If you're driving 45 in a 40, that may sound like 12% faster, but once you add traffic, lights, stop signs, turns, etc - you'll find that the 12% all but evaporates. Even if you're really pushing it and going 15 over, at most speeds and for most typical commutes, it saves very little.
Most of the time speeding ends up saving on the order of seconds on ~30 minutes or shorter trips.
Just about the only time it can be noticeable is if you're really pushing it (going to get pulled over speeds) on a nearly empty highway for a commute of 1.5+ hours.
93% of American drivers think they're better drivers than the median driver [0].
This overconfidence causes humans to take unnecessary risks that not only endanger themselves, but everyone else on the road.
After taking several dozen Waymo rides and watching them negotiate complex and ambiguous driving scenarios, including many situations where overconfident drivers are driving dangerously, I realize that Waymo is a far better driver than I am.
Waymos don't just prevent a large percentage of accidents by making fewer mistakes than a human driver, but Waymos also avoid a lot of accidents caused by other distracted and careless human drivers.
Now when I have to drive a car myself, my goal is to try to drive as much like a Waymo as I can.
I'll add on that speeding is the biggest contributing factor in accidents. And accident outcomes get exponentially worse above 30mph. For every 10 mph of increased speed, the risk of dying in a crash doubles.
In the real world 45 in a 40 will often enough get through lights just before they turn to red often enough that your real speed is more than twice as fast! Unless the city has timed their lights correctly - which sounds easy but on a grid is almost impossible for all streets. It all depends on how the red lights are timed.
I've ridden in Waymos in LA, SF, and Phoenix. You're right about them being a bit conservative, but only in Phoenix did I feel like that really slowed my ride. In LA and SF there was so much traffic that even if cars pulled away from us, we'd catch them at the next red light.
My understanding was waymo in LA does not yet take freeways (maybe this announcement will change that) which makes it a strictly worse experience in LA specifically.
I check Google maps ETA estimates when I get in a car in SF; they are accurate for Uber or Lyfts, but Waymos are absolutely slower there. This is especially, but not exclusively, true for routes where a human would take the 101 or 280, for obvious reasons.
At this point, any accident or rule violation can whip up a luddite storm threatening the whole industry, so self driving taxis will be extremely cautious until the general public have lost their fear.
Waymo may be currently safer than human drivers, but this right here is why I don't believe for a second they'll stay that way. People will complain it took to long to get somewhere because "stupid car was following all the rules!" and they'll be programmed to become more aggressive and dangerous (and due to regulatory capture they'll get away with this of course). I've already noticed this in San Francisco.
You realize it's technically illegal to drive faster than the speed limit, right? In the eyes of the law, it's doesn't matter whether everyone else is doing it or not.
It’s more complicated than that because several (most?) states have contradictory laws about impeding traffic. It can technically be illegal to drive at (or below) the speed limit because it creates an unsafe environment for all the other cars on the road that are driving faster, even if they’re all breaking the legal speed limit.
It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed limit is really the prevailing speed of traffic plus X mph, where X adjusted for the state. I.e. in my experience Texas is more strict about the speed limit even on their desolate highways, LA is about 10 mph faster than San Francisco, in Seattle it depends on the weather, you’ll never hit the speed limit in New York anyway, and in Florida you just say the gator ate the officer who pulled you over.
Night_Thastus|3 months ago
If you're driving 45 in a 40, that may sound like 12% faster, but once you add traffic, lights, stop signs, turns, etc - you'll find that the 12% all but evaporates. Even if you're really pushing it and going 15 over, at most speeds and for most typical commutes, it saves very little.
Most of the time speeding ends up saving on the order of seconds on ~30 minutes or shorter trips.
Just about the only time it can be noticeable is if you're really pushing it (going to get pulled over speeds) on a nearly empty highway for a commute of 1.5+ hours.
panarky|3 months ago
This overconfidence causes humans to take unnecessary risks that not only endanger themselves, but everyone else on the road.
After taking several dozen Waymo rides and watching them negotiate complex and ambiguous driving scenarios, including many situations where overconfident drivers are driving dangerously, I realize that Waymo is a far better driver than I am.
Waymos don't just prevent a large percentage of accidents by making fewer mistakes than a human driver, but Waymos also avoid a lot of accidents caused by other distracted and careless human drivers.
Now when I have to drive a car myself, my goal is to try to drive as much like a Waymo as I can.
[0] https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/1981-svenson.pdf
bcrosby95|3 months ago
mostly_harmless|3 months ago
TulliusCicero|3 months ago
But now that Waymo is gonna use freeways, that major speed difference is gonna evaporate.
bluGill|3 months ago
superfrank|3 months ago
whimsicalism|3 months ago
jessriedel|3 months ago
BurningFrog|3 months ago
pastureofplenty|3 months ago
lo_zamoyski|3 months ago
throwup238|3 months ago
It’s not a viable defense if you get a ticket for speeding but in practice the speed limit is really the prevailing speed of traffic plus X mph, where X adjusted for the state. I.e. in my experience Texas is more strict about the speed limit even on their desolate highways, LA is about 10 mph faster than San Francisco, in Seattle it depends on the weather, you’ll never hit the speed limit in New York anyway, and in Florida you just say the gator ate the officer who pulled you over.