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by choppaface 747 days ago
Waymo has notably escaped any investigation of the "Prius vs Camry" crash induced during unsafe testing done in pursuit of a demo https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal...

> The car went onto a freeway, where it travelled past an on-ramp. According to people with knowledge of events that day, the Prius accidentally boxed in another vehicle, a Camry. A human driver could easily have handled the situation by slowing down and letting the Camry merge into traffic, but Google’s software wasn’t prepared for this scenario. The cars continued speeding down the freeway side by side. The Camry’s driver jerked his car onto the right shoulder. Then, apparently trying to avoid a guardrail, he veered to the left; the Camry pinwheeled across the freeway and into the median. Levandowski, who was acting as the safety driver, swerved hard to avoid colliding with the Camry, causing Taylor to injure his spine so severely that he eventually required multiple surgeries.

> Levandowski and Taylor didn’t know how badly damaged the Camry was. They didn’t go back to check on the other driver or to see if anyone else had been hurt. Neither they nor other Google executives made inquiries with the authorities. The police were not informed that a self-driving algorithm had contributed to the accident.

> According to former Google executives, in Project Chauffeur’s early years there were more than a dozen accidents, at least three of which were serious. One of Google’s first test cars, nicknamed kitt, was rear-ended by a pickup truck after it braked suddenly, because it couldn’t distinguish between a yellow and a red traffic light. Two of the Google employees who were in the car later sought medical treatment.

It was a long time ago, but Larry Page was well aware of it, and imagine if that incident received fair coverage and investigation.

3 comments

I am having trouble imagining this scenario in a way that makes Waymo look as bad as you imply. It sounds like the human-driven vehicle if it was "boxed in" on an on-ramp needed to slow and merge, rather than racing to pass on the right, running off the road, and causing a spectacular single-vehicle wreck. The way it's described in that paragraph seems to be ironclad proof of the need to promptly relieve humans of driving tasks.
It doesn't make the tech look bad, but to me it makes the safety driver & the other executive look callous and uncaring.

> They didn’t go back to check on the other driver or to see if anyone else had been hurt

They should have made sure the driver was okay.

> It doesn't make the tech look bad, but to me it makes the safety driver & the other executive look callous and uncaring.

The safety driver was Anthony Levandowski, who left Google for Uber, taking with him a bunch of stolen IP, at Uber ran a cowboy self-driving car division that got pedestrians killed, Levandowski got sued by Google, ended up in prison and Uber laid off the entire division. Later he was pardoned by Trump.

So good news - the callous and uncaring safety driver has been fired, sued, and imprisoned.

Larry Page knew about the crash and tried to retain him
Yeah, the worst read about the car here would be "it's not very courteous in merge situations" in which case I implore anyone reading to drive in Maryland one single time.
I don't understand the downvotes of the parent post.

I am unfamiliar with the details of this incident and my reading based on the facts presented is similar.

Could someone provide more information?

threads on hn brings people from the mentioned company. all root comments saying bad things will always get downvotes.
This is especially true for comments that disagree with Googlers, likely because there are soooo many Googlers now and they (and Waymo) have highly aligned perspectives. Especially on Google-launch-related posts, 5-10 point swings in 24hrs can happen.

A good piece by an ex-Googler on his 2-year journey toward recognizing the scale of institutional thought at Google: https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/

> causing Taylor to injure his spine so severely that he eventually required multiple surgeries

I recognize accident lawyer work when I see one :) They charged Waymo’s insurance to the max.

Levandowski stole Waymo trade secrets, and only escaped the full consequences of his actions because of a Trump pardon. He is not representative of anything about Waymo in 2024.
Larry Page was an ardent supporter of Levandowski and this evidence illustrates Waymo’s core safety culture: that they’re above regulation and above the law. Same mindset illustrated in Google’s anti-trust trials.