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Locals Reportedly Are Frustrated With Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars (cnbc.com)
More than a dozen people who work near Waymo's office in Chandler, Arizona, have complained about the self-driving cars to The Information. "One women said that she almost hit one of the company's minivans because it suddenly stopped while trying to make a right turn, while another man said that he gets so frustrated waiting for the cars to cross the intersection that he has illegally driven around them," reports CNBC. From the report: The anecdotes highlight how challenging it can be for self-driving cars, which are programmed to drive conservatively, to master situations that human drivers can handle with relative ease -- like merging or finding a gap in traffic to make a turn. Waymo has been testing its vehicles in the Phoenix suburbs for little more than a year and is widely seen as the furthest along in the self-driving car space, but its safety drivers have to take control of the vehicles regularly, people with direct knowledge of the issues tell The Information.
A Waymo spokesperson said its cars are "continually learning" and that "safety remains its highest priority" during testing. The spokesperson also said that Waymo is using feedback from its early rider program to improve its technology, though it declined to comment specifically on the intersection complaints mentioned in The Information story. The company has previously said that it plans to launch a commercial self-driving taxi service before the end of the year, but that its service will still include a Waymo employee in each car as a "chaperone."
A Waymo spokesperson said its cars are "continually learning" and that "safety remains its highest priority" during testing. The spokesperson also said that Waymo is using feedback from its early rider program to improve its technology, though it declined to comment specifically on the intersection complaints mentioned in The Information story. The company has previously said that it plans to launch a commercial self-driving taxi service before the end of the year, but that its service will still include a Waymo employee in each car as a "chaperone."
Self driving cars don't need to be better or even as good as all drivers. They just need to be better than 50% of drivers. Considering how bad most people drive that isn't that high a bar.
Most of the time in really averse weather conditions the first thing that local government does is tell people not to drive. Most of the time people ignore this and end up in the ditch, stalled out in a puddle, or even washed away in a flood. You're right. Self driving cars won't handle that. People don't handle that well, they just think they do and shouldn't actually be out on the road.
As expected the bulk of Waymo reports are rear end collisions when the car panic stops, probably for lens flare or some stupid figment of the car's imagination.
If you hit the car ahead of you then YOU are at fault for not maintaining assured clear distance ahead. The car ahead of you panic stopping for any reason should not matter at all and the driver that will be and should be cited is the one with the crumpled front bumper. Maintain enough distance between you and the car ahead of you and it's not a problem no matter what they do.
They panic stop for stupid reasons that other drivers have no reason to anticipate because no human would behave similarly.
Except that humans panic stop routinely for all sorts of reasons not obvious the car behind. And again, the fault is with the idiot behind the car stopping for making unjustified assumptions about the future actions of the driver (or bot) ahead of them.