Re:Waymo Hits Cyclist in SF
by matthewdgreen on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @11:21PM
(#39298089)
What we do know is that this incident will be analyzed with the level of attention we would give to a plane crash. If there was any way the incident could have been avoided, the engineers will probably figure it out. It’s likely that software will be updated to implement a fix as well, and this type of accident will become much less likely across Waymo’s entire fleet. That seems like a really good result.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Waymo Hits Cyclist in SF
by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @11:25PM
(#39298111)
Only the driving software will be updated, the intersection will not be redesigned to reduce the severity of driver mistakes. It’s not the best outcome, ideally someone will analyze the case and produce the changes that needed to made to the driving software, the intersection, and biking behavior (aka the Dutch approach).
Fair, but then again, this would be taking drastic measures for a single data point. A full redesign would be quite a stretch for a single accident and nearly impossible to scale. The least you'd need to do is check for a pattern of accidents.
Re:Waymo Hits Cyclist in SF
by seanmcdirmid on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @11:53PM
(#39298350)
Yet that’s exactly what the Dutch do:
https://www.bicyclelaw.com/after-every-crash-in-netherlands-...
> In the Netherlands, accidents like these are followed by intense investigations, street redesign, and criminal prosecution on a level wholly different from Boston, where a slew of bike fatalities in recent years have prompted modest on-street changes and police crackdowns on bicyclists running red lights. But there have been few street design overhauls and no criminal convictions of motorists in those fatal accidents.
I’m pretty sure there is an HN discussion on this article somewhere.
Ah, the highest level of scrutiny is limited to and mandatory for fatalities, which makes sense.
Journalists swarm all over it. Waymo engineers will take their learnings. But honest question: is there an official, scrutinous authority also coming into this that would be able to hold Waymo to account? Maybe like the NTSB?
The thing is, human drivers do not and will never have such scrutiny. In this case, there is some hope that it will happen before these cars are widely deployed, even if said authority is the court of public opinion.