[judge2020]

So are we just as much in the dark about how much progress Waymo could be making? given "Videos and personal experiences can only reveal safety issues, never positive progress" is the argument and yet Waymo doesn't exactly give us access to their bigquery to perform our own qualitative analysis.

[Veserv]

Yes. As a member of the general populace you have no idea how much progress Waymo is making and are unqualified to "test" their systems. However, you are not being asked to "test" their systems and you are not involved in the operation of the systems, so the point is moot. This is in contrast to Tesla where you "are" both of those things which is the problem.

Also, I just realized that the systems safety engineer you responded to has also posted a reply, so you should look to their statement for a more in-depth analysis as they are a expert on the subject.

[judge2020]

I think it’s unfair to say that you’re not testing Waymo’s systems when they allow people to get in them to take trips. And while if it has a problem, it’ll try to pull over on the side of the road, it can also stop in the middle of the road if it doesn’t think it can pull over, which can be a safety problem on even 35/45mph zones.