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Comment by stirfish | Hacker News Reader

> They don't have to die first. The company can avoid the expense by planning how not to kill people.

This is an extremely optimistic view on how companies work

I can think of one example where something similar works. The requirements from insurance companies on airline pilots are considerable tougher than the government ones because they are on the hook for ~$200m if they crash.

A big reason car companies don't worry much about killing pedestrians at the moment is it costs them ~$0.

You clearly haven't lived in my city :).

About half our road fatalities are pedestrians. About 80% of those are intoxicated with alcohol. When you're driving at 40mph, at night, and some drunk guy chooses to cross the road, no amount of safety features or liabilities can save him.

Sure, cars can be safer for light collisions with pedestrians where the car is going slowly. Especially in the US where half the cars have a very high hood. But where I live the problem is not safer cars, it's drunk pedestrians.

Why are you doing 40mph in a built up area at night?

Here in the UK we have a standard 30mph built up area limit, dropping to 20mph in most residential area.

Result - a massive reduction in serious injuries and fatalities, especially in car - pedestrians collisions.

Not so much a built up area. We're talking about main roads, or even motorways.

I wonder how a Waymo would do with your drunks? Really the answer for that is probably more a different road layout so the drinking is separate from the traffic. I live near Soho in London which is full of drunk people in the streets but most traffic is blocked off there or doing 10 mph.

I’ve been paying more attention to Waymos recently.. and noting that it stops to let people cross that i didn’t even see first.

And sometimes at places that aren’t even a cross walk.

Im in DTLA frequently and I am almost even developing a secondary instinct to cover my brake and have an extra look around when a Waymo stops in a street.

Because it may be dropping off or picking up a rider or it saw something or someone I didn’t. Just happened Saturday in fact. I saw it do an abrupt stop when I was yielding to it at a “T” intersection and expected it to have the right of way and keep going. I didn’t proceed until I could figure out WHY it had just stopped, like “okay WHERE’S the passenger”

and then five or so people started running across the street in front of it that I would not have seen if that Waymo wasn’t there and I was clear to turn left.

As an added bonus it stayed stopped after they all crossed and I decided to be a jerk and turn left in front of it. It stayed stopped for me too. There’s no driver in it. It ain’t mad. XD

I have a good eye for spotting uber drivers who are about to load or unload too, Especially if they have some common sense and are trying to line up to do that so their passenger can get on or off curbside. A Waymo is just.. way more immediately identifiable that I can react that much faster to it or just be like.. alright. I’ll take a cue from it, it’s usually right.

And hell even if it’s wrong, maybe this isn’t a good time to pull out in front of it anyway!

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