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> A programmer added jitter to work around that situation,

A random sleep to avoid a race condition.

If a bunch of randoms on the Internet can think of using the other vehicles as guides for the right way to go, why hasn't Waymo?

Also, why don't the roadside assistance people or the woman on the phone not have an off button to stop their cars randomly taking off on them? Other machinery has an e-stop, why not this?

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I don't know if you're new to this whole technology thing but the answer a lot of the times is: things are more complicated than the simple words that can be used to describe the thing.

Most likely because there are tradeoffs. Tesla is using other vehicles as guides, so it is possible.

Exactly. There's a famous video out there from a few years back showing Tesla autopilot dutifully following a BMW at highway speeds. Then the BMW suddenly swerves around a stopped vehicle in front of it at the last minute, and the AP doesn't have time to recognize the object and come to a full stop, so it runs right into it. (The object is a fake baloon car, but the situation was real enough.)

Tesla has since improved recognition to prevent that situation, but the point remains: blindly following other vehicles is a common mistake. Remember all the "Do Not Follow" signs on construction vehicles?

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