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Cyclist hit by driverless Waymo car in San Francisco, police say (www.sfgate.com)

submitted 9 months ago by Showroom7561@lemmy.ca to c/bicycles@lemmy.ca

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Here we go. Autonomous vehicles are now mowing down cyclists.

I hope that Waymo's insurance is good!

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[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

According to Waymo, the company’s vehicle fully stopped at a four-way intersection before proceeding into the intersection as a large truck was driving through in the opposite direction. “The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle’s path,” the company said in a statement. “When they became fully visible, our vehicle applied heavy braking but was not able to avoid the collision.”

so what I'm hearing is that the cyclist was hidden behind a truck until last second, would a standard driver been able to see the cyclist? It initiated the brakes as soon as it saw the cyclist, not sure what else they expected it to be able to do.

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 13 points 9 months ago

A non-negligent driver would practice defensive driving where you have to check that no vehicle is behind the truck and then start applying the accelerator.

This is just a lame excuse to avoid responsibility.

When handling a > 2 ton machine capable of speeds > 30 Kmph you have to be that careful.

I recommend stripping negligent drivers of their driving license and forcing them to relearn and apply again.

[–] Che_Donkey@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So basically the car gunned it trying to shave .02 seconds off the drive? I mean, how fast of an acceleration did you need to hit someone not "fully visible" behind a truck?

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I was actually curious about this so I started looking into it, this article doesn't do it justice. Most articles on it give a better clarification of how the intersection was laid out.

The vehicle definitely didn't gun it to race through the intersection it started moving as soon as it was clear that the truck entering the intersection was going straight and not turning, however the cyclist who was behind it didn't stop at the intersection like the truck did and continued following behind the vehicle until deciding to blindly turn left.

I really don't think that was the fault of the machine and I think a human driver would have done the same thing and are really might not have stopped in time. I think this is a clear no-fault or cyclist fault because the machine followed road laws, I'm not sure why these cyclist would decide to blindly turn left in a four-way intersection knowing that in a four-way intersection the opposite side can go at the same time