From the article: I think what they’re saying is that due to the widespread outage, Waymo vehicles overwhelmed their human operators with requests to manually verify that going through dark...
From the article:
While the Waymo Driver is designed to handle dark traffic signals as four-way stops, it may occasionally request a confirmation check to ensure it makes the safest choice. While we successfully traversed more than 7,000 dark signals on Saturday, the outage created a concentrated spike in these requests. This created a backlog that, in some cases, led to response delays contributing to congestion on already-overwhelmed streets.
I think what they’re saying is that due to the widespread outage, Waymo vehicles overwhelmed their human operators with requests to manually verify that going through dark traffic signals was okay.
We established these confirmation protocols out of an abundance of caution during our early deployment, and we are now refining them to match our current scale. While this strategy was effective during smaller outages, we are now implementing fleet-wide updates that provide the Driver with specific power outage context, allowing it to navigate more decisively.
Apparently asking for help so often isn’t necessary and they’ll fix it so it doesn’t do that. (At least, when they know it’s due to a power outage and not something weirder.)
I think if I was a driver in the city I’d be upset that we’re the ones dealing with the growing pains of self driving at scale. Thankfully I sold my car last year and can observe from the sidewalk...
I think if I was a driver in the city I’d be upset that we’re the ones dealing with the growing pains of self driving at scale. Thankfully I sold my car last year and can observe from the sidewalk and marvel at history in the making. This is the kind of stuff they’ll put in documentaries about the first self driving cars.
I was in SF during this incident. And while my other comment is complaining about Waymos, they were still better than many of the human drivers. If we replaced 90% of the vehicles on the road with...
I was in SF during this incident. And while my other comment is complaining about Waymos, they were still better than many of the human drivers. If we replaced 90% of the vehicles on the road with waymos, it would have been much safer and had less congestion.
As it stands right now, I feel much more comfortable driving near a Waymo than standard traffic. I have never seen a Waymo get out of the car to road rage at someone. I have never seen a Waymo repeatedly try to run another vehicle into a cement wall. I have seen both of those from drivers in SF within the last month.
I was driving in San Francisco during the outage. I witnessed a Waymo change lanes in the middle of an intersection in order to cut me off. I was waiting since there wasn’t space to clear the...
I was driving in San Francisco during the outage. I witnessed a Waymo change lanes in the middle of an intersection in order to cut me off. I was waiting since there wasn’t space to clear the intersection. The Waymo cut me off through the intersection and stayed in the intersection, because there wasn’t space. While waiting, a second Waymo nearly did the exact same thing. I had to go through the intersection and partially block it to prevent a second Waymo from cutting me off.
I hope Waymo doesn’t count these incidents as « successfully navigated ». I’m not sure if it’s technically illegal, but it is absolutely disrespectful driving. I do think that changing lanes in the intersection is against the driving code in California.
According to this, changing lanes in an intersection is not illegal in CA: https://www.mycaliforniapermit.com/california-teen-driver-education/rules-of-the-road/4
According to this, changing lanes in an intersection is not illegal in CA:
From the article:
I think what they’re saying is that due to the widespread outage, Waymo vehicles overwhelmed their human operators with requests to manually verify that going through dark traffic signals was okay.
Apparently asking for help so often isn’t necessary and they’ll fix it so it doesn’t do that. (At least, when they know it’s due to a power outage and not something weirder.)
I think if I was a driver in the city I’d be upset that we’re the ones dealing with the growing pains of self driving at scale. Thankfully I sold my car last year and can observe from the sidewalk and marvel at history in the making. This is the kind of stuff they’ll put in documentaries about the first self driving cars.
I was in SF during this incident. And while my other comment is complaining about Waymos, they were still better than many of the human drivers. If we replaced 90% of the vehicles on the road with waymos, it would have been much safer and had less congestion.
As it stands right now, I feel much more comfortable driving near a Waymo than standard traffic. I have never seen a Waymo get out of the car to road rage at someone. I have never seen a Waymo repeatedly try to run another vehicle into a cement wall. I have seen both of those from drivers in SF within the last month.
I was driving in San Francisco during the outage. I witnessed a Waymo change lanes in the middle of an intersection in order to cut me off. I was waiting since there wasn’t space to clear the intersection. The Waymo cut me off through the intersection and stayed in the intersection, because there wasn’t space. While waiting, a second Waymo nearly did the exact same thing. I had to go through the intersection and partially block it to prevent a second Waymo from cutting me off.
I hope Waymo doesn’t count these incidents as « successfully navigated ». I’m not sure if it’s technically illegal, but it is absolutely disrespectful driving. I do think that changing lanes in the intersection is against the driving code in California.
I suspect it's only a matter of time before progress marches inevitably on and we're told to get with the times, that's just how robots drive.
According to this, changing lanes in an intersection is not illegal in CA:
https://www.mycaliforniapermit.com/california-teen-driver-education/rules-of-the-road/4
Entering it when you can't exit is though. And the Waymo was staying in the intersection. Well, Waymos.
Neat. You don't get this hands-on experience in training. This must've been worthwhile data.