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Comment by fprog | Hacker News Reader

Public trust is a pretty good reason.

There’s enough to establish public trust with their voluntary release of safety data and regulators closely overseeing their operations.

Setting a precedent for releasing footage means fault is automatically assumed when they don’t voluntarily release it.

It’s a problem if they’re not even releasing it to the regulators, but that’s not happening here.

Not to mention that no matter how compelling the footage, people will argue who is at fault.

Yup. Also people using edited footage out of context for nefarious purposes. Really zero benefit for Waymo to release footage, only things to lose.

And that's exactly why regulators must compel them to release the footage immediately if they wish to continue operating on public roads.

They will release the footage to the regulators, likely without having to be asked.

The regulators don't want the footage released to the general public any more than Waymo does—the last thing they need is a bunch of armchair traffic accident investigators telling them how to do their jobs.

So what? People can argue about many things, that's not a valid reason against it.

It's not enough, because at least for me and a few others (e.g. the neighboring comment "If the footage is not released to the public I'm going to assume it makes Waymo look bad.") being able to judge the event personally can establish much more trust than anything they do with the regulators, because we also don't necessarily fully trust the regulators and their political motivation, and want to see if we would agree with the regulators for such major cases.

Unless you’re willing to watch millions of hours video of every Waymo vehicle driving and judge them in aggregate, watching a one-off incident will tell you nothing about their safety. At that point, you might as well trust their aggregate statistics reported to the regulators because they capture everything.

If you’re not an expert, it’s best to let the regulators and insurance adjusters do their job.

Your argument is much less effective at making me trust Waymo than the accident video could be.

Esp if one considers it’s the same argument cops make when trying to suppress incriminating police shooting footage.

Sounds like the same argument bad cops claim after questionable police shootings

Public trust requires building it first. As one of the first instances of a waymo crash, yes the public needs to see it. If after reading the footage in the first 99 crashes and in each time waymo’s assessment was valid, that’s when Waymo has public trust and can credibly not release every single video but only do it on a case by case basis.

How do you get to "bad cops" from here? Bad cops are "investigated" by their own units. So that analogy doesn't work.

Waymo is regulated by independent agencies (CA DMV and NHTSA). They are watching the videos and assessing if Waymo is telling the truth. Their permit is pulled if they get caught lying (like Cruise). How are you and thousands of SF residents more qualified than them? Why should I take your assessment more seriously than that of the regulators?

PR 101 is usually to say the bare minimum re bad press. And maybe release it later when it's out of the news cycle.

It’s a motivated audience in San Francisco. Data will not change their mind.

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