Comment by cucumber3732842

> Can you imagine being dumb enough to drive over the speed limit around a double parked SUV in a school zone?

Can you imagine being dumb enough to think that exceeding a one size fits all number on a sign by <10% is the main failing here?

As if 2mph would have fundamentally changed this. Pfft.

A double parked car, in an area with chock full street parking (hence the double park) and "something" that's a magnet for pedestrians, and probably a bunch of pedestrians should be a "severe caution" situation for any driver who "gets it". You shouldn't need a sign to tell you that this is a particular zone and that warrants a particular magic number.

The proper reaction to a given set of indicators that indicate hazards depends on the situation. If this were easy to put in a formula Waymo would have and we wouldn't be discussing this accident because it wouldn't have happened.

BugsJustFindMe 3 days ago

> As if 2mph would have fundamentally changed this. Pfft.

According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46812226 1mph slower might have entirely avoided contact in this particular case.

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fwip 3 days ago

The default, with good visibility in ideal conditions, should be to not exceed the speed limit.

In a school zone, when in a situation of low visibility, the car should likely be going significantly below the speed limit.

So, it's not a case of 17mph vs 15mph, but more like 17mph vs 10mph or 5mph.

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AuthAuth 3 days ago

>The default, with good visibility in ideal conditions, should be to not exceed the speed limit.
Please pass this message on to 99.999% of human drivers who think speed limit is the minimum speed.

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- fwip 2 days ago
  
  Sure thing, as soon as I figure out how to get a message out to billions of people.
  
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cucumber3732842 3 days ago

So let me get this straight, the car should have been going less than the speed limit, but the fact that it was going a hair over the speed limit is the problem?
The car clearly failed to identify that this was a situation it needed to be going slower. The fact that it was going 17 instead of 15 is basically irrelevant here except as fodder for moral posturing. If the car is incapable of identifying those situations no amount of "muh magic number on sign" is going to fix it. You'll just have the same exact accident again in a 20 school zone.

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- fwip 3 days ago
  
  It is a contributing factor.
  If the car is going slower than the speed limit in this scenario, it is difficult to tell over the internet if that speed was appropriate. If the car is going over the speed limit, it is obviously inappropriate.
  
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jsrozner 3 days ago

That was my point. The Waymo should have been going much slower than 15 around the double-parked car. Potential speeding makes it worse.

The fact that it’s hard to turn this into a formula is exactly why robot drivers are bad.

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no-name-here 2 days ago

Are you comparing robot drivers to the existing alternative? Next time you see one of those blinking speed displays, I’d urge you to pull over and see how fast many human drivers go, and watch for what percent of them aren’t consistently even looking at the road ahead.

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