This seems like an argument that you should be more worried about getting in a Waymo if there is a safety driver than if there isn't. If so, that would definitely be an interesting conclusion.

Well both would be worrying, maybe one less than the other. Really I'd rather have a safe car where the failure modes are not stupid, so I can stop worrying altogether.

Sure, but the failure modes of the traditional human-controlled car are incredibly stupid, we've just gotten used to it.

> the failure modes of the traditional human-controlled car are incredibly stupid, we've just gotten used to it.

This is missing the point. Just because we accommodate certain types of errors by humans, that doesn't mean should or would tolerate them if the same errors were made by machines. (Or vice-versa, for that matter.) The standards we hold machines and humans to can be very different, and that should be expected.

> Maybe they want to argue the software is safe, but that doesn't change the fact that I'd still be scared of getting into that car.

As a rider, you can't touch the Waymo steering wheel or pedals, which eliminates the cause of the accident you referenced.

The driver fell asleep and then pressed the gas pedal… and didn’t see or hear tons of warnings and alarms from the car. Very hard to blame that on the car.

> Maybe they want to argue the software is safe, but that doesn't change the fact that I'd still be scared of getting into that car.

Why this car, and not all cars? If I fail to assume control of my steering wheel, I will also crash.

> Why this car, and not all cars? If I fail to assume control of my steering wheel, I will also crash.

The short answer is because this isn't a deterministic "if". The probability matters too.

The thing is in a normal car you're forced to be alert all the time. With autonomous driving, 99%+ of the time you have nothing to do. Humans simply cannot pay as much attention all the time when they're not actively forced to. It's much easier to lose attention (drowsiness, chatting with people, etc.) than if you're physically already driving.

And moreover, regaining control of a car requires some context switching time that isn't there when you're already in control.

If my car is going to disengage and at a random point (whether due to my fault or otherwise), I'd rather just be in control the whole time.

> If my car is going to disengage and at a random point (whether due to my fault or otherwise)

But it's not at a random point. If you push the disengage button, it disengages and tells you it's disengaged. I don't understand why you keep mischaracterising what happened.

> But it's not at a random point. If you push the disengage button, it disengages and tells you it's disengaged. I don't understand why you keep mischaracterising what happened.

I'm not mischaracterizing anything. To the driver who dozes off and presses this completely unintentionally, this did happen at a random point. He certainly didn't intend or expect it to happen.

You have to realize, dozing off in a situation that's boring 99%+ of the time is a human thing. If you design your car such that a driver is prone to pressing the disengage button unintentionally when he dozes off, you get to share the blame when that happens. It's not something reckless like DUI where you get to put all the blame on the driver for it.

> To the driver who dozes off and presses this completely unintentionally, this did happen at a random point

That's not the only perspective, though. It's possible to doze off when driving a normal car, and that doesn't suddenly become the car's fault, despite from the driver's perspective, he/she didn't mean for it to happen.

> If you design your car such that a driver is prone to pressing the disengage button unintentionally when he dozes off

But again - how do you know it's been designed that way? This still seems like editorialising without any additional info.

There is no standardized way of collecting safety data. Each company is able to define their own standards on what is an AV-caused accident, the training conditions, etc.

This is the bigger issue.

I do not trust any data in 2023, and 2024 will be worse.

We can create frameworks to mitigate this problem, though. A good first step is better transparency regarding data reporting of AVs.

I don't think we can ever get truthful reporting of auto accidents, because ever wreck I've ever been in involved the other side not being truthful at some point.

I meant specifically for the AV space. That would include turning over all the data regarding an incident, similar to what Uber had to due after the fatal accident in Tempe as well as training data.

Having ridden in many a taxi, Uber Lyft, etc. over the years all driven by humans.... I'd be lying to say I'd be more afraid to get in a Waymo car.

I took a London black cab recently for a trip to the hospital, and the driver at one point overtook about 200 metres of stationary traffic, going around several "keep left" bollards, to go through the red light that the rest of the traffic was queuing for. The driver was in his 70s, so I'm not sure if he's just been doing it so long that he doesn't care about the rules any more, or if he was struggling with some kind of age-related brain degenaration.

In his defence, I did get to the hospital well in advance of my appointment. It reminded me of the old Sega game Crazy Taxi.

IIRC, it is almost impossible to give a taxi cab driver a ticket in London.

Nah - easy to give them a ticket, and they'll be severely punished by one (insurance).

However, most ticket issuing in London is by automated cameras, and Taxi drivers know where all the cameras are.

I recently took a Waymo test ride (round trip, two separate segments) in Los Angeles.

It was extremely uneventful - in a good way - while navigating urban traffic, road construction, unprotected left turns, etc., and felt (subjectivity alert!) a lot safer than many of the rideshare drivers I've ridden with over the past 8 years in LA.

I would definitely do it again and would feel safe putting a family member in one.

I believe these stats only cover the miles where there was no safety driver.

i.e., every accident where a split second before the collision the control system yields control to the safety driver is not accounted for in these stats?

Waymo is not Tesla, they're actually building self-driving cars.

Correct, but they also aren't including self driving miles where there is a safety driver in the driving seat, so it's fair.

This is very much a by-product of the current regulations that, AFAIK, mandate that a human driver should be able to take control at all times.

That might make sense but this is obviously a little tricky to implement safely.

Apparently Waymo is aiming for SAE level 4, so ultimately they should get past that issue I guess (since the lack of the “human must be ready to take over at any moment” requirement is pretty much the point of… what is it, SAE 3 and over?) But yeah, for testing, the challenge remains…

It would be interesting to know how often humans have to take over from Waymo, and also how often humans who’ve taken over from Waymo get into accidents.

I mean, it is not really realistic, but hypothetically one could imagine a driving strategy that has a low expected number of crashes, but puts the car in an easily detectable, strategically bad position, and then just dumps that position on the safety driver. Of course I’m sure Waymo wouldn’t do anything like that because it is, like, the most obvious bad-faith strategy which would be caught on a rigorous review and would be ruinous for the company.