Comment by testfrequency a day ago
Since Waymo is very reliable in LA and SF, you will be just fine in NYC.
Your grid system is far less of a challenge than the amount of hills, twists, narrow streets and low visibility back streets in California.
I genuinely think the most complicated challenge for Waymo in NYC will be…winter snow and ice.
We do have narrow streets in LA with double parked cars, cars parked in the street only allowing one car through the middle at a time, and plenty of construction closures and obstacles.
Why do so many NYC people think there’s comically no cars in LA or neighborhood streets?
Also, I can assure you LA drivers are a tad bit more aggressive than NYC drivers (less honking and flicking off though, LA people are more a drive you off the road or into the shoulder sort of passive aggressive).
I was born and raised in NYC and have lived in LA for quite some time, still going home often for family. I’m really struggling with reading these “NYC is unique” comments regarding Waymo traffic.
Having driven in both LA and NYC+NJ, LA drivers feel almost serenely calm to me most of the time.
In LA, as long as you don't do anything obviously stupid and give plenty of room for people to see you coming, people will just chill and leave you be. Every now and then I will see someone do something unfathomably crazy though.
In NYC (NJ especially), this didn't work. I had to be actively psychologically manipulating other drivers in order to get even a simple lane change done. Make the other guy think he won by signaling earlier than normal so he'll gun it sooner and leave space behind him, or don't signal until I'm halfway into the lane already.
>Also, I can assure you LA drivers are a tad bit more aggressive than NYC drivers (less honking and flicking off though, LA people are more a drive you off the road or into the shoulder sort of passive aggressive).
>I was born and raised in NYC and have lived in LA for quite some time, still going home often for family. I’m really struggling with reading these “NYC is unique” comments regarding Waymo traffic.
Slightly OT, but that reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago (I can't remember the publication though :( )
It had two identical panels with two cars and two drivers on a road:
One panel was marked "Los Angeles" where the driver of one car had a "speaking" bubble that said "Have a nice day!" and that same driver had a "thought" bubble saying "Fuck you!"
The other panel was marked "New York," where the driver noted above's "speaking" bubble said "Fuck you!" and the the "thought" bubble said "Have a nice day!"
I've always thought it was a great metaphor. Then again, I'm a native NYer. ;)
What snow and ice? We don't get much of that anymore. That was actually the last thing I am worried about here. I really want to see how Waymo does with NYC drivers and obstacles(double parking on block where sometimes you have to pull in your mirrors just to get by(if you even take the chance instead of just laying on your horn). In some neighborhoods it can be so annoying.
I think a well designed winter specific FSD system is probably more safe in snow and ice than a human. For instance downshifting to ensure wheels continue to spin on slippery surfaces, subtle corrective steering to keep the vehicle within its lane, etc. should be easier for a FSD car since it won't panic and over-correct like most people do in those situations.
And if the car reduces speed when appropriate and some assholes start tailgating it, it won't suffer the anxiety of holding up 10 cars that want to drive beyond the safe, reasonable speed for the snowy/icy conditions.
Pretty much all electric cars have single speed transmissions, so there's no downshifting. And modern vehicles have electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, automatic emergency braking, and several other safety systems. It's pretty hard to overreact with those enabled. The main issue is that people exceed safe speeds for the conditions, making them unable to brake or turn in time to avoid a collision.
Right now, most self-driving software will refuse to activate in conditions of poor visibility. I've had that happen with Tesla's FSD, though in that case it was snowing so much that the road should have been closed. Also when the snow is deep enough that your front bumper becomes a plow, it will refuse to activate.
> And modern vehicles have electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, automatic emergency braking, and several other safety systems
In ice none of these really stop overcorrection, or at least they don't in my 2020 truck on icy hill/mountain roads in Maine. And I've seen nice recent Volvos and BMWs with presumably the best safety tech in ditches up in the ski towns. The correct safe speed to drive on icy roads is not to drive at all of course, but people have to get places and people make mistakes. IME the assistive technology defaults don't do great on ice roads on some kind of up/down grade.
AFAIK drivers can still steer and brake themselves into a loss of control situation on ice regardless of safety features. So I guess I'm hoping once you take those two variables out of their hands, the FSD vehicles will be safer. Who knows though.
I went many years without a loss of control and the one time it did happen (logging roads with ice pack) was enough for me to buy Nokian studded winter tires to minimize the effect of ice as much as possible.
on the contrary, no amount of safety systems can compensate for a loss of traction on ice and snow.
The surest way to be safe on snow covered roads is to not drive at all. Also, none of the electronic trickery is a replacement for real winter tires, which many people do not buy.
The problem with places that have real winters is that lanes migrate. They are not absolutely positioned. Nor are the sides of the road edges which may project well out into the street and parked cars even further. No road markings visible. Humans make their own lanes. This situation can happen for many weeks-long periods in a typical winter in, say, Minneapolis or Buffalo suburbs.
If a self-driving car does the right thing staying "in lane" while all the human drivers do the wrong thing flocking to new emergent paths (which swing back and forth across the "lanes"), then the self-driving car is wrong and dangerous. I'm not talking about when it's actively snowing either. I mean the snow on the ground just remaining there, covering things.
It's not about dealing with slippage or skill driving, it's about complete lack of context markers. I don't think any current or near future self-driving solution can adapt to this.
That's fair and I've certainly experienced this where I live, which is north of Buffalo in latitude. Also frost heaves are no joke in non-city/non-highway roads and present another obstacle to FSD. I guess my point, if I had one, is I would hope FSD would be programmed to be as conservative as possible in adversarial winter conditions and not overreact to such conditions and that alone is enough to increase safety because humans, for various reasons, are not conservative enough. Hard to imagine for sure.
> I genuinely think the most complicated challenge for Waymo in NYC will be…winter snow and ice.
Nah, I'm betting it'll be the locals. They'll get pissed off at it remaining stopped when it shouldn't and do shit like start ramming into it. I've had it happen on the island when I stopped at a yellow. NYC is a lot more chaotic than any other US city I've driven.
My point wasn’t to say they are the same, more that SF and LA (I would guess) have covered and defeated almost every single challenge and obstacle for an urban environment (sans..weather).
LA also has far denser areas than SF, places like DTLA and Koreatown are more dense than most boroughs in NYC (sans Manhattan).
My point was that it will be interesting to see how well it works in NYC where the only way to drive is aggressively in city streets breaking the rules. LA has its share of aggressive driving but as someone who has driven in both, NYC felt like I had to break the rules to go anywhere, LA not so much.
Hard to really compare a tiny piece of LA and say it’s more dense and compare it to borough that is in the same range but also magnitudes larger total pop.
Not sure why you have the impression Waymos follow written driving rules. Here in LA they break every rule that LA drivers would with the aggressiveness to match. It really does seem like they try to make them drive as "human" as possible, with all the typical behavior found in the locale. I can't imagine it'd be any different in NYC.
Oof I don’t know about that. Driving in NYC is much different than San Francisco. Frequent lane departures, cutting into heavy traffic despite technically lacking right of way, and other moderate rule breaking is required to get anywhere. Boston will be even more challenging due to the hundreds of convoluted intersections.
TIL.
LA doesn’t have complex traffic? What sort of traffic do we have in LA then?
LA is walkable, it’s lazy (and mostly incorrect) to say LA isn’t walkable.
LA County is massive, and depending on where you want to pick a comparison from, you may prove yourself either right or wrong.
Traffic on the sidewalk is a daily occurrence and often necessity in NYC. I'm not sure exactly how every area in LA is but often (as in pretty much constantly every day) in Manhattan or Brooklyn drivers don't obey the lines on the road, don't care to bump objects and cars to fit into a spot, literally threaten to hit other cars to get anywhere.
There's a bit of a "do what you have to" mentality with NY traffic that I haven't seen in any other east coast or mid-western city. I think that poses some unique challenges that I've often seen video of Waymos freezing up when facing similar scenarios, which could cause huge issues in most of the city.
You articulated this very well, thanks.
LA is extremely similar. Often can only make unprotected turns at lights while it’s red and you’re in the box, you have to wait at the top of a hill and have your car sideways while the oncoming car has space to drive up a hill, cars trying to give you space so you can drive through a line of traffic into the adjacent traffic pattern.
The “freezing” issues are very real though (and frustrating), and it’s what most everyone who uses Waymo in any city right now jokes/complains about. Waymo can often get into a weird game of “chicken” when there’s a four way stop with pedestrians, and any slight movement from the intersection can often make the car stop - so the pedestrian stops - the the Waymo finally moves again, but then pedestrian also started moving so the Waymo stops again and the pedestrian stops caring.
All this to say, I really don’t think there’s much that will be different. Go to Hollywood or Santa Monica
Here in Santa Monica, the Waymos will happily cut off pedestrians in crosswalks as soon as it decides it has waited reasonably long enough and it won't hit them.
Same with 4-way stops: once it thinks it waited long enough, it doesn't matter whose turn it rightfully is, if it sees an open path it will just take it.
Crossing the street as a pedestrian without a walk signal in NYC goes:
- look in the direction of oncoming traffic as you approach the intersection, cross if you think you can make it without breaking your stride
- if there is traffic, step off the curb into the street and wait for a large enough gap in traffic to walk against the light
- if there is backed up traffic, find a gap to walk in between
Wait until New Yorkers figure out that Waymos will detect you and yield in order to avoid hitting you. People will just disregard and cross right in front of them.
Also, yes, you can walk in LA, but the major difference here is that the sidewalks are for commuting here in NYC. We don't just walk for pleasure.
> Wait until New Yorkers figure out that Waymos will detect you and yield in order to avoid hitting you. People will just disregard and cross right in front of them
This is true everywhere. Waymos have learned to time an aggressive run up. Same as every New York driver.
Yeah it’ll be interesting to see how it deals with our pedestrian traffic. I’m sure they’ll figure it out, but pedestrians are a whole different sort of thing here than on the west coast. I notice I don’t really jaywalk in LA, and do less in SF, but here in NYC it’s just what everyone does at every intersection in the entire city.
there is nowhere in LA with the complex intermingling of pedestrian, car, bicycle, and motorbike traffic of anywhere in the boroughs other than Staten.
LA it’s gridlock or go. There’s nothing complicated about it other than strategizing where is gridlock and where is Go.
NYC is a new set of challenges. As you already mentioned snow and ice is new. But also missing the high density of people and cars per square area. Behavior of drivers and pedestrians are different and much less polite. I can see it working in NYC but "just fine" is a bit of an over confidence... at least not for the first few years before they learn to deal with these issues that they don't face yet in LA and SF.