+1. I bike in the Bay and have been hit 3 times (1 broken bike and 1 broken helmet, but thankfully okay otherwise). I can’t wait for the day when I can be confident that all vehicles see me and I don’t have to worry about being the victim of a moment’s lapse in attention.
“Today the company is announcing that it’s testing fully autonomous trips, sans human driver, in Miami, and plans to do so in Orlando, Florida; Dallas; Houston; and San Antonio in the coming weeks.
For now, the only passengers will be Waymo employees. But the news is one of the final big milestones before the company offers rides to the public in those five cities, which it says it expects to do next year once all the necessary logistics are in place.”
“The five cities that are part of today’s announcement represent only a portion of those where Waymo has announced its intention to add service. Seven more—Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, London, Nashville, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.—are “coming soon” but not yet ready to do without a human driver aboard. Yet another seven—Boston, Buffalo, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Tokyo—are in an earlier stage, where the company is driving and collecting data.”
This article was clearly written by someone who lives in London and has never been to SF, but read a few articles about Waymo from the last year or two before writing this.
As someone more on the software side as well, I’m inspired to take on something similar.
But more importantly, as someone who rented a windowless room for a year, I would have loved to make a smart light like this to wake up to in the morning.
Sad situation regardless, and my heart goes out to all impacted by this.
Odd that Waymo is even in the headlines here, given its relative non-involvement. That’s click-baity sensationalism; the real story should focus on the people involved.
If anything, it’s more an indication of why autonomous vehicles should gain wider acceptance… this type of thing wouldn’t have happened without a human behind the wheel.