Comment by Natsu

Comment by Natsu 21 hours ago

7 replies

If you actually ride in one, you do notice some off behaviors that I didn't pick up while just driving alongside them. That said, I agree that the bad human drivers have done things far, far worse than any of the cars.

The biggest gripe with riding in one is that they're slow, both because of super cautious driving and because they won't take freeways yet.

mgens 21 hours ago

A month ago I saw a Waymo turn left into a tiny alley in Palo Alto and continue at full 25mph speed, which was alarming. I guess the alley is marked as a regular road in the software? Highlights how even if it's safer than humans on average, they need to minimize these weird behaviors in order to get socially accepted and avoid $$$ liability when there is an accident.

  • vesrah 20 hours ago

    New speedbumps were installed in a school zone near my housing complex recently, we're a heavy Waymo area and I watched one of them launch itself over one without slowing down.

    • potato3732842 17 hours ago

      They installed one of those near my friends house. There's a couple mechanic shops in the vicinity used it for diagnosis while driving exactly the posted speed limit. It lasted about a month until the people who complained it into existence complained it out of existence.

mulmen 21 hours ago

I have only taken a couple Waymos but I had the opposite experience. They were much faster and more decisive than I expected. They do apparently learn from surrounding drivers and this was LA so maybe that explains the difference.

  • jen20 19 hours ago

    It wouldn't surprise me if each Waymo has one of a pool of aggression settings - I've noticed the difference between cars as a rider.

    • mulmen 17 hours ago

      Interesting. I hadn’t considered it but that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if that happens per car or per ride. Do aggression settings adjust to apparent passenger comfort?

      • jen20 3 hours ago

        Unclear, I’ve noticed both timid and aggressive on the same day in different cars so maybe not?