I can understand that it's annoying that inconsistent use of turn signals is an annoyance, it isn't as bad a people that don't use them at all, but my understand is that the American road system doesn't have roundabouts like we do, which kind of require good indicator use for smooth driving.
My home town in Idaho has built at least five I am aware of in as many years, with more planned.
My neighborhood in Seattle plants a tree in the middle of unmarked intersections which effectively creates a mini roundabout.
Yes, we have them in the US, but we don't have enough of them that you can expect that all drivers know what to do with them. It's entirely too common for approaching drivers to be unaware that they must yield to vehicles already in the circle.
Oh you haven’t been to the UK if you think that. :) They are absolutely everywhere. Traffic planers love them.
The Waymo driving style is almost passive-aggressive. It has superhuman situational awareness and knowledge. I wonder if it isn’t using blinkers effectively but it’s everyone else that’s technically wrong.
It’s also not perfect so who knows. There’s probably still bugs to work out.
I wonder what it does in common situations, like stop-and-go traffic with two streets joining at an angle, where one has to yield? In that case, if everyone simply followed the rules, the cars in the yielding street would never get through. While I am passive-aggressive myself as a driver, I religiously follow alternating one-by-one from either street "rule", even if I am in a street that has right of way, to ensure traffic moves for both of those and reduce chances of someone overly aggressively moving in from the yielding street.
If it is still passive aggressive in that case, it will work ok while there are other passive human drivers in the road, but would quickly fall apart when everyone drives the same.
Plan a better route? I can’t picture the situation you describe. Yielding traffic just… yields. When there’s an opening they take it.
On my ride the Waymo took a right turn on red. How is the situation you describe different?
Do you still yield unnecessarily when there are cars behind you?
Picture two streets joining together, both with long lines of vehicles in them. One of them has right of way, the other one doesn't. When everyone drives "passively aggressively" (like Waymo is being described to), an opening never shows up, and "yielding" cars wait until the rush hour clears up, causing people in that street to go bonkers.
This happens quite frequently in many old European cities I've been to in the rush hour or when anything unusual happens (because there are no alternative routes and streets are tight: like a crash or broken-down car ahead might cause this with lots of traffic). Not sure how much it applies to Waymo and SFO, but I can imagine it certainly happens in some areas.
It’s a good question and I’m not sure what Waymo would do there. Based on my limited experience I expect it would navigate that situation correctly. The bias is to go (safely), not wait for perfect conditions.
Yeah, I really wonder how it'd fare in that case while differentiating between "there are just 3 cars there, no need to yield" and "it's an infinite inflow of traffic, better yield to one car"?
Apparently they do operate on freeways in San Francisco so maybe someone who has taken a ride there can share their experience.
Potential users will read "external display" and immediately think of many uses, and I'd bet the last of them would be "stream my eyes". It's perfectly bland and corporate, I suppose Apple is aiming for normalization, "VR googles you could wear at a party without feeling dorky!".
The iFixIt teardown was very interesting, nevertheless.
>Humans are terrible at this too, but we also use more subtle and inadvertent signals like the slight movement to the line telling me they're likely about to switch lanes, only to see the signal go on halfway into it.
Isn't waymo's behavior preferred? I'd rather see turn signals well in advance of any possible lane changes, rather than the moment before the cars actually start changing lanes. Sure, it'd be ideal if the turn signals were well in advance and there were no false positives, but road conditions are changing constantly, so by necessity you're going to be trading off between advance notice and false positives.
For what it's worth, this was explicitly taught in Northern European driving classes, especially in the context of turns. It would literally translate as "grouping" or "making a formation". You "group right" to make a right turn (think aligning text left/center/right). You can look at a line of cars and immediately know which ones are preparing to turn, even from an angle where turn signals aren't noticeable.
I would rate their driving as quite good, but their signaling of intent was terrible. More than once did I see them use turn signals, only to never actually turn. Turn the signals on, then off again, then on again, eventually turn perhaps but not always.
Humans are terrible at this too, but we also use more subtle and inadvertent signals like the slight movement to the line telling me they're likely about to switch lanes, only to see the signal go on halfway into it. Those subtle signals are easier to pick up on than a robot driving more or less perfectly straight while signaling, turning of signals, turning them back on again, and so on. Also super creepy with empty driver seats, and no one responsible to make eye contact with.
But the actual driving wasn't bad, as it turns out. Never had or saw a near miss, anything reckless or otherwise remarkable. I can see myself getting used to this tech and I would love for it to succeed, because man driving for anything but fun really sucks.