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Comment by wongarsu | Hacker News Reader

Waterways don't have clear lanes, intersections and turn signals, but you generally have unobstructed view, and every participant with the exception of the rare swimmer is much less nimble than a pedestrian or biker (and thus more predictable).

Waterways are very chaotic, but in some ways it's still more predictable than city driving.

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>>the exception of the rare swimmer is much less nimble than a pedestrian or biker (and thus more predictable).

The problem is that boats are an absolute pain to turn and are the very opposite of "nimble" too. Yes if you see a swimmer in the water 20m ahead of you they probably won't move very far, but also to avoid them you should have started making a turn about a minute ago. Having done some canal boating in the UK it's just inevitable that you will keep colliding with things, and unfortunately you leave a lot of kayakers pissed off because it's almost always them having to take an evasive action.

It'd be an interesting challenge writing an algorithm for canal boats on narrow British canals that can deal with the effect of wind, bank effect and squat and underwater obstacles that simply shouldn't be there in a vessel that's 57' long, pivots in the middle only and generally between a few feet and a few inches narrower than the canal itself. Tbf kayakers are easy to deal with if you actually see them in time to slow down. Most obstructions don't move as fast to get out the way!

A robot to do locks for me when I'm feeling lazy would be a bigger deal though :D

Perhaps not ideal but as a swimmer you almost always have down as an evasive direction. You do need awareness but this has saved me from multiple shallow hulled fast boats and water jetskis. You can hear them miles away though directionality of the sound is poor or absent.

When I'm doing open water swimming workouts I'm usually wearing a wetsuit buoyant enough that I can't dive down. I probably wouldn't risk swimming at all in waters where jet skis are allowed because they're notoriously irresponsible. It's a good idea to also tow an inflatable buoy to increase your visibility.

https://www.newwaveswimbuoy.com/

In a 3' deep canal, down is a problematic evasive direction!

Not saying you are wrong, but how do you handle people on river banks?

They could jump/fall in or continue to stand there.

The banks are often quite far or too shallow to realistically be a concern. Even when dealing with sailing vessels whose rigging extends beyond the deck and is subject to change position by the whim of the captain and wind. You’re very often not close enough to the other ship to matter. What makes it more fun is that sailing vessels have the right of way to all other vessels (with the exception of large barges and container ships) IIRC. This means an AI piloting a smaller craft would have to 1, recognize a sailing vessel, 2, recognize whether it is powered by wind or not and 3, yield the right of way.

Same as you handle people near railroad tracks.

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