> Or, better yet, make a database and have cities provide feeds of changes/permits/closures.

"Sorry, I know you crashed, your car's on fire, and you're bleeding out. But I need to get this road closure form submitted before I can help, or a self driving car might ignore the stationary accident and make things worse. Ugh, 5G's not working today... hold on..."

The cars must be able to handle random, unexpected events happening without maps, and without external guidance. A wheel falls off a truck in front of you for metal fatigue reasons and is bounding down the road - that's a thing that happens, and a thing that in no way will be reported before it becomes relevant.

If a self driving car can't handle this sort of thing (or an accident and coming on a flagger) autonomously, it has no business being allowed on the road.

And if it can - then there's no need to have a centralized database of weird things, because it can deal with the range of events autonomously.

> If a self driving car can't handle this sort of thing (or an accident and coming on a flagger) autonomously, it has no business being allowed on the road.

> And if it can - then there's no need to have a centralized database of weird things, because it can deal with the range of events autonomously.

'Conditions on top of the road' (vehicles, debris, etc.) and 'conditions of the road itself' are not the same thing and I'm not sure why you think that they are.

If both are 98%, and you combine them...

On an annual basis, you "self drive" a staggeringly large number of cars into accident scenes, road construction, traffic jams, police, and just about everything else that could possibly be on the road.

Start talking about 99.998% or so, OK, now it's worth sitting down with the math. But 98% accuracy at avoiding construction/existing crashes/etc is horrible.

> We've already seen several instances of Waymo's approach not working.

Define -

1. Several.

2. Not working.

Disc: Googler but I don't know if that's necessary since I don't work at Waymo.

Here's one: https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/14/22436584/waymo-driverless...

Doesn't seem several or approach not working to me. The YouTuber who recorded that video has taken over 50 rides. One of them didn't go as intended (didn't cause an accident) but I won't call that as Waymo's approach not working.

These rides are in ideal conditions: perfect visibility, excellent roads, a city designed for cars, and well-behaved drivers. Waymo has worked on self-driving for 12 years now, and threw smartest people in the world and billions of dollars at the problem. Yet they still having problems with simple situations like going around orange cones on the road.

Self-driving will arrive eventually, but don't hold your breath.

Depending on what "not working" means to you, I'm ok with that. I think the point of the Waymo approach is to not work very frequently so they can flush out the issues.

I’m not interested in walking down streets that Waymo is using for their beta tests.