Urm, ime people frequently drive significantly over the speed limit in all these places, at all times of the day.

Blows my mind how you guys confidently state this with authority as if that's the normal behavior, when the reality is that it probably should be - but isn't actually.

So you're confidently stating it's not the normal behaviour... Can you tell me what the average speed is for human drivers outside elementary schools at drop-off times?

But if you’re plan on building a fleet of cars operating all over the country or the world, do you want to model them after the careful driver, who has awareness about the situation (school, drop off/pickup hours, etc) or say “what the heck, some drivers are not paying attention so neither will my robots, it’s fine”

> Urm, ime people frequently drive significantly over the speed limit in all these places, at all times of the day.

The focus on speed limit as some truth is not the best way to think about it.

It might be 15/20/25 (varies, but those are the most common values I've seen).

But in terms of what is safe, it varies far more.

There will be circumstances where driving double that limit is 100% safe in front of the school. (For example, small numbers of high-school kids standing around but far from the street, so even if they did a mad dash to the street (which that age kids will not do), they still couldn't get in a spot to be hit by the car.)

And there will be circumstances where even a one-tenth of that speed will be far too dangerous to consider. (For example, high density of elementary school kids on a narrow sidewalk with many visual obstructions.)

I have a hard time believing that you, or anyone, would drive the same speed in both scenarios without any consideration to the circumstances of the moment.

I know I most certainly would never. If there is obviously zero chance of an accident I'll drive the limit or above. If there are tons of tiny kids in brownian motion, I'll slow down to a crawl or even stop if I sense risk (like a kid disappearing behind a parked car and now I don't know where they'll pop up).

Trusting the speed limits to be reasonable and all you need to be safe is insane.

Around a school understanding the environment is way much more than understanding just the speed limits and lane boundaries.