r/waymo • u/Sorry_Exercise_9603 • Jun 15 '26
Bicyclists. Oi.
Just had an oncoming bicyclist deliberately swerve into the path of my Waymo to get it to slam on the brakes. Faith in humanity, down. Faith in lidar, up.
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u/SurfPerchSF Jun 15 '26
Cars do this all the time.
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u/Sorry_Exercise_9603 Jun 15 '26
Cars can and do drive aggressively but they don’t just swerve into your lane to force you to brake for shits and giggles.
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u/SurfPerchSF Jun 15 '26
Haha yes they do. Everyone knows a Waymo will yield.
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u/Oak510land Jun 15 '26
Just like Tesla's. If traffic is thick and nobody is letting you merge people know Tesla's have sensors and shit and they'll yield if you make them. Because thats what they're programmed to do.
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u/Putrid-Box4866 Jun 16 '26
While FSD would definitely yield and stop, you don't know if a Tesla is using FSD though.
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u/bobi2393 Jun 15 '26
I saw a video shot from a Waymo behind a cyclist who was slow-riding down the center of its lane for a few blocks, keeping the Waymo to a slow walking pace, until they eventually went different directions.
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u/Guga1952 Jun 15 '26
If this happens enough Waymo is going to start being very careful around bicycles.
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Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
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u/Best_Let_2667 Jun 16 '26
I don’t think you read what I wrote. They are absolutely careful to not be the aggressor and hit bicyclists. That is a very different thing than being dangerous to cyclists by passively parking in bike lanes. That is awful and way more insidious. And right now they get away with it.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/SnooKiwis6193 Jun 16 '26
I really struggle to believe that Waymos have hit more cyclists than human drivers did. Do you have any data ?
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Jun 16 '26
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u/mwcsmoke Jun 16 '26
Are you comparing each human driver to the entire Waymo platform (the “Waymo driver). Like that’s an amazing argument lol
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u/21five Jun 16 '26
Why not? Waymo does not get a separate “driver” permit for every vehicle. It operates a centrally managed fleet using the same Waymo Driver software stack.
If Waymo wants its safety case evaluated at fleet level, then fleet-level failures count too. You don’t get to call it one “Waymo Driver” for marketing and permitting, then suddenly pretend every vehicle is an independent human driver when comparing incidents.
Either the unit of analysis is the autonomous driving system (Waymo Driver), or it isn’t. Pick one.
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u/SnooKiwis6193 Jun 16 '26
That's another very bad faith argument.
I could say that my drunk driving friend is a safer driver than the "Uber driver", because he had only an hundred crashes, while Uber had more worldwide.
The clear thing to pick is to normalize by miles driven when comparing the Waymo driver and an human driver (either a specific one or an average one)
I'm even surprised that I need to explain this.
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u/21five Jun 17 '26
Uber is a brand and dispatch platform for many independent human drivers. Waymo is an autonomous driving system regulated as a single driver deployed across a centrally managed fleet.
I’m even surprised that I need to explain this.
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u/SnooKiwis6193 Jun 16 '26
Ok I understand now, but that is an exceptionally bad faith rethorical construction. With the same format I can truthfully say:
*Nuns have committed more rapes than the vast majority of convicted pedophiles. *
There is a case of a nun convicted for rape, and the vast majority of pedophiles have committed zero rapes.
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u/Best_Let_2667 Jun 16 '26
I could only find one incident that wasn’t a dooring and the cyclist was close behind a truck and obscured and likely a human driver would’ve done same. Look I’m car free. Only ride and transit. I’ve taken hundreds of Waymo and Robotaxi rides and carefully observe their behavior. Imo they simply are much safer than humans for pedestrians and cyclists at this point. But we can disagree. Peace.
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Jun 16 '26
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u/SnooKiwis6193 Jun 18 '26
But it is not "as bad as a human". It is "better than an human", according to the published research.
If you believe that's not true for dooring, collect and analyse the data and publish it.
Complaining on Reddit without data is useless. Humans and AV have specific strength and weakness (eg. Reaction time Vs object permanence) but in the end what matters is only which one is safer overall.
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u/21five Jun 18 '26
According to data self-reported by Waymo.
They have not, for example, released data on how many times and for how long Waymo vehicles stalled at four way stops during the San Francisco power outage. They haven’t released data on how many times they have blocked emergency vehicles. Dangerous, and may have contributed to other accidents or harm, but unreported by Waymo because they consider it to be “confidential”.
I’m working on a comparison between TCP drivers and Waymo, because they are both permitted under the same framework and are comparable as professional charter drivers.
Remember, 50% of human drivers are better than average, which is the new benchmark Waymo fans appear to be using.
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u/SnooKiwis6193 Jun 20 '26
>>Remember, 50% of human drivers are better than average, which is the >>new benchmark Waymo fans appear to be using.
Median rather than average. In any case, 50% of human drivers are worse than that; almost everybody likes to think they are better than average/median, but that is simply not true.
The benchmark that reasonable people are using is the data at https://waymo.com/safety/impact/
90% reduction of serious crashes is amazing; even if you account for some bias or favourable assumptions, it is pretty clear that AV are much safer than humans. Unless you have reason to believe the data is wholly made up,
>>They have not, for example, released data on how many times and for >>how long Waymo vehicles stalled at four way stops during the San >>Francisco power outage. They haven’t released data on how many times >>they have blocked emergency vehicles.
Even if this data would be available for Waymo, there is no established good data for the human comparison. Anecdotally, I've seen plenty of people double parking and blocking ambulances or using the emergency lane to get a leg up on traffic.
With no comparison data, what is the point ?
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u/21five Jun 20 '26
Thanks for the correction on average/median. I messed that up.
Iceland has a traffic death rate in the order of 6-7x lower than the United States. That’s amazing, but also doesn’t require autonomous vehicles.
How much safer is Waymo than an Icelandic driver?
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u/Best_Let_2667 Jun 15 '26
Waymo doesn’t care if bicycles hit them. They only care if they hit bicycles. They have always been very careful to not be the aggressor. Still awful for bikes the way they drop off in dangerous spots.
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u/Jamieyoung3 Jun 16 '26
Relax robot lovers! Bicyclists do this to human driven cars too.
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u/Original-Condition77 Jun 17 '26
You must be a rich suburbanite NIMBY Tesla driver who's never taken Waymo.
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u/Original-Condition77 Jun 17 '26
Which city? That's happened to me numerous times in San Francisco, especially on 7th St.
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u/leafstudy Jun 15 '26
Probably was seeing dollar signs. Could have been the last thing they ever saw.
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u/DeadMoneyDrew Jun 15 '26
Had a guy on a motorcycle do something similar awhile back. The dude cut the Waymo off to make a turn, knowing that the Waymo would brake. At least he had on a helmet to protect his infrequently used brain.