Why You Should Want Driverless Cars On Roads Now

How close are we to having fully autonomous vehicles on the roads? Are they safe? In Chandler, Arizona a fleet of Waymo vehicles are already in operation. Waymo sponsored this video and provided access to their technology and personnel. Check out their safety report here: waymo.com/safety/
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References:
Waymo Safety Reports - waymo.com/safety/
Driving Statistics - ve42.co/DrivingStats
The Real Moral Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars ve42.co/SelfDriving
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Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
Alvaro naranjo, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Mike Tung, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Ismail Öncü Usta, Paul Peijzel, Crated Comments, Anna, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, Oleksii Leonov, Jim Osmun, Tyson McDowell, Ludovic Robillard, Jim buckmaster, fanime96, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Joar Wandborg, Clayton Greenwell, Pindex, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal
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Animation by Fabio Albertelli and Jakub Misiek
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Audio Mix and SFX by Shaun Clifford
Music by Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com
Additional video supplied by Getty Images and Pond 5
Produced by Derek Muller, Emily Zhang and Petr Lebedev

[@rarewhiteape]

I hope you were all being honest when the Captcha asked you to click on the squares containing traffic lights.

[@spaztikcuk5871]

The quiet kid in the corner clicking everything but the traffic lights

[@hoffer_moment]

amazing comment

[@nihil_._sum]

now the only way to prove youre not a machine is proving youre stupid enought

[@NickRoman]

@@nihil_._sum , so now if we get the math problem wrong, then it lets us through?

[@It-b-Blair]

@@nihil_._sum a user would have to move the mouse, and the click rate would be erratic. A bot doesn’t ‘move’ the mouse across the screen, it just clicks like a finger on a touchscreen. That’s the measurable difference.

[@Sharivari]

Ever wondered why in captchas you have to choose bikes, crossings, school busses and so on? Now you know. Genius idea.

[@corssa.]

Wait what wow

[@camanderson9954]

@@corssa. it's for ai and deep learning

[@whatsthefuss0]

Woah!

[@vadrif-draco]

But doesn't the captcha system already know what's correct beforehand? (such that when you pick wrong you need to do another check)

[@nathanezra1]

But captcha already knows what's correct. These ppl don't need us to teach their machines

[@nikofromthehitgameoneshot]

they should make these, but longer, and maybe even on rails

[@realdickhead6077]

😆

[@jamesclerkmaxwell8020]

Rails cannot take you point to point

[@realdickhead6077]

Are you sure? @@jamesclerkmaxwell8020

[@diamond_player]

⁠@@jamesclerkmaxwell8020that is just typical North American poor urban planning lol

[@keanuortiz3766]

​@@jamesclerkmaxwell8020 With bad planning and excessive use of roads, of course rail wont lmao

[@timothystockman7533]

They were called "elevator operators", and were still in a few buildings in my younger days. Automatic elevators don't have to dodge other elevators... For those who don't know, the auto-land is tracking the ILS signals sent by a transmitter from the runway; auto-land requires significant airport infrastructure to work. I would guess that some amount of roadway infrastructure will be required to make auto-driving truly safe.

[@vincentrobitaille4564]

This just makes me realise how much more public transport we need. I think it's an error seeing autonomous vehicules as a main solution for traffic and road safety

[@alicepow260]

absolutely agreed!

[@bumb3274]

Well, could work for busses and other transit options? But yeah not cars of the current size

[@erikhendrickson59]

Allow me to introduce ya to something called "capitalism!"

[@Sentryalmighty]

consider tho: driverless trains??

[@xtianityisalie]

Agree. Japan has an awesome high speed rail system.. when is ours coming????

[@jeremysoojk]

Derek: It's weird trusting a driverless car Also Derek: Hops into makeshift cart with giant windmill

[@BD-yl5mh]

Wait for someone to bet ten grand that this isn’t really driving itself

[@brokenacoustic]

This is the video he shouldve titled 'risking my life...' lol

[@motifity3416]

Giant windmill carts are the norm, you know

[@ff-qf1th]

@@brokenacoustic nah, as we can see in this video, a driverless car is way safer than that propeller contraption he was riding in that other video

[@jacobshirley3457]

b-b-but technically it's not a windmill.

[@NinjaBearFilms]

I want two things… A federal law that says when an autonomous accident happens, all that cars data from its sensors must be made available to every autonomous car designer within a set time limit. So every manufacturer can say, “we’ve tested the data in simulation and this is how our vehicle would have responded. Based on this data we’re adding these improvements.” And second… I want a self driving semi-truck that had the trailer converted into a luxury RV. So when I go on vacation we just climb in, say “I want to see Mount Rushmore this summer.” And off we go.

[@DrJams]

No

[@benjaminhoffman3848]

The biggest issue is the autonomy people lose when anybody with an internet connection can take your car from you. The government can just say you have deviant views and shutdown your car.

[@kg4tnp]

This feels like a commercial. The other issues is many of these fully autonomous cars have remote drivers monitoring them or are limited to very few areas. This tech will be ready when it can be used on EVERY road in EVERY weather condition.

[@daniel6678]

it basically is a commercial - the sponsorship on the video means that anything he says has to have been approved by the company, so there’s no way he could ever criticize it

[@kochan8461]

@@daniel6678 i mean, we can always call him a sellout.

[@ZetaCheese]

Whats wrong with having remote drivers

[@thearchives1094]

@@ZetaCheese search up a KZbin called Tom Nicholas. He has a very educated and thoughtful critism of this video

[@Errors404]

Lamborgini would be a Failed tech cuz it cant be used in many parts of the world. Including my own state, the road is unsuitable for such cars. And its not a village either its fairly common to have such type of roads. Only the best of cities in the world have perfect flat smooth road.

[@thebeeemill]

I’m really curious how they handle in scenarios where a human is directing traffic. That is, when police are directing traffic around a crash or workers are directing traffic through an area with road work

[@indyola9738]

Good question! I also wondered if other human activity could trip them up, like playing a siren loudly on your car stereo to make them pull over for you.

[@samuelmuldoon4839]

As long as the car is in an area where there is Wi-Fi, cellphone service, or if the car has a satellite up-link, then a human could pilot the car remotely. That is, if there is a road-worker directing traffic, Waymo could have someone pilot the car using a laptop at home as part of a work-at-home job. After the car has finished passing through the unusual situation, computerized control could resume. You could have some safe-guards, so that if the remote driver attempts to speed, or crash into an obvious stationary object, then the computer will intercede and bring the car to a stop.

[@pizzashark7067]

@@samuelmuldoon4839 If human intervention is necessary, then wouldn't it be more sensible (and safer) to have someone in the vehicle take control, as opposed to someone with a laptop (potentially hundreds of miles away) trying to maneuver through a network delay and cameras? This seems an especially poor solution in those given situations where situational awareness and responsiveness is necessary, such as when you're being flagged through an area with tons of road work.

[@Rig0r_M0rtis]

Yeah that's a problem only when there is a combination of humans and robots on roads. We need to get rid of human drivers asap.

[@kristianhaverasmussen8558]

I think that’s level 5 automation. So, i think they’re still working on that

[@SanderEvers]

Honestly, you can replace any car with something really simple: a train. And just take your bike or walk te final distance. Sure you'll need a robust train network, but it is absolutely doable. Since, well, here in the Netherlands we have exactly that network. Plus the bike or walking to the destination.

[@hamsandwichindahouse]

In Amsterdam. Outside of Amsterdam, everyone drives, and eveyone knows this, including you.

[@strategystuff5080]

@@hamsandwichindahouse Every major city + small town has extensive public infrastructure busses, rent-a-bike, or trains. Only in really rural areas would a car be essential.

[@RMProjects785]

Netherlands is one of the densest countries in the world, basically one big city. The U.S. is an entire continent. You can't build a train or bus lane to everywhere, bikes can't go far enough quick enough and isn't compatible with a lot of the extreme weather of the USA. While we need more public transport and walkability in urban areas, "just build trains lol" is not a viable solution for the transport needs of such a large country. Point to point transport at anytime anywhere will always beat public transport at a lot of tasks.

[@paulisebaert492]

You realize that Europe as a continent has a pretty good network of trains right, you could easily travel from London to Madrid within a day by train (20 hours, same as you would with the car over a bit more than 1000 miles) while having time for yourself doing so and reducing your ecological footprint. To put it in perspective, Chicago to New York (little less than 800 miles) takes 18 hours. Each country has then their local network that is maybe less efficient, but the idea is that size is not an argument, it's the mentality. Even China is investing in HST...

[@RMProjects785]

@@paulisebaert492 Yes I know because I live in Europe and commute every day by train and bicycle. First, no one travels by train from London to Madrid, as it requires multiple interchanges, while a single flight can make the trip in 3 hours for half the price. While I agree with the French policy of replacing short-haul flights with high speed rail, making 20 hour train journeys Is something nobody will do. Yes, major cities should be well connected by rail, and a lot of road transport disincentivised. We should improve and expand public transport systems. But it is simply unrealistic to replace cars on a large scale. They will always be the most efficient way to travel most distances, even in terms of an environmental standpoint, and to remove them is to return to the 1800s in terms of transportation. Even in the Netherlands, a dense country regarded to have the best public transport infrastructure in the world, cars are by far the most used method of travel. To build the most efficient transport system requires a combination of public and private transport. It's silly to rely on one or the other.

[@5MadMovieMakers]

The best driverless cars should have a race, or rigorous safety competition

[@MogDog66]

@@nunuvyurbiz123 I think he means a race like a car race. Like racing cars...

[@MogDog66]

​@@nunuvyurbiz123 Hahaha good, was starting to think you were a little dim!

[@ClebyHerris]

That’s a thing. It’s called roborace and it’s amazing. There was a gif last year that circulated of it just starting a lap and just turning into a wall immediately without any indication

[@Argoon1981]

How many average human drivers, are as good as a race car pilot? Or even drive on the road, at the same speeds and making the same maneuvers as race car driver? I hope you know that the most accidents, are provoked by careless, speeding drivers that think they are race car drivers. So I ask why, should a driverless car, need to be like a race car driver, if it will NOT drive like one, on normal roads at regular speeds? Having said that they ARE making driverless race cars, just to appease certain people.

[@camerons.9012]

Make them play chicken

[@joostdriesens3984]

In the near future: "I'm bored, I'm going to switch the car to manual to drive myself a bit.." "WTF! are you crazy? stay away from the controls, you're going to hit something if you don't pay attention!".

[@SOLIDSNAKE.]

Exactly

[@sarumatsu3698]

Just like in iRobot. We already are at a point where we trust computers (or automated machines) over humans for near-perfect functioning. Imagine everything being automated. We would not challenge it.

[@bitcoinyoda8321]

and it will be pretty expensive to drive yourself because of the insurance

[@cellc6191]

well yea if we even reach to that point since global warming (:

[@revimfadli4666]

Basically what happened to beginner-to-mid-level programming

[@TechNyj]

1:30 What you're using is called a geofenced prototype. It's being tested in SF & AZ. General availability of this tech is 10-30 years away, depending on where you live. It's great that certain places will get early versions that are usable, however.

[@mad_like_a_hatter5469]

Wonder what their parameters are for self break downs like a tire blow out, lightning strike, or any mechanical catastrophic failure. Or what the procedure is when someone has a heart attack and can’t hit the button if it just keeps driving for the entire trip or if there’s onboard visual monitors.

[@TheBlackEventorizon]

Given they want to protect their investment and taxies/busses/trains have CCTV, of course these heicles will have it when they are made public. On Brakedowns/tyre failures, it would pull over to the side of the road if it could or find the safest place it could, like any human driver. Advantages are that it would know far more about itself than a human does about there car and could stop before a major failure and even immediately alert the authorities that it had broken down - no delay digging out for phone and trying to remember who you need to call. It could even call up another vehicle for the passengers to get into so they are not delayed. As for heart attacks and similar events, there are already safety systems in place in large machinery such as tower cranes and excavators to detect driver impairment, so adding them to these vehicles wouldn't be that difficult. But this should only apply if there is only one person in the vehicle, so people monitoring the vehicles can make those a priority. The chances of two people being ill are insanely small. Also, if the vehicle could detect this or you push the emergency button, it could change its route to the nearest hospital/ER/A&E automatically, alert both the hospital and authorities and even be given priority by other driverless vehicles if it encountered any. Imagine being put directly through to 999/911 in a vehicle that is already on its way to hospital and you can focus on answering questions and keeping your passenger alive until you arrive.

[@lemon4087]

@@TheBlackEventorizon who are you

[@Strapsenkoenig]

You could die in a train if nobody sits near by and you get a heart attack. The rest could probably be fixed by maintenance, I am getting a hearth attack each day seeing the vehicles allowed on US streets 😅

[@a1r592]

"Open the door Waymo!" "I'm sorry, Derek. I'm afraid I can't do that."

[@grantjoslyn3638]

Waymo 9000

[@jasonruffjr3107]

"Upgrade" vibes 😂

[@probuilder961]

Waymo AKA. HAL

[@mikael2748]

This doesn’t have enough likes

[@erickm119]

Street Odyssey 2021

[@channelsixtysix066]

"Driverless Cars Are Already Here" - Yes I know, I've been driving for over 40 years, and see them every day I go out.

[@thedeadexpert518]

Lol, I think I get it. "Driverless"(not Driverless) cars are the ones where the "driver" is doing something else other than driving.

[@channelsixtysix066]

@@thedeadexpert518 👍

[@logicplague2077]

🤣🤣🤣

[@StefanNoack]

@@thedeadexpert518 or maybe just a parked car

[@GS-td3yc]

@@StefanNoack or simply you drive ur own car so there is no driver XD

[@Pudibu]

Elevators didn’t go driverless, they went chauffeur-less.

[@adsr3870]

This seriously made me have doubts about the moral integrity of the Veritasium team.

[@Kavyatej]

elaborate? the sponsorship?

[@vatopunko]

@@Kavyatejyes lol. It’s not a normal sponsorship, but a custom video.

[@devamin6017]

I agree. No nuisance and stretching the facts and not explaining the downfalls of the sponsored company. Basically, humans can’t drive and the car can do everything perfectly without any human intervention behind its operations.

[@FredEPLk]

​​@@devamin6017those Google cars were travelling for years without a single accident. Driveless cars are one of the best inventions of the last decades. They have the potential to save so many lives. Most accidents are duo to human error. That is why airplanes are much safer than cars

[@remi1771]

@@Kavyatej you should watch "Veritasium: A Story of KZbin Propaganda"

[@programagor]

I'm sure this was already said in the comments, but the reason pilots land manually on sunny days is that on those sunny days, Cat IIIb operations may not be in effect at the airport. The equipment requires clearance around the runway to guarantee accuracy, and more stringent spacing standards are required. It is more efficient to guide planes close enough to the runway so they can see it, and then let them land manually, visually. On foggy days, airports with Cat IIIb capabilities have it active, as that's when pilots are required to use it.

[@guyhommeki]

Why don't the airports leave the IIIb operations always in effect then? Too expensive?

[@jadefalcon001]

@@guyhommeki "The equipment requires clearance around the runway to guarantee accuracy, and more stringent spacing standards are required." From above. Basically using the autoland systems require more rigid, somewhat less time/space efficient operating procedures. Major airports that are pressed for capacity would see no benefit from sacrificing capacity for superfluous automation. Second-tier airports may be cost-constrained in terms of equipment runtimes, may not have that capability in the first place, or simply don't have the personnel expertise on hand all the time.

[@FirstnameLastname-ok1yz]

@@jadefalcon001 Still there is the same problematic as in the video; would those safe margins impeding time and space efficiency needed for catIII make human landing operations safer too, or is catIII just "overly" safe. Another way to put it is are the reasons for those margins actually necessary feature or, an extra precaution because we do not feel as confortable toeing the limit as much as when we are in control. Also there could be a bias about those margins being planned for worst cases climates and not sunny days, which I suppose are not/should not be the same.

[@eragon78]

@@FirstnameLastname-ok1yz Probably regulatory reasons. Things like Automation tend to be regulated much more strictly to ensure safety because when automation goes wrong, it can effect millions vs a single pilot's error. (Because an error in automation regulation can lead to faulty equipment across an entire system). So because of this things like automation tend to be OVER regulated to ensure safety which is a good thing. But it also means there is more resistance to automation as its more expensive to rely on so it takes longer before its more widely implemented.

[@blackjack4195]

Humans are just better at landing planes, that's why.

[@MandJTV]

I hope to one day be able to tell kids that we used to drive cars ourselves and they'll just go 👁️👄👁️

[@mohdnazimrosli8535]

The old silvester stallone movie? The one that taco bell become a fancy restaurant? Demolition man!! When he drives a mustang n nobody else knows how to drive , Also , i still dont know how to use the 3 sea shells replacing the toilet paper

[@NotAnAlchemist_Ed]

I was thinking about that the other day. When I'm an old man, people will hear me saying that I used to fill up with gas the tank of my manual-transmission non-autonomous vehicle.

[@MauriccioManiac]

Wait... This isn't a pokemon video 🤨

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

With manual transmissions!

[@Lighthouse_out_of_order]

@@OntarioTrafficMan I witnessed my Dad gets the car going with a manual crank after the battery died. I feel old.

[@toma2819]

Aug 10, 2023, NPR writes, “Self-driving car firms want California regulators to allow for more vehicles on San Francisco streets. Police and fire departments cite many times when autonomous vehicles botched rescue operations.”

[@vishalshah8213]

It's so exciting when you can recognize the location of where a video is shot especially when it's not a famous location... He starts his ride from Element hotel in Chandler, AZ (Phoenix yay!!!). When everyone else banned driverless cars on streets, Phoenix allowed Waymo to operate in a small part of the city which was mainly parts of Tempe and Chandler. Waymo was still at Level 3 when I first rode it in 2020 just before the start of Pandemic and it was so much more automated when I rode it next in 2022 Jan.

[@bengunderson712]

In an accident, humans don't "decide who to hit." They panic and hit whatever is about to be hit.

[@ChilapaOfTheAmazons]

In a typical accident humans often don't even panic until _after_ the accident because they were completely distracted and didn't even notice that it was about to happen.

[@bable6314]

Exactly. As long as the vehicle can do better than LITERALLY PANICKING then it's fine lmfao

[@bengunderson712]

@@ChilapaOfTheAmazons exactly! That's why I disagree with all the "morality of who to hit" discussions with AI. Humans don't consider this, and computers comparatively won't ever need to.

[@Suck-Squeeze-Bang-Blow]

As a commercial driver, I have often chosen my exit from a potentially fatal situation.

[@Tom-fm2fh]

That's not "people" but morons. You can't judge everybody because of the image you have of yourself. "Self" driving cars are nothing less than lethal weapons and suicide booths. Even in aviation where you have thorough and dilligent inspections every 50 hrs, expensive state of the art technology, way more clearances from objects and obstacles, lot longer reaction times, ATC and you assess weather prepare flight plans to make sure the automation will not go out of it's limits and fail (and there are multiple redundancies and emergency procedures for various automation failures) there ARE still frequent automation failures and completely avoidable deaths if there was NO AUTOMATION in a first place. Automation is nothing than convenience that lazy irresponsible collectivists use to avoid taking responsibility for their lives and actions and to avoid putting effort into practical education and training

[@Allvaldr]

What a lovely advertisement video.

[@haschid]

Correction: Planes don't land themselves in very bad weather. They do it in very bad visibility. There is a difference. An autoland procedure has very tight limits in regards to crosswind component, compared to a manual landing. The computer can't compensate for the wind, and sudden changes of wind, as well as a pilot.

[@Millennium7HistoryTech]

Perfect.

[@mindlander]

Bad visibility is a type of bad weather.

[@wildgrem]

Well Akchutally

[@greg6094]

This was one of Derek's worst videos as the bias was blatant, there were other factual inaccuracies as well, very deceptive.

[@mindlander]

@@greg6094 could you elaborate on the inaccuracies?

[@michinwaygook3684]

This was one of the first videos I watched by Veritasium and it was because of this video I didn't watch anymore for about two years. I figured when someone is promoting self driving cars while being sponsored by a self driving car company nothing they have to say is worth listening to. While I still do not take anything you say in this video seriously I have very much enjoyed the many other videos you have produced.

[@FredEPLk]

That would be the case if he had hidden the fact that the video was sponsored. They probably reached out to him because of his credibility. He tested the car and made observations (honest ones like when the car suddenly stops to protect a pedestrian). I dont understands why that would make you or anyone else question his integrity. That was not an ad, It was an informative video.

[@maxguerra9155]

@@FredEPLk To copy another reply i saw here: "Tom Nicholas had made a video about it titled "Veritasium: A story of KZbin Propaganda", when "educational" youtubers get paid to do something and present it as a fact. We should spend more time being skeptical on what we're watching nowadays." Basically his scientific and balanced view on electric cars and waymo went down to 0% when a paycheck is involved.

[@squidwardo7074]

@@maxguerra9155 you seem to have quite a vendetta against veritasium

[@touchdownbyu]

My dream for autonomous driving. I get into a van Friday night with my family and wake up Saturday morning on the beach ( currently live 10 hours away from the closest one). We spend the day enjoying ourselves, clean off and hop back in the van. When we wake up, we are back home ready for a new day. Ive been excited about the possibility for a long time. My guess with the rates of increase in technology, we could be there in 5-10 years.

[@fanjan7527]

My dad who was a pilot, in the late 70's, did an auto landing just to see how the new technology works, on Boeing. He had his hands ready at the flight wheel all the way down, but, in the late 70's, the plane, landed itself.

[@-_James_-]

When I flew to Australia from the UK in the late 90s, we had a refueling stop in Singapore. On our final approach the pilot came on and made his usual pre landing announcement and instructed us to sit back and enjoy the landing - because that's what he was going to do.

[@underaveragecuber7437]

Aw, man. So you're telling me that the plot of Airplane! is unrealistic? I never would have guessed

[@neeneko]

though even today, it is not unusual for a crash to be attributed to the autopilot. Not directly of course, the autopilot usually works as in tended and there is some degree of human or sensor error involved, but the process of explaining to the autopilot what to do and when involves the pilot, ATC, and other systems that can conflict with it.

[@CharlieDBrown]

There's infinitely more complex situations for an autonomous car to have to deal with. Flying is easy for a computer, it's straight forward, minimal obstacles. Planes don't need to change lanes to turn, or to check if lanes are clear before attempting so. Aerospace auto-pilot doesn't have to contend with bumper to bumper traffic, or stop lights.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

@@CharlieDBrown True, but landing is the trickiest part of flying, and computers could do that half a century ago. Given Moore's Law, just imagine what they are capable of today. They might even fit on your desk!

[@DrummertheCody]

I’m legally blind too. Stay at home dad of two. Fully autonomous cars would be an absolute game changer for me and my family.

[@koneal2000]

I'm still waiting for the idiot "but how did you write this?!?!" comments.

[@qmawpxvecxydiwixytvieowizhehsi]

@@koneal2000 yeah, he just heard and had his iPhone write it for him. You know.. these services for this specific type of people should be a thing indeed! But for perfectly working humans.. c'mon.. what are you doing to the people's way of living? If the government approves this. Crime will just go higher cause of so much stress from people without jobs. It's sad. Very sad what's going to happen. I'm just thinking about it.. and I feel them.

[@bigmac3628]

@@qmawpxvecxydiwixytvieowizhehsioh i see

[@Sheridantank]

@UCQMRIAMkmz0BLKI4o4JKx4Q "I see, I see", said the blind man to his deaf daughter

[@DrummertheCody]

@@koneal2000 😂😂😂 I used the force. Obviously.

[@wv05vq]

How much of the experience was done in winter up north? Testing only under ideal circumstances of course makes everything seem great.

[@ShaharHarshuv]

Amaaaazing!!! I'm so looking forward for advancements at those areas. Especially since I don't have a license or do I mean to get one. I'm surprised that those cars are already licensed to drive!

[@ShortHax]

Driverless cars are also wearing seatbelts. What an amazing time to be alive

[@teabagg1178]

hello there, how you are you doing today

[@Tker1970]

So Derek doesn't have to hear Ding Ding Ding Ding... his whole ride I guess :)

[@FinFET]

sure the the autonomous car cannot predict what the meatbag driven cars will do, sometimes it is hard to evade an accident caused by another vehicle

[@tgmtf5963]

*hold on to your papers*

[@ryannygard3661]

@@tgmtf5963 get ready to squeeze those papers!

[@PatrykPonichtera]

As a motorcycle rider I'd feel safer with autonomous cars, they're more predictable, they would indicate their turning intentions and they wouldn't drive distracted or drunk

[@alericjohansen6775]

I'm not a motorcycle rider, but i would LOVE to have autonomous vehicles on the road that ACTUALLY indicate which way they plan to turn and everything. I see SOOOOO MANY drivers just fail to use turn signals at all, it's insane. Not to mention the drunk aspect or other things humans do.

[@sino_diogenes]

This is a good point. I refuse to take up motorcycling (except maybe backroads) because of stupid humans.

[@WiseWik]

@@sino_diogenes that's just stupid

[@NewBeginningNewCreation]

All the negatives, aside from driving distracted, you mentioned are everything motorcyclists I know do 😆

[@SillyTubereal]

The possibilities on road are endless, which is why autonomous cars will never take over human drivers. Cars are not like other autonomous machines that have only one job, such as motion detecting lights.

[@qrs_tuv1925]

This helped. I’ve been fence sitting this issue for as long as Waymo has been on the road (in San Francisco MANY Waymo all night).

[@Imbatmn57]

I think building more self driving high speed trains would be better, because it has to stick to a track so theres less variables when it comes to traffic, a train can tow more and if we can have it so trucks only have to get the supplies from the train, they dont have to make 3 day travels with the goods. It would lower costs because you dont have to pay the driver as many hours, also since the driver is more local, more money can be spent in the economy. This would also help more trucks to become solar because its a shorter distance and theres time to charge between orders.

[@thuytienxanh22]

Driverless car at a crash test; Engineer: Ok, now drive into that wall as fast as you can Driverless car: Umm no! Engineer: That's a pass

[@sumitrana2420]

That would be fun!

[@V_2077]

I'm afraid I can't do that Dave

[@faismasterx]

@@V_2077 This needs more thumbs up.

[@hamsterdam1942]

@@faismasterx agree

[@ripmorld9909]

@@V_2077 “Open the door! The car is sinking !” “I am afraid I cannot do that”

[@whyamiwastingmytimeonthis]

This video was Waymo interesting than I thought.

[@paulvonhindenburg3668]

out, now.

[@matimoonhoney5606]

Derek looks so tired 🤔

[@blumkeet]

_ba dum tssss_

[@BenjaminBalderas]

Nice, dad

[@KushagraPratap]

Why are you wasting your time on this?

[@MrBendybruce]

"Full disclosure, this video is sponsored by Waymo and I've decided to swap out My scientific skeptics hat for my far more valuable propaganda one, so I can get that bag."

[@FredEPLk]

That is because the benefits outweigh the risks massively. Also, he knows that the tendency is for people to be afraid and skeptical about this. He is showing that it is like any other evolution, the more you know about it, the more you realize it is a great invention and start to wonder why you haven't tried before. There was a time when people would never trade a horse for a car and here we are.

[@ADEpoch]

I love that you said, "Automatic elevators" as though it's a new concept. One that we now take for granted. Roll on the auto driving car!! Got a quesion though. What happens if a bird craps on the lidar? Also, could you do a video on why although electricity is slower than light we can use electrical sensors to measure light's speed? That has always intrigued me :-)

[@ewanlee6337]

Assuming the coders aren’t dumb. If a sensor goes down because of bird poop or something else it will slow down, turn on hazard lights, pull over and stop using the other sensors. Measuring the speed of light is simple in principle. Fire a laser down a known distance where it hits a mirror and goes back. Time between when it fires and comes back and you can get the speed. The difficulty and complexity is in getting precise enough equipment and facilities.

[@SpAzMaNiK]

Would love to see how this technology handles snow

[@king6dutch]

It will, as long as its a little snow. I live in Edmonton. 6 Months of the year our roads are a winter nightmare, with residential streets being having a thick pack of snow/ice on them, it was about 3 inches on my street last year by the end. Add a particularly heavy snowfall, add wet snow conditions that ice up the sensors, add black ice (so thin and clear you don't know its there) Its another level of technology that will be needed for conditions like this, tech that can 'see' through snow and ice, tech that can label roads and lanes without visual line of sight, better tires and braking for icy streets. That said, human driving in those conditions suck too. Sort out the sensors and it will probably be safer already, but likely slow.

[@comicguy4624]

I guess that's why they're in Arizona lmao

[@alexwebster8999]

Ya it’s definitely a different beast. Stuff like a Lidar sensor can still “see” even in heavy snow. I’m in Canada and I keep thinking how every winter my cars backup camera is unusable. I wonder if they could solve it someone. Like keep the camera clean by warming up the lens or something

[@rb032682]

I handled snow by moving away from Ohio and into a snow-free climate.

[@ILCorvo001]

@@alexwebster8999 I think its less of a visibility question, and more of a "making many small (and bespoke) adjustments in an environment that demands constant (and random) adaptation" kind of thing. The hard part of driving on snow and rain (for those that aren't really familiar), has less to do with visibility than it does road conditions.

[@matthewviramontes3131]

Robot car: "I'll just stop completely to keep hooman safe" Bicyclist: *runs into car anyway*

[@shahanshahpolonium]

lol

[@benjamincarlson6994]

My question is how they would fare on longer trips, like interstate highways

[@shahanshahpolonium]

@@benjamincarlson6994 why they'd fare just fine

[@edwardcardona717]

@@benjamincarlson6994 It's a lot easier to get the interstate right than neighborhoods. The only dangerous thing about interstates is the stakes in the speed, and it's such a regularized system that it reduces the variables at play. In a neighborhood, you any driveway could have a car backing out, every intersection can have an idiot, and every crosswalk can have a vulnerable pedestrian. There's a lot more to detect and be careful of.

[@kennylaysh2776]

@@benjamincarlson6994 interstate would be the easiest...try driving in the city with almost no markings because they don't pain often, pot holes, people parking so far in roads turn into single lanes....

[@aspecreviews]

I've had the lane keeping assist system in my grandpa's 2019 Acura RDX jerk the steering wheel out of my hands and apply the brakes on one side of the vehicle to try to bring me back into my lane when I crossed the centerline of the road to provide space for a cyclist. Will autonomous vehicles be intelligent enough to take that into account and be able to cross the centerline if it is necessary?

[@user-kq3gj8uj9r]

Wait what? So if they remove all parking lots that means that all the cars will be on the road to either drop of or pick up a person. That will increase traffic? So instead of the car being parked when the driver is at work it will be out driving.. makes no sense

[@CanadaMMA]

The fact they would get drunk drivers off the roads instantly makes self-driving cars safer

[@deanthomas2561]

Revmoving drugged and tired drivers also doesn't suck

[@ahmads5889]

How about remove alcohol and drugs instead of making such extravagant bypasses

[@m_uz1244]

@@deanthomas2561 That's impossible. Even if it was possible, it'd be thousands of times more expensive.

[@osdever]

@@ahmads5889 We tried. It was called "Prohibition" and "War on Drugs". I'm pretty sure you know full well how these endeavors ended up.

[@ahmads5889]

@@osdever the issue is with the people, it was normalized for them, then they were immediately forced to leave it after considering it to not be an issue.

[@SeanHodgins]

The real problem is the transition phase, which will likely be extremely long period(or endless?). Its not quite as easy of a change as elevators, so you will likely always(in our generation at least) have bad human drivers with good Autonomous drivers sharing the road. I wonder what it would mean for insurance companies with 100% autonomous vehicles on the road.

[@GuinessOriginal]

You’ll never get that though will you, there will always be people who want to drive

[@byrnemeister2008]

I am pretty sure it’s going to mean bankruptcy for auto insurers. Except for the one that insurers Google and the one that covers Tesla.

[@Gunny-rt3lb]

1 word, 'insurance'. At some point insurers will significantly raise premiums on human driven vehicles because the risk of damage will be so much higher and it will be sooooo much easier to prove that a human was the source of the crash (from telemetrics)

[@jaredf6205]

What would make it a problem?

[@jaloveast1k]

@@GuinessOriginal I mean, the government can enforce that. If let's say 90% of population will be against human drivers sticking around, then it'll be in every politicians interest to make it part of his election program.

[@IceLink9518]

Please stop making fully sponsored videos. They undermine the value and credibility of your brand

[@kimberlykinsinger2612]

I would really like to see how Waymo would navigate or deal with poor weather conditions like freezing rain/icing roads. I would also like to see how it would deal with gravel roads, as we know ABS on gravel is not good. Thanks for the video! Really excited for this.

[@syrkon27]

Driverless cars is not the future, it’s the flying car for our generation

[@charlottelanvin7095]

I disagree with your point about ABS. I reckon ABS outperforms a human braking especially on a gravel road

[@solsystem1342]

Abs works on gravel roads. I drove on them in icy, snowy, and rainy conditions for years and it never failed me. Edit: you know self driving cars don't use ABS right? They control the ammount the car is breaking more like a human would by varying an output to the breaks. Except they are way more precise than humans. So worse case scenario they can just mimic human's best breaking on gravel and match our performance.

[@DrakeKillah]

ABS on gravel extends braking distance. However, it also retains the ability to turn, which you wouldn't be able to, if your wheels locked up on gravel. So whether it's better or worse, depends on the situation; in some situations, you might need the shortest braking distance. In other situations, it might not be possible to avoid an accident, without turning away from the obstacle, no matter the braking distance.

[@squidwardo7074]

@@charlottelanvin7095 You put an average driver it absolutely does, but a race car driver will beat abs every time. That's why race cars don't have abs

[@davidhadupyak9946]

Imagine a car saying, "That was close!"

[@colinfloyd5788]

In Owen Wilson's voice

[@puppetsock]

Actually, software that notes situations where things went out of parameter limits is a necessary thing. Otherwise you can't learn where the software needs improvement. So some situation confuses the software and sensors. And the software reports it. And the developers tune the software, maybe upgrade the sensors. Maybe the sensors get confused over contrast in particular light conditions. Maybe some forms of curb confuse the sensors and the car hits the curb. Maybe it can't figure out train crossings properly. Yada yada, each situation gets recognized, software and hardware upgraded to deal with it, and then they know what to test for. The potential benefits are huge. It is quite reasonable to expect that the accident rate could be reduced by a factor of 10, possibly much more. So it means your morning commute will have a lot fewer accidents screwing up traffic. Driverless cars will also have radio to communicate with eachother, and computers that can do simulations. They will be able to choose the best route for the shortest travel time. And coordinate with each other so that you don't suddenly get every commuter going on the south option and leaving the north option empty. And it means your insurance (with regard to collisions) should be correspondingly cheaper. Maybe you can add about $5000 to the price of the car and get lifetime insurance. Insurance that could be part of the resale of the car. No more monthly insurance costs. That will also correspond to a dramatically reduced death and injury rate due to collisions. The vid mentioned deaths. But there are a corresponding number of serious injuries each year also. If you get injured seriously and spend months in hospital then rehab, maybe with things that never go away like scars or damage to your internal organs. Or worse. You may lose your income during this time. And you will have big medical bills, even if your insurance, or the other guy's insurance, pays for it. These cars can reduce the inicdent of those kinds of injuries. That will save costs to the health system as well as reducing the injury and death. Theft might be squeezed a bit also. Your autonomous car might know you and refuse to budge for anybody not you. Or designated members of your family. Or it might go, but be calling the police while it goes, giving full video to the cops of both the inside and outside of the car. So if you get somebody jumping in your car with a gun and telling you to drive, the car goes but sees the gun, and calls the cops giving them full particulars. The car and the cops coordinate to agree where and when they grab the thief. After a few incidents where a wanna-be thief is caught this way, people might get the idea that car theft is a bad move. It should mean that emergency vehicles have a much better time. The emergency vehicle will be sending radio messages out ahead and the autonomous cars will be getting out of the way in advance. Side streets would stop to clear intersections. It means the fire truck can motor down the middle of the road at maximum speed. The autonomous cars can also be announcing "Firetruck approaching. Please move to the sidewalk." Or some such announcement. And pedestrians can be out of the way. Your ambulance might be able to cut travel times significantly. In the US, there are roughly 6000 ambulance collisions per year, and 3000 fire truck collisions pe year. Driverless cars could reduce those, maybe by much more than a factor of 10. You decide you want to go to the office. You dial up your car, which is in a parking lot ten minutes away. It starts itself up and comes to your front door. It drives you to your office. During the drive, you can be reading or watching vids or whatever. At your office, you get out, and the car goes and finds a parking lot nearby. When you are ready to go home, you reverse the process. It means you don't need parking directly at your home or office, just a big parking lot nearby. Which means you can plan things differently both in commercial or industrial areas and residential areas. You can remove the garage and driveway from your home and devote that space and area to something else.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

@@colinfloyd5788 How many years do you think it's gonna be before Owen Wilson is hired to voice the voice system of the car?

[@SUBSCRIBERSWITHOUTVIDEOS-dj7vo]

@@puppetsock 1948 - john orwin

[@mauorel]

Wamo: "ughh, c'mon! ... must be a human driving... yup! Hooooman!!"

[@mrgcav]

It is August 2023 and still no big improvements and no cars on most cities.

[@Dan-1031]

While the concept of autonomous is good, it won’t solve traffic. City planners refer to induced demand whenever a freeway, like the 28 lane Katy Freeway, adds new lanes. New lanes equals more drivers on the road since there is more supply, and you get more traffic since the extra capacity meant for the 20 cars in the freeway before expansion will now be filled up by new cars. Also, say the autonomous cars of the future to go around like a network and there is 0 breaks or anything. How would you cross the city if you were a pedestrian? It’s like a deer running on a road, near impossible. Best solution is to get rid of cars and focus on rail or denser cities which take people off cars

[@smbarbour]

I'm really interested to see how they will handle winter road conditions where there is black ice and a layer of snow and slush that completely obscures the lane markings.

[@Kylesnowboardersutcl]

It would probably drive slower and more carefully than most people would in the same situation. It would also be able to use the data gathered about the width of the road, other cars positions, and the edges of the road to determine its own correct positioning

[@bearcubdaycare]

I think that there's a reason that is done in a warm climate on wide straight roads, not in snowy, icy regions with winding lanes, bad pavement, blowing grocery bags. You know, like stuff that makes it complicated. Some years back, I thought "wow, DARPA really seems to think that teams have cracked this". Then, cars driving into the sides of buses or the bottoms of crossing tractor trailer trucks, or unable to distinguish between a stopped fire truck and an overheard sign. That last was like, if you can't solve that basic motion problem, that's the most basic 0.00001% of the problem. Ok, long way to go, if ever.

[@thedarkcod4824]

@@bearcubdaycare MINNESOTA MOMENT

[@rum-ham]

How well do humans handle these conditions? (I don't think they handle it very well tbh). There's really no reason why these cars can't (eventually, after enough training) handle ANY situation better than a human.

[@rum-ham]

@@bearcubdaycare I see autonomous cars from multiple companies driving around everyday in San Francisco. They are coming sooner than you think.

[@Tinyvalkyrie410]

As a disabled person who rarely feels comfortable driving further than my neighborhood, I cannot wait for this to be commercially available. I cannot explain how drastically this would change my life. Edit: so there are some ignorant people replying to me here. Before you also write something uninformed and frankly rude, please read my responses to those that already did so. If you have actual questions about being disabled, I will be happy to answer them. Just don’t be a jerk please.

[@vanessamoon7316]

I commute 90 mins to work everyday. I can’t wait to get into one of these and just sleep till I arrive at the office.

[@savag3_orang387]

Yeah just add an alarm and boom an extra 90 minutes of sleep

[@igisanchez265]

You are not disabled. You just said on another video that you ran a marathon and feel so happy you completed.

[@Tinyvalkyrie410]

@Paul Martin he’s just wrong. On every account. I have never and will never run a marathon (or claimed to do so). Regardless, I can list off the top of my head a dozen different categories of disabilities that could do a marathon but not drive. No idea where he got this idea from.

[@safe-keeper1042]

This is going to be life-changing for a lot of people who can't drive (or can't drive well).

[@Peacewind152]

The one thing I worry about with the pilot shortage, is the drive for single pilot ops or zero pilot ops. That technology is enormously complicated compared to a car or elevator. When something goes wrong, more than one person is required to fly the plane and get through the checklists. Sure a pilot in a Cessna can do it on their own, but it is a significantly LESS complex aircraft.

[@my2cents366]

Most modern planes are mostly automated and pilot do very little in it. The stuff we do in planes can be simply automated but it is more of a red tape. I hope it stays that way so I have a job security.

[@sentar6969]

I definitely get the point I personally the main thing that it would be useful for me is when I wanted to go meet somebody at a bar and have a good time I wouldn't have to worry about getting back home but other than that I find personal pride in learning to drive and I would never take that away from myself but people that are in between driving eliminating having to have driving licenses for a large population of the world that just don't even want to drive anyways I think that's where this would help and even more so I think it allow people to want to drive later so that they get the pride of accomplishing something versus it just being something they have to do

[@JMUDoc]

"Ride In Progress" makes for an unfortunate acronym...

[@SyntheticFuture]

I doubt that's a coincidence 😂

[@thalesthinks8493]

😂

[@gianluca.g]

Imagine on the website booking your ride: Car1: RIP Car2: RIP Car3: available Car4: RIP ....

[@PtylerBeats]

Let me RIP in peace

[@autumnuniverse1940]

😂😂😂😂

[@tomatotomato6534]

At this rate Disney will make live-action version of the Cars movie.

[@cedriceric9730]

Yes to that

[@anotherfellasaiditsnunya]

And it will be made by Skynet having determined the human race is unable to survive its own flawed existence prompting the onset of the robot war

[@savinyupant6227]

But man they won't be able to crash those cars into each other , kind of leaving no space for suspense and action xD

[@Hyrulistic]

Lightning McQueen will be the last car with a human driver, who has to learn to trust his AI.

[@sorenkair]

This makes no sense

[@taylorpeters2071]

For me it's clear that in city centers, as more cars become autonomous, the quality of autonomy would improve as the IoT on the road grew in connection points. The greatest concern for me would be the security involved with the companies controlling perhaps hundreds of vehicles (and even more human lives) at a time. Both the on site security and network security would be the make or break for me.

[@Daniel-mw7pu]

Air traffic control is incredibly rigorous for this reason :)

[@rais.online]

I completely support this idea, but what about software security? Of course, it is not the biggest problem for just one project, but what if we have many driverless cars? Will we be sure that the software and data (but data is another point here) are well protected? I would appreciate it if someone could explain it to me.

[@BlacklistBill]

You might even say, they have 'Waymo' experience than any human driver.

[@petern.j.4121]

Oh my god

[@rubidot]

You win

[@patrickmccune6963]

Waymo will be contacting you shortly.

[@gamesec3490]

well done

[@michaelwang1730]

nice pun

[@equesdeventusoccasus]

In 2010, due to upper body mobility dysfunction, I parked my car and sold it. It was no longer safe for me to be behind the wheel. Autonomous vehicles are something that I have been waiting for.

[@ElNeroDiablo]

Aye. I mean I have panic attacks trying to start a car and get it rolling along with muscle problems in my legs that give me lead feet, but live in a part of rural NSW, Australia where it's a 40km/25mi to the next town and a 110km/70mi+ drive to the nearest cities so having a car is kinda required if I need to go any further than my grocer down the road and expect to carry anything more than some light breakfast and lunch makings in shopping bags.

[@RafaelCardoso299]

Awesome video as usual ! Keep rocking !

[@DColcla]

I was in PHX all last week. I saw these cars on many occasions in PHX. As part of an aircrew I travel around the states. I have never seen these cars anywhere else. I am curious to know in what other markets they are found.

[@diedertspijkerboer]

Since I don't drive, a driverless car would feel more like a bus or a train, something I'm already used to.

[@timokreuzer1820]

Yeah, except it's not full of stupid, noisy, stinking, sick, crazy, criminal and annoying people.

[@diedertspijkerboer]

@@timokreuzer1820 That's not the case where I live anyway. Yes, there can buses and trains like that, especially late at night, but not during the day and in the evenings. My worry with a driverless taxi would be that someone has been sick in it, though. But maybe they will have interior cams that spot that sort of thing.

[@Resetium]

Exactly my train of thought.

[@lonestarr1490]

I wonder: why don't we start with driverless trains? Shouldn't that be easier? We could have way more trains then.

[@commanderleo]

@@lonestarr1490 they already exist

[@rohithshenoyd]

Man the car must have so much anxiety imagining all those possible scenarios.

[@realchezboi]

“Oh my god, that car was so hot, was he looking at me??” *Computes 20 billion possibilities*

[@curgest6807]

@@realchezboi mmmm look at that model 1980 classic

[@PiotrLast111]

AI cars not doing this thing. It works more like human brain.

[@akatsukilevi]

Imagine the car suddenly stops in the middle of the road because it is having a anxiety attack XD

[@LuisSierra42]

@@realchezboi Out of the 20 billion possibilities there is only one in which that girl car would go on a date with him

[@Pudibu]

Wait until little Johnny stops one of these by pressing “Siren” button on his toy car from side of road.

[@patriciodasilva7902]

What if you want to go to a concert, and it's taking you on a path that is jammed, but you know of an alternate path that isn't, can you get the vehicle to take it? Also, what if, say, you are going to Sea World, which has impromptu placed cones, which may be different next week, and traffic directors telling you to go this way, that way, how does an autonomous car deal with it? Also, not keen on driverless car on a mountain road with steep drops to the left or right. What if you are doing up a long driveway which only has enough room for one car, and there is an oncoming car, what happens? If rideshare companies/taxies use these cars, what about people littering the car, graffiti, etc? If driverless taxi doesn't have a fare, where does it go?

[@paborralho]

I've always admired veritasum videos and watched them as independent opinion. My question is: if Derek thought something was wrong, would it be on the video? It is sponsored by Waymo, I assume that they had to aprove it right? Did they write the script? I just ask.

[@TheDanielradio]

There was actually a video discussing that possible problemo.

[@hardo78]

@@TheDanielradio what video? Can you post a link?

[@TheDanielradio]

@@hardo78 I was being vague because you can use word filters for your comment sections so they never show up. I wouldn't expect the Veritasium team to do it, but who knows

[@hardo78]

@@TheDanielradio thx. U know the veriatium video about self driving cars sponsored by a german car brand? I think there where many comments about it being an ad, but now not anymore

[@TheDanielradio]

@@hardo78 no i saw veritasium had a video about self driving cars from 5 years ago? Haven't seen it, was that the one you meant? Sad to hear if that was a sponsored one too. Or sponsored videos shouldn't be disliked just because of that, but that we all can remain contious about biases, and preferably that educational youtubers still make sure to weigh both sides of an argument

[@pengfeidong5268]

Pedestrian: walks into stationary car Waymo: the most serious car vs. pedestrian collision we've had so far

[@gmaer7325]

@yuitr loing relatable

[@zanharris8697]

Here's an idea for concern I had: As time goes on and more and more things become automated through technology, such as car in this case, shouldn't that raise concern for things that Can interfere with technology, such as hacking? If technology is getting more advanced then surely hacking is getting more advanced as well. Could someone hack an automated/self-driving car to make it perceive something that isn't there, or worse to make it Not perceive what is really there? Though even with the risk of hackers, I do think that having cars to be fully automated will ultimately result in less deaths than nonautomated vehicles.

[@oukeef3668]

I would love more information on those accidents. Specifically the pedestrians hitting the vehicle. My guess is the waymo vehicle made a ridiculous hard stop for predicting another pedestrian was going to walk in front of the car. I like the idea of autonomous vehicles but I do think humans have things that the vehicles do not. I would also love to see how a waymo vehicle handles rush hour in NYC heading to one of the tunnels. I would guess it would just sit there because it wouldn’t be aggressive enough to move forward in that traffic.

[@jayramsey853]

what specifically do you think humans do better? (in context of cars of course)

[@markozagar]

Here's one way I'm thinking about this: Yes, software can have bugs and will fail sometimes, but it will do so once (or a few times), then it'll be fixed and *all* the self-driving cars will be updated. On the other hand, humans make the same mistakes over and over, the "lesson learned" is not shared, and the learning has to start all over again for each generation.

[@CrouchingGrandpa]

Only if you've paid for the $199/mo premium package.

[@JamesV1]

@@CrouchingGrandpa this is a taxi service.

[@zrize101]

The biggest issue, I think, is predictability and corrections to failures. Like the whole reason why there are pilots in the airplanes. If the system encounters a failure, either mechanical or electronic-wise, the auto-pilot will be very challenged in correcting the issue, whereas humans might have the right ingenuity to compromise or otherwise strategise in the situation.

[@Megaranator]

@@zrize101 I don't think air planes and cars are comparable, you can stop a car, you can't stop and airplane

[@RageFireMaster]

Some People dont even learn from their own mistakes so :D

[@PaulJWells]

"Pilot Error" - When you see that most air accidents are caused by pilot error you could wonder why we still have pilots. The reason is that the pilot prevents far more accidents that would happen if they were not there. The problem is it's very hard to quantify things that don't happen.

[@brandoncueto]

Ah yes, some survivorship bias. Or non-survivorship bias? haha

[@DArtagnonW]

It's a bit like a vaccine. If you heard "Most flu related deaths are from bad reactions to vaccines" you might think "Oh no! Vaccines are bad!" But what's really happening is: flu deaths are so insanely diminished that the waaay secondary consideration, bad reactions, becomes prominent.

[@mariusvanc]

It's a huge phenomenon in economics. Often used to justify things like, for example, government assistance projects. A government project creates, say, 100 jobs at the cost of $X dollars. Great. What you don't see, and never will, is how many jobs would have been created if the money was spent differently, but you can confidently say "we created 100".

[@mrquark]

Source for that statement?

[@JMurph2015]

Ummm, actually they do track how many pilot-prevented incidents there are. Those numbers aren't publicized but I can almost guarantee you that the airlines keep track of close calls through post flight reports.

[@manp1039]

I hope you can go back and do an updated video on what waymo is up to and how far they have progressed since making this video. I am a huge fan of Waymo

[@Boz1211111]

Maybe having autonomous mode, with fully functional drivers seat like we use would be forever solution, because there could be many instances where driver cannot be replaced, so having an option to use it as a regular car if desired should be a must. for example natural disasters, war, vehicle malfunction, going into area where autonomous mode doesnt work well, rough road conditions like heavy snow or such

[@JJs_playground]

You should have mentioned that those waymo cars are "geofenced" in one neighbourhood in Phoenix, Arizona.

[@james3803]

Exactly

[@salmanbehen4384]

This comment should be way up higher.

[@alankwellsmsmba]

That's implied. You figured it out and so did I.

[@james3803]

@@alankwellsmsmba that’s definitely not implied in this video and almost no one knows that

[@samplebriefmint4204]

@@james3803 But he did say that they are only in a certain part of Phoenix? Near the beginning of the video.

[@martindonoval2162]

Seeing a sticker that says: "Please _keep your hands off_ the wheel" in a car is pretty weird :D

[@practicalapplications]

Unless it's a BBC Monster

[@epicplaceholder9853]

*not having a wheel at all

[@lordpvt]

LOL

[@MO-fg2cm]

Hackers : keep your hand or not .. I still control you

[@greefo]

@@iSketchy 😂😂 his being cringe for speaking on something that happens has had happened and will happen? You're the cringe not him for actually thinking.

[@abdusbaulum]

If it needs to charge can it do it automatically? If it is electric? What if it is broken like if the transmission fails?

[@joshrandall9042]

Here's the thing. A fully automated car couldnt drive the way I do. There is a certain feeling I have while driving, I feel the tires against pavement, Feel the resistance of the headwind vibrating against the vehicle, and the roar of the engine. I drive fast, and an automated vehicle system couldnt drive the way I do.

[@InterloperBob]

"in all three cases, the waymo vehicle was stationary and the pedestrians ran into the vehicle." The report kindly omits the intoxication level of these pedestrians 😂

[@maulerrw]

Up next: driverless pedestrians

[@James-sk4db]

@@maulerrw That sounds like drunk people already

[@simonescarinzi3491]

Or maybe the car just stop immediately Infront of them? I think more details are needed to get a picture of what happened

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

Were they actually intoxicated?

[@StormTiberius]

@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 Maybe they were scammers trying to get some cash from the Waymo mobile ATM :>

[@yourex-wife4259]

This technology is cool and will be useful. But the whole "Wow now I can read a book on my way to work" can be achieved with public transport as well. I know this is not an original thought.

[@toericabaker]

But the public is yuckyyyyy ewww... why would we want to help them

[@oakoakoak2219]

@@toericabaker I pretty sure you are just joking but in case you aren’t….. if your public transport sucks, that’s because we haven’t invest enough into them. Public transportation are purposely underfunded due to automotive industry that lobbied for cities to build and prioritize their infrastructure around private vehicles rather than an encompassing public transportation system

[@toericabaker]

@@oakoakoak2219 yes, i'm joking. i am a poor myself!

[@toericabaker]

I sub to More than bikes and Adam Something. I love public transit. KC was gonna get a rail extension until covid happened, and the city drank our budget into other projects

[@yourex-wife4259]

@@toericabaker Thats really frustrating. Theres this trade school I want to go to that's like a 20 minute walk from a train station but only freight goes through the town for some reason. Its like a 50 minute drive from my town.

[@zbvirus2420]

Under good conditions the technology has been functional for some years now. The problem is that it is not reliable. All you need is a little bit of pretty much anything to make a car like that unfunctional. A bit of rain: clearety goes down - a problem, the roads are wet and all the physical calculations are off - problem, the road is wet and reflects object so it may seem like an object is flying towards the car from inside the road, or the road just ends, or maybe theres a wall, or tha car may even fail to see a wall or a curb because it is wet where the curb and the road connect. Now you can say "okay, if it rains switch the system. Drive slower, use higher security meassures..." and whatnot. But what if it doesn't rain. What if the road is just wet, detecting that is much more difficult. The big picture is that there are way too many dependencies we just can't predict when it comes to driving on the same roads with real people in our world.

[@sammytech9464]

I really like the idea of autonomous cars. Excited for the future!

[@Maurus200]

Would have been nice to see the limitations of the technology discussed. They are in Arizona where bad weather is less likely to mess up their sensors. Lidar, Radar, and cameras have limitations that aren't exactly tested in the desert.

[@Maurus200]

@@ageorgiev89 automation will take over one day. The above video was a bit one sided though due to the sponsorship. Lidar and cameras have issues with fog and rain for example. Works well in Arizona but not necessarily in the Pacific NW for example. Radar doesn't work well on its own. Henc the reason they use all three together to form a good picture.

[@JPMonteith]

@@Maurus200 Google has been running driverless car testing in the Seattle area - with a human in the vehicle to make it legal. From my minimal conversations with some of the staff, it handles weather better than human drivers. I think the issues crop up when dealing with other humans that are not following set rules. These vehicles would likely fail miserably in India where it is a free-for-all, but they also break down in an unusual situation where humans have changed the rules - maybe someone directing traffic to get out of a concert car park. They will find solutions for all of these items, but I think the standard stuff that come up with some regularity in the United States will be vastly safer with driverless vehicles.

[@rb032682]

There will likely be all of those technologies used for sensing road and traffic conditions. Why not use all the tech available when it comes to the safety of humans?

[@dantheman8862]

13:50 - "These vehicles have WAYMO experience than any human driver"

[@dantheman2120]

You did not

[@proloycodes]

you are truly The Man, Dan

[@9ishesh]

They cant even drift

[@demosdown9812]

@@9ishesh when you put it that way.

[@9ishesh]

@@demosdown9812 dude anyone into cars will drive themselves. Imagin someone is chasing you and your car decide, nah we cant break speed limit.

[@zangin]

What if all cars on road are driverless? Won’t the LiDAR from the other driverless vehicles possibly interfere with the sensors

[@notabot0101]

I'd be curious to see how it behaves in a place like Dallas, where drivers are erratic and many are driving 90 mph.

[@mrWobbleWobble]

Maybe a corporate PR oriented sponsored video is not exactly an element of truth? Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan and have been here since the beginning of the channel. But this is kind of a disappointment because we all know you'd do a much deeper and more interesting analysis in the autonomous cars technology without some company's interests looking over your shoulder. This is more of a very big ad than a true Veritasium video which we all know and love.

[@javiergonzalez7214]

This is absolutely an ad. I'm genuinely disappointed. At the very least, they should change the name of the channel.

[@That_GuyYouTube]

Gotta make that $$$$$$

[@BrassicaRappa]

Yeah, this disappointing, especial considering the size of the channel. They have 4000 patrons on patreon. Didn't see numbers published, but I'm sure they're not all $1 subscribers. Can't imagine they're *that* desperate for funding, or that it would be worth putting the channels credibility on the line. :/

[@7654321220]

You dismissed an arguement of truth based on intentions not factual evidence, that's not a good sign. Also, there's no general "autonomous cars technology", just "autonomous cars technology of XXX company"

[@charan775]

@@That_GuyKZbin they can take sponsorships from someone else rather than the same company on which you are making video about it

[@TheDanaYiShow]

idk why I laughed so hard when derek said "in all the accidents with pedestrians, they ran into the car" 😂😂

[@GTAVictor9128]

Insurance fraud?

[@Hathur]

Not hard to believe. I've had 3 "crashes" with pedestrians in my 20+ years driving... All 3 I was stopped at a red light and some idiotic cyclist crashed into the side of my door trying to squeeze between cars. One of them got killed after he blew threw a red light after smacking the side of my door. Cyclists are suicidal.

[@morthostalisint1720]

@@Hathur See, this is why I never learned to ride a bicycle. Also, yikes.

[@54m0h7]

@@Hathur I've only every had 1 incedent with a pedestrian. I was literally sitting in stopped bumper to bumper traffic, and this cyclist just bangs on my window.. like I'm suppose to move out of his way or something? I was in a Tundra, so rather large truck.. but um yea what do you want me to do? People are dumb.

[@hansolowe19]

In almost all cases, there was a vehicle-pedestrian collision. True story.

[@tatsmcfatty]

So if the auto-automobile comes up on an inevitably of either hitting a person crossing the street or swerving to avoid them and going off the road into some trees, who takes the injury?

[@guillaumepreudhomme4800]

It’s not a safety concern. It’s an economical concern. Bus and cab drivers would all lose their jobs if we switched to automatic vehicles.

[@KubeckDK]

He got almost everything about airplanes wrong. When planes do full auto land the separation between the landing planes is 2-3 times greater than when manually landing which results in 2-3 times less capacity for other landing traffic. Therefore most landings are manual while full auto land is only used for low visibility procedures.

[@TheDanielradio]

Also the whole process of using automated landing on the plane still involves the direct effort of many people. so automated much like a driverless car? I wouldn't think so.

[@l3gacyb3ta21]

also, flying by instrument is a thing pilots do a lot.

[@Hans-gb4mv]

Not only that, but most automated landings, while safe, are rougher for the passangers. A pilot judges the flare to create a gentle touchdown, the computer doesn't do that. Furthermore, an automated landing is a precision instrument landing. It used a lot of aids to determine if it is on the correct glideslope for the runway. Unless you are going to add precision navigation equipment to every road, you can never achieve that level of automation in a car which is exactly why Waymo is level 4, and therefore geofenced. It travels in a well mapped and controlled environment. Take that Waymo car and drop it off in let's say Berlin and the car wouldn't be able to navigate safely on its own because it doesn't know the city.

[@Burning_Dwarf]

@@Hans-gb4mv precisely, there are a lot of places not on google maps/earth, the area where i live included. I dont trust those cars to stay on the undefined gravel roads, let alone navigate properly

[@derekr5714]

​@@Hans-gb4mv "Unless you are going to add precision navigation equipment to every road" You don't need navigation equipment, a few cars map the city slowly which is stored in a network all can access. "It travels in a well mapped and controlled environment." "why Waymo is level 4, and therefore geofenced" Controlled environment? Did you not see the part about the car being able to detect things as far away as 500 meters? Geofenced? So you're saying because everything hasn't already been prepared before this innovation that it wont work? By that logic/rule nothing new would ever be implemented as not everything was set up perfectly pre-invention. We'd be extinct.

[@jaysftw]

Imagine road ragers pulling up to the car and seeing that there is no driver.

[@shashwat4920]

Lol

[@johnny_eth]

Just put a cut out of Chuck Norris in the seat

[@rapinsanramesh8074]

Do you like Matthias?

[@rapinsanramesh8074]

The guy in your pfp

[@jaysftw]

@@rapinsanramesh8074 I don't watch him anymore. I created that pfp years ago.

[@snehashishkarmakar3376]

As a researcher in deep learning, I have done quite some study on adversarial attacks where a neural network can be fooled into making wrong outputs. For example a stop sign can be misclassified as a speed limit sign by imposing some crafted noise. This should raise concerns for self driving cars. Of course there is a lot of research being done to defend the neural networks but at this point of time, self driving cars are far from reality. Maybe when the research is ripe enough we can think of it.

[@circuit10]

See XKCD 1958

[@Strapsenkoenig]

I’m in San Francisco right now and would love to try a Waymo ride! Unfortunately the app is geoblocked and since I am from Europe I have no way to access their service …

[@sashascorpse2670]

"Cars will be able to communicate their intentions with other cars. " Car 1: Hey, wanna eradicate this puny human? Car 2: Sure bro, why not? *Proceeds to crash*

[@DeepThinker193]

Car 1 & 2: lol

[@AGamer20.]

A little trolling

[@danielluna7648]

All the more reason to start putting people in them immediately.

[@timokreuzer1820]

"I got such an asshole passenger!" - "Want me to help?" - "That would be awesome. But it has to look like an accident."

[@stevencooke6451]

Your car is trying to kill you. More dystopia.

[@commander_frog]

Finally a cab where I don’t have to awkwardly worry if I’m supposed to talk to the cab driver or not

[@GuinessOriginal]

How do you tell it not to go the long way round

[@devarora3770]

@Guinness There is map integrated you can suggest to change the route.

[@sirBrouwer]

@@GuinessOriginal You can just tell the system. Just looking in the video. You could speak to the car like you can speak to your Alexa or Hey Google. You could use the touch screen and use a map to tell it how you would like to drive if that is possible. Like you could already Google Maps now. With the added bonus that if the system knows a certain road is congested or broken up it could suggest alternatives.

[@daphenomenalz4100]

@William Manning anybody sitting next to you probably will be someone you know, you won't sit in an automatic car with strangers😂

[@jaloveast1k]

I'll still be talking to the robot bro

[@muttonbuster]

The more diverless cars the better I say. From stealing parking spots, to forcing your way out of a driveway into traffic, to changing lanes. There is nothing better than your opponent being a Tesla, and knowing it will always fold in a game of chicken.

[@Zybran93]

Wouldnt multiple cars lidar systems interfere with each other? or do they all have individual wavelenght?

[@emmanueleng1160]

15:15 Pedestrians running into a stationary vehicle. That face was priceless.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

Almost like a suppressed pogchamp lol

[@FelixFranz]

For me, Derek was way too much tech-fanboy, not even once offering a critical thought. Because these cars, when in doubt, always err on the side of caution, they tend to violate our reasonable expectations especially in low-speed situations. Remember this sudden hard stop in the parking lot? I can easily imagine how those 3 pedestrians got their expectation about the cars movement suddenly betrayed and instead of slipping past behind, walking into the car! The cars constantly predict their surroundings and we do exactly the same, but at times in a very different way.

[@JustusRomijn]

@@FelixFranz I understand, however if we adapt to these cars on the road (easily recognizable), I'm sure these things are not so much an issue anymore. I still think it is worth the trade-off: thousands of deadly incidents each year vs minor injuries because of low speed bumps into a stationary vehicle.

[@maxk4324]

@@FelixFranz maybe the solution is that pedestrians just shouldn't walk through moving traffic..... Idk, maybe that's a bit too crazy an idea to work.

[@iy42]

@@FelixFranz I'm struggling to actually picture the scenario in which a pedestrian expects to pass behind a car, the car instead stops, and then the pedestrian slams into the car at enough force to cause injury -- and of course that would still be human error, and pedestrians not paying enough attention while on a road to not walk into a car should feel lucky they walked into an autonomous one and didn't get run over by a human controlled one. I think part of the hypey tone in the vid is due to the frustration with people's attitudes toward autonomous tech, while human driven cars continue to be one of the most dangerous elements of our lives. My main transportation method is cycling, and almost getting run over by a driver not paying attention is a daily occurrence in my life. At this point, I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm not injured or dead is that many modern cars automatically brake to avoid these types of collisions. (Oh, and also, I don't think the sudden brake was unreasonable. If a pedestrian reaches a crosswalk while a car is behind the crosswalk, the car is supposed to stop -- that's a reasonable expectation. The fact that drivers almost never actually do this is the unreasonable bit, and why pedestrians will feel much safer crossing the street when they know no humans are going to try and swerve around them at a crosswalk.)