
Locals reportedly frustrated with Alphabet's Waymo self-driving cars - gok
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/locals-reportedly-frustrated-with-alphabets-waymo-self-driving-cars.html
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russellbeattie
My son is 16 and just got his driver's permit. We live in Mountain View, and
so driving with Waymo vehicles is basically part of life here - I pass by at
least 2 or 3 on a daily basis. They also cruise by the front of my house quite
often, as I assume it's on some sort of route.

Trying to teach your kid how to drive, while behind an autonomous vehicle is a
_great_ way to see how erratic and unpredictable they really are. They don't
act like humans at all. As an experienced driver, I just sort of adjusted as
if Waymo vehicles were bad drivers. But to a novice driver trying to keep a
safe distance, predict what it's going to do next, and adjust accordingly -
it's a challenge.

What's worse is that they almost always drive too slow (read: the speed
limit), which creates chaos as impatient drivers (read: everyone else) tries
to maneuver around the vehicles. Imagine you're just learning how to drive, a
vehicle in front of you is driving at an abnormal pace, slowing for stoplights
way before necessary, wandering around the lane (especially before turning),
and doing other odd things. Meanwhile, all the other drivers around you are
passing quickly, cutting that vehicle off, and generally acting like morons.

The worst situation is being at a 4-way stop with Waymo vehicles. I taught my
son that it's pretty normal to make brief eye contact with other drivers - or
at least turn his head to face the driver that he thinks should be the next to
go - which helps ensure that there aren't any weird stop/start problems. Guess
what you can't do to an autonomous vehicle? No driver means that there's no
real way to gauge what they're going to do. (The person behind the "wheel"
usually has a blank yet terrified expression of, 'please don't kill me',
rather than any real information.)

So, yeah, Waymo vehicles are weird. It's the future, though, so my son is
learning how to deal with these cars the way I learned how to deal with icy
roads growing up in New Hampshire. I don't really appreciate being a living
beta-tester though... Happily, Waymo's record is much better than Tesla's and
Uber's as they haven't killed anyone yet. Yet.

~~~
cromwellian
Is this a satire? You're teaching your son to drive but you think driving the
speed limit, slowing for stop lights and signalling according to the DMV
Handbook is 'erratic'?

The real problem is teaching people to be reckless and impatient drivers.

~~~
russellbeattie
Wow, your reading comprehension skills need serious work.

First, Waymo cars have trouble making turns. They also wander between lanes.
This is well documented by the article you obviously didn't read.

In my comment, I was complaining about _other_ reckless and impatient drivers
overreacting to Waymo cars and how that causes dangerous traffic that my kid
has to navigate through. I've personally witnessed Waymo cars causing stackups
behind them, and near miss accidents as drivers try to get by.

You've apparently never taught anyone how to drive. Staying with the flow of
traffic (within reason, Mr. Pedantic) is the safest way to stay out of an
accident.

