. The necessity of regulating apes piloting heavy machinery in close proximity to each other and society is a major source of our modern police state.
  - Klonoar 1y ago
    No, it is still freedom. It is inconvenient freedom, but it’s freedom.
- afcool83 1y ago
  We do not have a freedom to movement _by motor vehicle_ in the US. It is a privilege licensed by the State and regularly revoked through due process or expiry. While your concern about mobility and privacy are valid, I would contend that public safety is what it’s to be weighed against. Some people really are better riders than drivers.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    We do not have a "right", in practice, we have some degree of practical freedom. Of course people who really don't like that freedom will play up the privilige vs right angle as they see fit to advance their goals.
throwaway0123_5 1y ago
> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road. I think it would be far more effective to make it easier to lose your license than it would be to make getting the license more challenging. The absolute most dangerous drivers I see on the road aren't bad drivers in the sense that they're unskilled at controlling their car. I can't weave between cars at 120 mph or cross three lanes of traffic to make an exit I didn't see until the last second without killing myself, but I routinely see people do that. Sure they don't care about driving safely and/or following the law, but they're probably sane enough to pull it together for a brief driving test. The other big category of dangerous drivers is drunk/distracted (texting) drivers. Again, most of the people engaging in these behaviors are probably smart enough not to do them during a driving test.
- rib3ye 1y ago
  Don't you think it would be easier and cheaper to gatekeep than to build up an enforcement and judgement workforce.
  - dbmikus 1y ago
    The people that are good but dangerous drivers will drive well and safely during tests, so you won't catch them.
    - mcny 1y ago
      We need a consistently reliable public transit system before we tell people they can't drive for one reason or another.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        Allow drink driving in places with no metro system? There are obviously lines to be drawn in what you allow, for the safety of others, regardless of the alternatives. That said, we can absolutely work on improving public transport at the same time. There's no reason to have to fully solve public transport before trying to tackle dangerous driving.
jacinda 1y ago
What I would love to see happen from a safety perspective and which I think might happen (but zero timeline on when) is that a human driving a car will be relegated to something people do purely for enjoyment and only in areas designated for human drivers, similar to how you don't see horseback riding anymore except in designated areas or for specific use cases.
nradov 1y ago
Making it more difficult to obtain (or keep) a driver's license is meaningless without tough enforcement. Traffic enforcement in many areas is still way down after the "mostly peaceful" protests in 2020. When police do stop an unlicensed driver they often treat it as a simple citation without even impounding the vehicle.
potato3732842 1y ago
Like "real" safety or like "16yo with a driver's ed instructor in the passenger seat ensuring the follow every law but doesn't really 'get it' yet" safely?
RainyDayTmrw 1y ago
Human failures have some, but not total, correlation with each other. A big fear of autonomous driving is some severe failure with total correlation - the whole fleet does the same dumb thing at the same time, in the same place, and/or in the same way.
wnc3141 1y ago
My aunt's leg was crushed by an NY Taxi blowing a crosswalk. As hard as her recovery was too the legal battle that followed.
- wnc3141 1y ago
  ^ for context this was about 20 yrs. ago
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road A Manhattan driver’s license addendum might be the way to do it. Keep a low bar for where one might need a car. But to enter Manhattan, you need to be autonomous or specially licensed.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  That's gonna be great when other states start doing it and it becomes an absurd maze of predatory fees, reciprocity and political footballs.
TowerTall 1y ago
> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road. That shift will happen all by itself. At some point, in a distant future, the price of the insurrance for human-driven cars will be so expensive that people because of that will choose a robot-driven car. It is all about risk (the risk of the insurrance company loosing money) and an error prone and unpreditical human will be a considered high risk in that regard.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Will it though? Surely as driverless cars become viable the "I don't wanna do this, I actively don't care about doing it well" crowd will adopt them and insurance rates for everyone else will likely plummet.
adonese 1y ago
> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road. I'd like to challenge this part. I don't see the value of increasing the driving license tests. Reckless drivers can be reckless regardless of their initial driving license tests. You just need drivers with sense of responsibilities. they will get to know road norms as they go, which often is far more valuable than the driving license quizzes. Context: I moved to a new place where acquiring a license can take more than a year. It turns into a game where driving license companies deliberately fail you just to get you to pay more.
maest 1y ago
> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty I have taken driving licence exams in 3 different countries in the world and the NY exams was, by far, the easiest, less stringent one. For the theory part, you can take the exam from home, on your own laptop and you just have to pinky swear you won't cheat. It's downright silly. Also, traffic enforcement in NYC feels basically nonexistent. Drivers will run red lights, fail to yield at pedestrian crossings and will park wherever they feel like it. And the police won't do anything - in fact, the police are one of the biggest offenders.
toasted-subs 1y ago
Hang up man. Not sure if there’s any real human drivers on the road anymore.
ethics13 1y ago
If only we can get autonomous cycles that also a danger to pedestrians and themselves.

Natsu 1y ago

If you actually ride in one, you do notice some off behaviors that I didn't pick up while just driving alongside them. That said, I agree that the bad human drivers have done things far, far worse than any of the cars. The biggest gripe with riding in one is that they're slow, both because of super cautious driving and because they won't take freeways yet.

mgens 1y ago
A month ago I saw a Waymo turn left into a tiny alley in Palo Alto and continue at full 25mph speed, which was alarming. I guess the alley is marked as a regular road in the software? Highlights how even if it's safer than humans on average, they need to minimize these weird behaviors in order to get socially accepted and avoid $$$ liability when there is an accident.
- vesrah 1y ago
  New speedbumps were installed in a school zone near my housing complex recently, we're a heavy Waymo area and I watched one of them launch itself over one without slowing down.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    They installed one of those near my friends house. There's a couple mechanic shops in the vicinity used it for diagnosis while driving exactly the posted speed limit. It lasted about a month until the people who complained it into existence complained it out of existence.
mulmen 1y ago
I have only taken a couple Waymos but I had the opposite experience. They were much faster and more decisive than I expected. They do apparently learn from surrounding drivers and this was LA so maybe that explains the difference.
- jen20 1y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if each Waymo has one of a pool of aggression settings - I've noticed the difference between cars as a rider.
  - mulmen 1y ago
    Interesting. I hadn’t considered it but that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if that happens per car or per ride. Do aggression settings adjust to apparent passenger comfort?
    - jen20 1y ago
      Unclear, I’ve noticed both timid and aggressive on the same day in different cars so maybe not?

gibolt 1y ago

The real issue is all the current bad drivers. A requirement to start re-testing normal people in addition to the elderly would be a large benefit to society.

HiroshiSan 1y ago
Yeah the mindset is essentially drive to spec in the test and then skirting the law from then on.
- soupfordummies 1y ago
  I think a lot about this (bad drivers) and I’m not really sure how to fix it since I think it’s really a problem of underlying selfishness and perceived-exceptionalism mixed with overestimation of skill.
  - dgfitz 1y ago
    Nailed it. Mostly the selfishness part. The whole idea of being courteous with other people on the road just doesn’t exist. Sadly, this also extends to bicyclists. Entitled instead of courteous.
  - UltraSane 1y ago
    cars can easily be programmed to detect bad driving.
rs186 1y ago
Complete unrelated, I just wish every driver on the road re-learn that cyclists have the same rights of being on city roads like cars.
- Foofoobar12345 1y ago
  And I wish cyclists would re-learn that pedestrians have more rights of being on sidewalks. That said, the bigger plague on sidewalks are e-scooters. Additionally, most cyclists I see never stop at stop signs no matter how busy the intersection is.

ilamont 1y ago

Traffic enforcement, which used to correct some bad driving, has basically evaporated in many parts of the U.S. This has been a long-term trend. A friend who's a cop told me that only when their department got specific state grants would they set up stings of drivers driving in a pedestrian walkway while someone was crossing the street. Here's an example of one such grant program, which is actually funded by the federal government: https://www.mass.gov/doc/ffy26-municipal-road-safety-grant-application-for-grant-funds-agf/download https://www.mass.gov/doc/ffy26-municipal-road-safety-grant-a... Crosswalk Decoy Operations: These operations may involve a plainclothes officer acting as a civilian pedestrian and a uniformed officer making stops OR involve a uniformed officer serving as a spotter to observe and relay violations to an officer making stops. ... All Pedestrian and Bicyclist enforcement must be conducted during overtime shifts, meaning grant-funded activity occurs during hours over and above any regular full-time/part-time schedule. At other times, he said he would only pull someone over if they were doing something batshit crazy and they happened to be behind the vehicle where it was easy to pull them over. Minor stuff and speeding they would rarely ticket. The U.S. and other countries need to use automated methods of detecting and applying penalties. Some busy intersections have cameras for this, but it seems to be very limited, maybe because of cost. Years ago New York used to calculate if you were speeding the NY State Thruway based on the time between toll booths. They cancelled this program for some reason. Although more recently, the New York State Police have speed cameras set up in a few highway work zones, which is effective (double fines applicable, see https://wnyt.com/top-stories/where-are-automated-speed-cameras-located-on-new-york-highways-and-interstates/ https://wnyt.com/top-stories/where-are-automated-speed-camer...) but it still requires a person driving a car to set up the gear.

hombre_fatal 1y ago
I grew up in a Texas city, lived abroad for over a decade, and recently moved back to the same city because my girlfriend randomly got a job here. The number of people who run red lights is giving me culture shock. You have to sit and wait at your own green light because 1-3 vehicles are still running their red light, and it's every time. As a teen, I saw cops everywhere camping out for traffic violations. I got a few tickets myself for tiny infractions that don't compare to running a red light. Of course, the icing on the cake is that Texas outlawed red light cameras in court.

orangea 1y ago

Don't you think that the vast majority of dangerous human drivers would be perfectly capable of changing their behavior during a driving test? Even without any malicious intent most people would be more careful during a test.

pb7 1y ago
No, I don't actually. Can't turn off stupid.
- beeflet 1y ago
  You can turn on drunk
overfeed 1y ago
I want a camera on every traffic light and stop light - or better, cameras on a random 20% subset of intersections. The system would automatically flag infractions for human review. Combined with docking points off people's licenses and/or fines based on income/wealth percentage, this would be a decent deterrent.

segmondy 1y ago

be careful what you wish for, you are giving up your freedom to movement in the name of security. you might make the argument that you can hail a cab. that's more expensive than owning your own car and with self driving cabs you will lose your privacy when you use them. any movement between 2 points will always be recorded with at least video and as you are moving, someone else other than you can pinpoint your exact location. with your own vehicle, you could unplug your phone and car GPS/tracking device and have some privacy.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> you are giving up your freedom to movement in the name of security Driving in American cities is the opposite of freedom. The necessity of regulating apes piloting heavy machinery in close proximity to each other and society is a major source of our modern police state.
- Klonoar 1y ago
  No, it is still freedom. It is inconvenient freedom, but it’s freedom.
afcool83 1y ago
We do not have a freedom to movement _by motor vehicle_ in the US. It is a privilege licensed by the State and regularly revoked through due process or expiry. While your concern about mobility and privacy are valid, I would contend that public safety is what it’s to be weighed against. Some people really are better riders than drivers.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  We do not have a "right", in practice, we have some degree of practical freedom. Of course people who really don't like that freedom will play up the privilige vs right angle as they see fit to advance their goals.

throwaway0123_5 1y ago

> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road. I think it would be far more effective to make it easier to lose your license than it would be to make getting the license more challenging. The absolute most dangerous drivers I see on the road aren't bad drivers in the sense that they're unskilled at controlling their car. I can't weave between cars at 120 mph or cross three lanes of traffic to make an exit I didn't see until the last second without killing myself, but I routinely see people do that. Sure they don't care about driving safely and/or following the law, but they're probably sane enough to pull it together for a brief driving test. The other big category of dangerous drivers is drunk/distracted (texting) drivers. Again, most of the people engaging in these behaviors are probably smart enough not to do them during a driving test.

rib3ye 1y ago
Don't you think it would be easier and cheaper to gatekeep than to build up an enforcement and judgement workforce.
- dbmikus 1y ago
  The people that are good but dangerous drivers will drive well and safely during tests, so you won't catch them.
  - mcny 1y ago
    We need a consistently reliable public transit system before we tell people they can't drive for one reason or another.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      Allow drink driving in places with no metro system? There are obviously lines to be drawn in what you allow, for the safety of others, regardless of the alternatives. That said, we can absolutely work on improving public transport at the same time. There's no reason to have to fully solve public transport before trying to tackle dangerous driving.

jacinda 1y ago

What I would love to see happen from a safety perspective and which I think might happen (but zero timeline on when) is that a human driving a car will be relegated to something people do purely for enjoyment and only in areas designated for human drivers, similar to how you don't see horseback riding anymore except in designated areas or for specific use cases.

nradov 1y ago

Making it more difficult to obtain (or keep) a driver's license is meaningless without tough enforcement. Traffic enforcement in many areas is still way down after the "mostly peaceful" protests in 2020. When police do stop an unlicensed driver they often treat it as a simple citation without even impounding the vehicle.

potato3732842 1y ago

Like "real" safety or like "16yo with a driver's ed instructor in the passenger seat ensuring the follow every law but doesn't really 'get it' yet" safely?

RainyDayTmrw 1y ago

Human failures have some, but not total, correlation with each other. A big fear of autonomous driving is some severe failure with total correlation - the whole fleet does the same dumb thing at the same time, in the same place, and/or in the same way.

wnc3141 1y ago

My aunt's leg was crushed by an NY Taxi blowing a crosswalk. As hard as her recovery was too the legal battle that followed.

wnc3141 1y ago
^ for context this was about 20 yrs. ago

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road A Manhattan driver’s license addendum might be the way to do it. Keep a low bar for where one might need a car. But to enter Manhattan, you need to be autonomous or specially licensed.

potato3732842 1y ago
That's gonna be great when other states start doing it and it becomes an absurd maze of predatory fees, reciprocity and political footballs.

TowerTall 1y ago

> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road. That shift will happen all by itself. At some point, in a distant future, the price of the insurrance for human-driven cars will be so expensive that people because of that will choose a robot-driven car. It is all about risk (the risk of the insurrance company loosing money) and an error prone and unpreditical human will be a considered high risk in that regard.

potato3732842 1y ago
Will it though? Surely as driverless cars become viable the "I don't wanna do this, I actively don't care about doing it well" crowd will adopt them and insurance rates for everyone else will likely plummet.

adonese 1y ago

> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty in order to remove dangerous human drivers from the road. I'd like to challenge this part. I don't see the value of increasing the driving license tests. Reckless drivers can be reckless regardless of their initial driving license tests. You just need drivers with sense of responsibilities. they will get to know road norms as they go, which often is far more valuable than the driving license quizzes. Context: I moved to a new place where acquiring a license can take more than a year. It turns into a game where driving license companies deliberately fail you just to get you to pay more.

maest 1y ago

> I would adore to see obtaining a drivers license ratchet up in difficulty I have taken driving licence exams in 3 different countries in the world and the NY exams was, by far, the easiest, less stringent one. For the theory part, you can take the exam from home, on your own laptop and you just have to pinky swear you won't cheat. It's downright silly. Also, traffic enforcement in NYC feels basically nonexistent. Drivers will run red lights, fail to yield at pedestrian crossings and will park wherever they feel like it. And the police won't do anything - in fact, the police are one of the biggest offenders.

toasted-subs 1y ago

Hang up man. Not sure if there’s any real human drivers on the road anymore.

ethics13 1y ago

If only we can get autonomous cycles that also a danger to pedestrians and themselves.