> In your experience do they drive differently than any other car on the road?
For sure. They drive like the most conservative driver you'll meet, to the point of being a bit dangerous. They come to a full stop at every stop sign, which here in California is unexpected, and unexpected means dangerous. They also slam on their brakes a lot, without regard to how far away the person behind them is (as opposed to when I have to slam on the brakes, I check the rear view and if possible cut it a little closer to the car in front if the car behind is really close).
They putter out of stop lights, which is mostly just annoying, and they generally follow the speed limits, even on roads where all the rest of the traffic is typically 10mph over.
To be fair, they are doing what in theory is much safer, but since they don't act like a human, it makes them unpredictable.
> If a vehicle around you was powered by Waymo with no markings stating as much would you know (ignoring the fact of an empty driver's seat)?
Well the massive LIDAR unit on top is a big giveaway. :) Actually that's the biggest giveaway. The cars are unmarked otherwise, and there is always a driver in the seat. They just may not have their hands on the wheel, but that's hard to tell from outside. And of course all of the aforementioned strange driving habits.
Not reasonable. You'd be parking the car at least half a mile from where I live because it's full of these streets. Usually they're one car at a time because cars are parked on both sides of the street causing the streets to become just big enough for one car to get through.
For reference, I live in San Carlos (Bay Area). I've encountered this same issue in many other parts of the USA too. It's not uncommon at all.
> I would really like to know how careful they mean.
Most of the Waymo vehicles i saw on the street around Mountain View were pretty timid. Not enough that I needed to honk, but they basically were sending out engraved invitations to pull in front of them. Most recent example, in rush hour, at ~ 5 - 10 mph, maintaining 3 car lengths following distance, signaling for an offramp maybe 10 car lengths before the painted exit lane opened, and then following the traffic until the painted lane started -- but the shoulder was wide and the exit lane was clear. Most human drivers in this situation would either not signal until they were just about to turn, and would probably have driven on the shoulder outside the lines for some of the way, given the wide shoulder and clear exit lane.
> what do the Waymo vehicles do during such a dust- or rainstorm?
Do what most reasonable drivers in Phoenix do. Pull over and enjoy the view. (Phoenix dust and heavy rainstorms tend to pass in ten to thirty minutes.)
> although I find driving in SF much more stressful and confusing than London(despite being a native RHT driver), I never managed to get a ticket in SF.
> It's absolutely terrifying... Pretend cars didn't exist on that street for a moment
You can easily experience the scenario you envision, practically average 1905 San Francisco roads, by walking or biking through JFK street in Golden Gate Park, which is closed to all vehicles but food trucks and shuttles.
It's so crazy fucking nice, fun and safe so I have no idea what you're talking about.
> What is the meaning of 0 to 60 in 4 seconds when there's traffic anyway?
I take public transit and don't own a car ($500/m parking, insane insurance rates in SF, cars broken into within minutes in daylight), but drive rentals/carshare-by-hour periodically. Merging and accelerating onto a freeway from a rate limited entryway stopped to 60 is somewhat useful while keeping up with flow.
>>:-) You haven't driven around SF much perhaps? But notice he said "almost" not "did" so clearly he is leaving enough space to avoid collisions.
Have driven plenty in big cities and small towns. You should always leave enough space in front of you in case somebody suddenly stops.How much space you leave in front of you depends on how fast you are going. At least that was drilled to me by more experienced drivers. I think it was even part of the DMV exam. I have not driven in San Francisco. How bad is it? Do they drive bumper to bumper?
> And don't forget that even with the driving, everything takes less time.
What do you mean by "take less time"?
My experience doesn't bare that out, but we might be thinking about very different things.
For context: I live in a fairly residential area now, where I drive to get groceries or to get food. I used to live in San Francisco, where I had four grocery stores and a whole bunch of restaurants and bars within four block.
As in: are they useless from pedestrians' point of view? Yes.
As in: would the person who put the car there mind if it was towed and tossed away? Likely yes.
Where I live, I can't see incoming traffic from all the cars that <strike>are parked on the sides of streets</strike> are blocking the street view and constricting capacity. I would be happy if every single one of them would be treated as trash.
Disclosure: we have a private driveway. I walk and cycle, I don't drive.
> I always find that this person has a limited number of places he goes, with the rest being inconvenient to get to.
This is just a description of traffic patterns in the US, in general. You presumably don’t cruise through random suburbs on the other side of your city on your way to work, or while running errands, or really for any reason other than needing to.
Where I live, it’s both faster and cheaper for me to not own a car. It hasn’t hurt my traveling much, either, although you’ll have to take my word for that (until I figure out how to anonymize all the location data I collect for myself).
> What would happen if I "dropped" my wallet and turned around to pick it up?
That would be an extremely stupid thing to do in San Francisco. I would not trust drivers here at all to pick it up. I would just wait until all the cars were gone.
> I don't know how aware Waymo cars are of their surroundings.
Waymo cars are extremely, extremely aware of their surroundings. They have a category, distance, speed, and distribution of possible future paths for all cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists within sight over 360 degrees.
> Why don't they have a (or something like a) 360 degree string of LEDs (for example on the roof) that lights up a few in the direction of human obstacles if they're close enough?
I don't think it's so obvious this helps. What is the threshold for how far away something is before it's indicated on the ring? If I'm standing just outside that distance, how will I know it's because of distance rather than because I haven't been seen? If the distance is set long, how will I know it sees me and not something behind me?
The natural way to get around these problems is for the car to "point out" everything it see using, e.g., fake eyes. But now you have a car covered in eyes surveilling the neighborhood, and people don't like that either.
I live on Dolores park. They drive by multiple times an hour
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