[throwaway123156]

I agree the statistics we have are pretty terrible. However, in this case, I think Waymo's statistic is actually quite useful. It's likely that Waymo's x miles driven statistic is largely driven by the fact that Waymo has tested their cars on a small number of roads, in fairly safe settings. But that paints Uber in an even worse light. Waymo is supposedly ahead, or at least on par with Uber in self driving technology, and they have chosen to limit their testing and driving to safer and a limited number of roads. Uber has not. That seems to underscore the fact that Uber has pushed beyond their tech's capabilities even though their competitors have determined the tech isn't there yet.

Also, if someone had posted a poll a day ago as to which company's self driving cars were likely to be the first to kill somebody, I think the vast majority of people would have predicted Uber. I don't think that's a coincidence.

[ocdtrekkie]

Note that Waymo was the loudest about how they shouldn't be forced to have a steering wheel in their cars, already, and that they're also massively ramping up in Arizona, because of the nonexistent regulations. In Arizona, Waymo won't be forced to disclose statistics on disengagements, for example, which California does require they hand over.

[dkonofalski]

Waymo is already using autonomous vehicles in AZ without a safety driver behind the wheel. There are fully autonomous Waymo vehicles driving around in parts of AZ.

[ocdtrekkie]

Which is why I am only a little bit surprised Uber beat Waymo to killing a pedestrian. Waymo is way too arrogant about it's capabilities, moving way faster than is reasonable or safe, and they use misleading statistics to insinuate their system is more capable than it is.

Note that they already know their cars will need help driving still, which is why they've assembled a call center for remote drivers to take over their cars in Arizona. Of course, those remote drivers likely can't intervene at nearly the speed of an onboard safety driver.