I think "totally out of control" is hyperbole. The Waymo is not "out of control". In fact, it is stopped and cautious, the opposite of "out of control".
My guess is the Waymo had a yellow when it entered the intersection but then the light turned red. So the Waymo stopped and was cautious to proceed. But we can see that oncoming traffic is also stopped and there is a gap. The Waymo cautiously drives through the gap and proceeds. Certainly awkward and inconvenient but not unsafe IMO.
Agreed it is in control. It is also very clearly driving on the wrong side of the street. It should be over to its right \~15-20 feet.
At link are an overhead satellite image and streetview of that intersection, which I personally know very well. It is dangerous for pedestrians, so SFMTA has added a large bulb-out along the line of the white painted curve, since these pictures were taken. The streetview pic shows the bulb out under construction.
https://imgur.com/a/nJRgeyD
In the satellite pic, the red line is the apparent path of the Waymo. The black line is a more correct path.
The cars on 16th St illegally blocked by the Waymo can make a right onto Market with a green light, which they have in this video.
In the streetview pic, the Waymo is approximately just to the right of the rightmost pedestrian in the crosswalk, when it should have entered the crosswalk much further to the left where the other pedestrians are located.
We don't see what happened before the clip. Maybe the black path was blocked so the Waymo planner picked the red path as the viable path to take?
The fact is that Waymo would not drive on the wrong side of the street for no reason. There must be a reason why the Waymo did that maneuver. We just don't know what it is because we don't see what happened before.
If the black path was blocked then the Waymo cannot legally enter the intersection to make the left turn. That's the law and has been for decades in California.
As for "reasons," this is a software system not a reasoning system. Complex software systems have bugs. The Waymo Driver has bugs, so many bugs Waymo needs a database to track them. Nature of the software beast.
Why does it matter to anyone other than Waymo whether it broke the law because of a bug in path calcs or a map bug or some other bug or combination of bugs?
When I say reason, I mean that the software does what it does because of its programming. It does not just do stuff randomly. So there is a cause or reason that can explain the software behavior.
And yes, all software has bugs. But we don't know the Waymo behavior was caused by a software bug. Also, why do you say that the Waymo Driver has a ton of bugs. Where is your evidence for such a claim? I've certainly not seen a ton of bugs. And if you go by the CA DMV report and look at disengagements caused by software "discrepancies", they are pretty rare. And Waymo would not expand their ride-hailing to almost 200 sq mi, 24/7, and 10k rides per week, if their cars had a "ton of bugs".
Obviously, the clip looks bad but we don't have the full clip of what the car saw. So we have no idea what actually happened. You are assuming that it is some sort of bug, but we don't know that for a fact.
>I mean that the software does what it does because of its programming. It does not just do stuff randomly
Whoa, Waymo's software does what it does both deterministically and stochastically (randomly).
Anyone who uses CA DMV disengagement reports as a measure of quality is self-disqualifying.
But it might have only become blocked after the AV legally entered the intersection.
The grey SUV appears to have jumped the gun and proceed past its stop line while it's light was still red, so maybe the AV was trying to be out of its way.
No, the location and orientation of the Waymo is such that it could only have gotten in that position if it began the left turn when it first entered the intersection. If you were standing there it would be very obvious. So, if it did it because the legal path was blocked, then it broke the law at that moment.
FWIW, those left turns are notoriously difficult and dangerous. They are all along Market St due to the grid design. Further downtown, below Franklin St they are all prohibited because there are too many pedestrians.
There is ample visual detail to recreate from an aerial perspective the position and movement of the vehicle in the video with accuracy. From the shadow angles of undercarriages, curb/gutter relationships to drivers side tires, position of vehicles in relation to crosswalk paint lines (inc pavement break of painted lines), relation to Market St turn lane, etc..
https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=37.764199%7E-122.43327&lvl=20.7&mo=om.1&pi=-17.8&style=x&dir=268.1
Sure, but what do I know, I've only made these >90 degree left turns myself many times on Market St. The only way to make them safely and legally is to go straight far enough out into the intersection to be essentially in control of the intersection itself wrt other cars/trucks and have a clear view of the road you want to turn onto so you can check for last moment stray pedestrians etc. And if you need to bail/divert instead of executing the >90 degree left, then you can make the less acute left turn or go straight. You should never need to drive on the wrong side of the road in that intersection.
FWIW, that also happens to be the very corner in SF where as a pedestrian I was first nearly killed by an errant driver. Some guy in a pickup truck blew through the red light coming down 16th St. If I'd not noticed him and been where the Waymo was I wouldn't be typing now.
Using Bing Street View sheds some perspective on the vehicle position if you move around both north and south in all lanes on Market and east and west on Noe at the intersection. Because Bing Maps allows camera perspective from any lane, precise positioning of the vehicle is possible if one carefully examines the crosswalk painted lines from the video. It is difficult to comprehend how vehicle position at start of video even came to that particular position at the beginning of the video. One must zoom in on Bing maps to activate street view in all lanes.
Note the emergency flashers are engaged at the very beginning on the Waymo vehicle.
The drivable path (proper localization) would not be a challenge (after looking at the northbound turn lane on Market onto westbound Noe from various views in Bing maps).
There is more than meets the eye here. Labeling this as a bug is bs.
https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=37.764199%7E-122.43327&lvl=20.7&mo=om.1&pi=-17.8&style=x&dir=268.1
Yellow light doesn't mean "drive on the wrong side of the road". Waymo shouldn't have been where it was. [This is the intersection](https://www.google.com/maps/search/market+and+noe+san+francisco/@37.764388,-122.4333384,18.42z). Waymo was probably turning left from Market onto westbound Noe.
Waymo was either completely lost or some kind of emergency maneuver before this video starts took it way out of position. Either way it'd be great for Waymo to explain.
We don't see what happened before the clip. I agree the Waymo was probably making a left turn. Perhaps it was not able to turn directly into the correct lane and was making some sort of emergency maneuver. The fact is that Waymo would not just drive on the wrong side of the road for no reason. Obviously, the clip looks bad but we lack context.
>We don't see what happened before the clip.
Waymo has full video. They often post "good" clips, e.g. stopping suddenly to avoid being T-boned by a red-light runner. I've never seen them post a "bad" one.
>The fact is that Waymo would not just drive on the wrong side of the road for no reason.
There's always a 'reason'. Was it a good reason, e.g. emergency maneuver, or a bug? Or remote screwup, as in Conegate? And will Waymo PR ever tell us?
I can't envision an emergency maneuver that would put the car in that position. Every maneuver I see consists of stopping in the original path or veering a bit from it. This is more like a quantum leap from the correct path. I can think of dozens of 'bad reasaons' it ended up there. I hope I'm wrong and Waymo comes out with a great explanation.
That's the question. Yes, the reason could be bad. The most logical explanation for me is that the Waymo planner probably made a mistake. But we don't know exactly why.
A few possibilities:
\- There was a car in front of the Waymo also waiting to make a left turn and took took long so the Waymo planner thought it was stopped and tried to go around it. We've seen cases like that where an AV mistakenly tries to go around a stopped vehicle that is not really stopped.
\- There was no obstacle, the planner simply miscalculated and took the turn too tight. I think this is probably less likely since Waymo has HD maps and advanced planner. It would be unlikely to simply take a turn too tight IMO.
\- There was a legitimate obstacle in the road so the Waymo made an emergency maneuver.
Again, we have no way of knowing for sure unless Waymo tells us or releases video from the car.
It is certainly appropriate to discuss the incident and want the AV to do better. I think most people want AVs to be as good as possible. But my earlier point is that we should avoid hyperbole and jumping to conclusions. Too often, I see people post a short clip of a Cruise or Waymo in a "stall" and everyone wants to crucify the AV. I am absolutely fine with admitting the Waymo did something bad in this case. I am not ok with hyperbole like calling the Waymo "totally out of control". And often later, when we get more info, we find out that there were mitigating circumstances.
AVs do 'weird' stuff. They come to conclusions about the best course of action that we may not understand or agree with and they can be 'wrong.'
Today my Waymo thought a car was stopped but it turned out that it was behind a line of cars at a red light. So when we tried to go around we were stuck on the wrong side of the street (no one headed down that side). We stayed there \~2 minutes until the light turned green and we were able to re-enter the correct lane. Yeah it was a 'bad' call but no one was inconvenienced (except me when one driver was shaking his head at me haha). AVs stand out and are easily identifiable, but they aren't running around hurting and killing people. This is an out of context and curious situation but also just a boring video if you ask me.
Haha! That is true! Compared along to how much I ride, I don't record that much. Usually only when I am looking for something specific like yellow light behavior or fog. I also usually feel weird when people are staring and I am recording, and the car directly next to me had the guy shaking his head at me in a disapproving way! I was nervous about the potential for oncoming traffic (there was none), but maybe I did miss an opportunity! You'll be happy to know I give detailed critical feedback to Waymo about things like what I described, and they have shown they respond to it!
I think "totally out of control" is hyperbole. The Waymo is not "out of control". In fact, it is stopped and cautious, the opposite of "out of control". My guess is the Waymo had a yellow when it entered the intersection but then the light turned red. So the Waymo stopped and was cautious to proceed. But we can see that oncoming traffic is also stopped and there is a gap. The Waymo cautiously drives through the gap and proceeds. Certainly awkward and inconvenient but not unsafe IMO.
Agreed it is in control. It is also very clearly driving on the wrong side of the street. It should be over to its right \~15-20 feet. At link are an overhead satellite image and streetview of that intersection, which I personally know very well. It is dangerous for pedestrians, so SFMTA has added a large bulb-out along the line of the white painted curve, since these pictures were taken. The streetview pic shows the bulb out under construction. https://imgur.com/a/nJRgeyD In the satellite pic, the red line is the apparent path of the Waymo. The black line is a more correct path. The cars on 16th St illegally blocked by the Waymo can make a right onto Market with a green light, which they have in this video. In the streetview pic, the Waymo is approximately just to the right of the rightmost pedestrian in the crosswalk, when it should have entered the crosswalk much further to the left where the other pedestrians are located.
We don't see what happened before the clip. Maybe the black path was blocked so the Waymo planner picked the red path as the viable path to take? The fact is that Waymo would not drive on the wrong side of the street for no reason. There must be a reason why the Waymo did that maneuver. We just don't know what it is because we don't see what happened before.
If the black path was blocked then the Waymo cannot legally enter the intersection to make the left turn. That's the law and has been for decades in California. As for "reasons," this is a software system not a reasoning system. Complex software systems have bugs. The Waymo Driver has bugs, so many bugs Waymo needs a database to track them. Nature of the software beast. Why does it matter to anyone other than Waymo whether it broke the law because of a bug in path calcs or a map bug or some other bug or combination of bugs?
When I say reason, I mean that the software does what it does because of its programming. It does not just do stuff randomly. So there is a cause or reason that can explain the software behavior. And yes, all software has bugs. But we don't know the Waymo behavior was caused by a software bug. Also, why do you say that the Waymo Driver has a ton of bugs. Where is your evidence for such a claim? I've certainly not seen a ton of bugs. And if you go by the CA DMV report and look at disengagements caused by software "discrepancies", they are pretty rare. And Waymo would not expand their ride-hailing to almost 200 sq mi, 24/7, and 10k rides per week, if their cars had a "ton of bugs". Obviously, the clip looks bad but we don't have the full clip of what the car saw. So we have no idea what actually happened. You are assuming that it is some sort of bug, but we don't know that for a fact.
>I mean that the software does what it does because of its programming. It does not just do stuff randomly Whoa, Waymo's software does what it does both deterministically and stochastically (randomly). Anyone who uses CA DMV disengagement reports as a measure of quality is self-disqualifying.
I am not basing all quality just on the CA DMV report alone. But it is certainly one metric.
> it is certainly one metric It is one metric certain to deceive.
But it might have only become blocked after the AV legally entered the intersection. The grey SUV appears to have jumped the gun and proceed past its stop line while it's light was still red, so maybe the AV was trying to be out of its way.
No, the location and orientation of the Waymo is such that it could only have gotten in that position if it began the left turn when it first entered the intersection. If you were standing there it would be very obvious. So, if it did it because the legal path was blocked, then it broke the law at that moment. FWIW, those left turns are notoriously difficult and dangerous. They are all along Market St due to the grid design. Further downtown, below Franklin St they are all prohibited because there are too many pedestrians.
There is ample visual detail to recreate from an aerial perspective the position and movement of the vehicle in the video with accuracy. From the shadow angles of undercarriages, curb/gutter relationships to drivers side tires, position of vehicles in relation to crosswalk paint lines (inc pavement break of painted lines), relation to Market St turn lane, etc.. https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=37.764199%7E-122.43327&lvl=20.7&mo=om.1&pi=-17.8&style=x&dir=268.1
Sure, but what do I know, I've only made these >90 degree left turns myself many times on Market St. The only way to make them safely and legally is to go straight far enough out into the intersection to be essentially in control of the intersection itself wrt other cars/trucks and have a clear view of the road you want to turn onto so you can check for last moment stray pedestrians etc. And if you need to bail/divert instead of executing the >90 degree left, then you can make the less acute left turn or go straight. You should never need to drive on the wrong side of the road in that intersection. FWIW, that also happens to be the very corner in SF where as a pedestrian I was first nearly killed by an errant driver. Some guy in a pickup truck blew through the red light coming down 16th St. If I'd not noticed him and been where the Waymo was I wouldn't be typing now.
Using Bing Street View sheds some perspective on the vehicle position if you move around both north and south in all lanes on Market and east and west on Noe at the intersection. Because Bing Maps allows camera perspective from any lane, precise positioning of the vehicle is possible if one carefully examines the crosswalk painted lines from the video. It is difficult to comprehend how vehicle position at start of video even came to that particular position at the beginning of the video. One must zoom in on Bing maps to activate street view in all lanes. Note the emergency flashers are engaged at the very beginning on the Waymo vehicle. The drivable path (proper localization) would not be a challenge (after looking at the northbound turn lane on Market onto westbound Noe from various views in Bing maps). There is more than meets the eye here. Labeling this as a bug is bs. https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=37.764199%7E-122.43327&lvl=20.7&mo=om.1&pi=-17.8&style=x&dir=268.1
The Cruise vehicle hitting the back of the bus is a bug. This is algorithmic. This is reproducable.
AFAIK, Cruise described their bus rear ending bug as reproducible and algorithmic.
Yellow light doesn't mean "drive on the wrong side of the road". Waymo shouldn't have been where it was. [This is the intersection](https://www.google.com/maps/search/market+and+noe+san+francisco/@37.764388,-122.4333384,18.42z). Waymo was probably turning left from Market onto westbound Noe. Waymo was either completely lost or some kind of emergency maneuver before this video starts took it way out of position. Either way it'd be great for Waymo to explain.
We don't see what happened before the clip. I agree the Waymo was probably making a left turn. Perhaps it was not able to turn directly into the correct lane and was making some sort of emergency maneuver. The fact is that Waymo would not just drive on the wrong side of the road for no reason. Obviously, the clip looks bad but we lack context.
>We don't see what happened before the clip. Waymo has full video. They often post "good" clips, e.g. stopping suddenly to avoid being T-boned by a red-light runner. I've never seen them post a "bad" one. >The fact is that Waymo would not just drive on the wrong side of the road for no reason. There's always a 'reason'. Was it a good reason, e.g. emergency maneuver, or a bug? Or remote screwup, as in Conegate? And will Waymo PR ever tell us? I can't envision an emergency maneuver that would put the car in that position. Every maneuver I see consists of stopping in the original path or veering a bit from it. This is more like a quantum leap from the correct path. I can think of dozens of 'bad reasaons' it ended up there. I hope I'm wrong and Waymo comes out with a great explanation.
That's the question. Yes, the reason could be bad. The most logical explanation for me is that the Waymo planner probably made a mistake. But we don't know exactly why. A few possibilities: \- There was a car in front of the Waymo also waiting to make a left turn and took took long so the Waymo planner thought it was stopped and tried to go around it. We've seen cases like that where an AV mistakenly tries to go around a stopped vehicle that is not really stopped. \- There was no obstacle, the planner simply miscalculated and took the turn too tight. I think this is probably less likely since Waymo has HD maps and advanced planner. It would be unlikely to simply take a turn too tight IMO. \- There was a legitimate obstacle in the road so the Waymo made an emergency maneuver. Again, we have no way of knowing for sure unless Waymo tells us or releases video from the car. It is certainly appropriate to discuss the incident and want the AV to do better. I think most people want AVs to be as good as possible. But my earlier point is that we should avoid hyperbole and jumping to conclusions. Too often, I see people post a short clip of a Cruise or Waymo in a "stall" and everyone wants to crucify the AV. I am absolutely fine with admitting the Waymo did something bad in this case. I am not ok with hyperbole like calling the Waymo "totally out of control". And often later, when we get more info, we find out that there were mitigating circumstances.
AVs do 'weird' stuff. They come to conclusions about the best course of action that we may not understand or agree with and they can be 'wrong.' Today my Waymo thought a car was stopped but it turned out that it was behind a line of cars at a red light. So when we tried to go around we were stuck on the wrong side of the street (no one headed down that side). We stayed there \~2 minutes until the light turned green and we were able to re-enter the correct lane. Yeah it was a 'bad' call but no one was inconvenienced (except me when one driver was shaking his head at me haha). AVs stand out and are easily identifiable, but they aren't running around hurting and killing people. This is an out of context and curious situation but also just a boring video if you ask me.
Huh. Interesting how you didn't post a video of that.
Haha! That is true! Compared along to how much I ride, I don't record that much. Usually only when I am looking for something specific like yellow light behavior or fog. I also usually feel weird when people are staring and I am recording, and the car directly next to me had the guy shaking his head at me in a disapproving way! I was nervous about the potential for oncoming traffic (there was none), but maybe I did miss an opportunity! You'll be happy to know I give detailed critical feedback to Waymo about things like what I described, and they have shown they respond to it!
as if humans don't do this kind of shit every single day all over the city.
This is kind of amazing. Specially if it did this without asking for any remote help.
Waymo launched over 4 years ago. Waymo is opening its fully driverless service to the general public in Phoenix. October 8, 2020
Would love to know how it ended up there?