<story><title>Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes</title><url>https://blog.waymo.com/2021/03/replaying-real-life.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spike021</author><text>&amp;gt;The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it&amp;#x27;s shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There&amp;#x27;s a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That&amp;#x27;s probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars.&lt;p&gt;I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant.&lt;p&gt;Most times when I hear about people getting rear-ended it&amp;#x27;s because the driver behind them was looking at their phone or otherwise distracted. We shouldn&amp;#x27;t invent features that allow that to continue.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I think this is fine in some rare cases, like maybe an accident or some other incident happens up ahead, a driver stomps their brakes, and then the person behind them who doesn&amp;#x27;t know what&amp;#x27;s happened doesn&amp;#x27;t stop soon enough. But even for the latter case, you could argue that the DMV says to keep enough distance where in most cases you should be able to still come to a stop with barely a moment&amp;#x27;s notice as long as you&amp;#x27;re paying enough attention. Of course, most people don&amp;#x27;t leave that much space much, if ever.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>You can read the California DMV&amp;#x27;s set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are &amp;quot;vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver&amp;quot;. There&amp;#x27;s one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them.&lt;p&gt;The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it&amp;#x27;s shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There&amp;#x27;s a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That&amp;#x27;s probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dmv.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;portal&amp;#x2F;vehicle-industry-services&amp;#x2F;autonomous-vehicles&amp;#x2F;autonomous-vehicle-collision-reports&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dmv.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;portal&amp;#x2F;vehicle-industry-services&amp;#x2F;auto...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>freddie_mercury</author><text>Any solution that relies on &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s just make humans beings better&amp;quot; is basically doomed to failure and little more than hand wringing and virtue signalling.&lt;p&gt;Cars have been pervasive for over a century and virtually none of the actual improvements in safety have come from &amp;quot;hoping humans do better&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes</title><url>https://blog.waymo.com/2021/03/replaying-real-life.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spike021</author><text>&amp;gt;The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it&amp;#x27;s shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There&amp;#x27;s a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That&amp;#x27;s probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars.&lt;p&gt;I really wish we could just enforce proper education of being observant.&lt;p&gt;Most times when I hear about people getting rear-ended it&amp;#x27;s because the driver behind them was looking at their phone or otherwise distracted. We shouldn&amp;#x27;t invent features that allow that to continue.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, I think this is fine in some rare cases, like maybe an accident or some other incident happens up ahead, a driver stomps their brakes, and then the person behind them who doesn&amp;#x27;t know what&amp;#x27;s happened doesn&amp;#x27;t stop soon enough. But even for the latter case, you could argue that the DMV says to keep enough distance where in most cases you should be able to still come to a stop with barely a moment&amp;#x27;s notice as long as you&amp;#x27;re paying enough attention. Of course, most people don&amp;#x27;t leave that much space much, if ever.</text></item><item><author>Animats</author><text>You can read the California DMV&amp;#x27;s set of autonomous vehicle accident reports.[1] Almost all the Waymo reports are &amp;quot;vehicle was entering intersection, detected cross traffic, stopped, was rear-ended by human driver&amp;quot;. There&amp;#x27;s one Waymo report where someone ran a stop sign and hit them.&lt;p&gt;The rear-ending problem will be solved as automatic emergency braking becomes standard on cars. Already, it&amp;#x27;s shipping on almost all high-end cars and 70-80% of midrange cars. There&amp;#x27;s a US auto industry goal of it being standard by 2022. That&amp;#x27;s probably the main feature needed for self-driving cars to coexist with human-driven cars.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dmv.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;portal&amp;#x2F;vehicle-industry-services&amp;#x2F;autonomous-vehicles&amp;#x2F;autonomous-vehicle-collision-reports&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.dmv.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;portal&amp;#x2F;vehicle-industry-services&amp;#x2F;auto...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>T-hawk</author><text>That last point isn&amp;#x27;t a &amp;quot;you could argue&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;most cases&amp;quot;, it&amp;#x27;s literally the law.  Rear-ending is always the rear car&amp;#x27;s fault and it&amp;#x27;s always their responsibility to leave enough space and time to react and stop safely.&lt;p&gt;If the lead car braked when there was no reason or danger, that driver might also be cited for recklessness or some such, but a rear-end collision is always an error by the rear driver.</text></comment>