Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

https://road.cc/news/driverless-taxis-veering-into-cycle-lanes-normal-practice-says-waymo

by randycupertino • 3 months ago

245 412 3 months ago

Expecting bike riders to follow traffic laws is also unrealistic. This is why they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities, including in localities with good bike infrastructure.

Cockbrand• 3 months ago

Apart from the obvious whataboutism:

[...] they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities

Higher than what?

jMyles3• 3 months ago

Expecting bike riders to follow traffic laws is also unrealistic. This is why they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities,

This is an unconscionable degree of victim-blaming. Psychotic-level.

mattlondon• 3 months ago

Victims are not the ones running red lights, cutting across pedestrian sidewalks/pavements at 20+ mph, going down one-way-streets the wrong way, screaming at pedestrians to get out the way so they don't have to slow down when pedestrians are crossing on a green man etc etc etc.

At least in London the cyclists are absolutely lawless. Yes a lot are injured and some sadly die, but many many many totally ignore the rules (assuming they've even bothered to find out what the rules actually are).

It's only got worse with ebike hire (Lime at al) as people will hop on after drinking, or have never even got a driving license etc so have no actual idea on the rules that car drivers have to prove etc before they're let behind the wheel at all. And when they're done with their lime bike they literally just dump them wherever they're done with it, blocking sidewalks/pavements for everyone.

This antisocial cycling social-ill is very much at a "scourge" stage in London and is getting a lot of press.

vinni2• 3 months ago

Expecting bike riders to follow traffic laws is also unrealistic.

Can you cite the research to back up your claim? Because I have the research claiming the opposite the cyclists are more compliant with traffic rules than cars [0]. Including in US [1]

[0] https://www.bicycling.com/news/a46443761/science-proves-moto...

[1] https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/cycli...

messe3• 3 months ago

This is why they often have a massively higher rate of fatalities

It wouldn't perhaps be because they're (a) forced to share a space with cars and (b) cars have crumple zones, unlike cyclists?

itopaloglu83• 3 months ago

We can keep autonomous cars out of bike lanes like we keep normal drivers, keep fining them for every incident. It’s not like they don’t keep the video evidence.

jsbisviewtiful• 3 months ago

If I was struck by an autonomous vehicle while riding in the bike lane I would sue and sue like I was taking aim at a corporation rather than an individual driver. I -or my partner, assuming I died- would retire very early on that money.

seanmcdirmid13• 3 months ago

Are you proposing or saying this is how it already works? Because in my experience, it doesn’t work like this at all. The countries that have good bike infrastructure like the Netherlands seem to focus on actual physical separation. They do fines also, they just don’t rely on fines (and lawsuits) like Americans seem to.

janice1999• 3 months ago

And base the fines on the companies valuation, otherwise it'll just be written off as an operating expense. Normal fines and penalty points work as deterrents for everyday people, not multi-billion dollar companies. I also would not count on the availability of video evidence - see Tesla's withholding of evidence from investigators and courts.

https://electrek.co/2025/08/04/tesla-withheld-data-lied-misd...

bushbaba2• 3 months ago

Do they get 1 point per infraction and have license suspend after so many points?(like human rivers)? If so, it'd be rather quick for the full fleet suspension.

senthil_rajasek• 3 months ago

I live in the U.S.

road.cc seems to be a cycling news site primarily for U.K.

When I am driving a car or use a rideshare I expect to share the bike lane when turning or getting off.

I wish the title had included these additional words "In some situations..."

kevin_thibedeau2• 3 months ago

I live in the US and bike lanes are not shared lanes for turning or stopping where I live.

ghaff6• 3 months ago

If you're making a right-hand turn in the US as a driver and there's a protected bike lane you're crossing through that lane to turn. And, when I sit outside in the summer at one of my usual restaurants with sidewalk seating, there are any number of horrifying combinations of bicycles, ebikes, escooters, and things that look like electric motorcycles routinely blowing through the red light at the adjacent intersection--cause they're in a bike lane I guess.

IcyWindows• 3 months ago

They are where I live

NegativeK• 3 months ago

Bike lanes exist to protect cyclists from drivers and to limit how cyclists affect the flow of traffic. Cars stopping in the bike lane shit all over that, just like they would if they parked on the sidewalk.

I wish drivers (and now leaders of a company) would have more empathy toward people on the road that can be squashed like a bug.

l1n• 3 months ago

this is a pointer to https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/04/22/waymo-is-not-in-the-v...

In San Francisco, the vehicles often pull into bike lanes to pick up and drop off passengers — because that’s what they’re programmed to do, according to advocates who’ve asked the company for an explanation.

Waymo has told advocates that expecting it to respect bike lanes is “too high a bar” because customers expect to be dropped off in them, said Christopher White, executive director of the San Francisco Bike Coalition.

“People always point out that unlike human driven cars, the AVs stop at lights and obey the speed limit. However, they are really only as good and effective and safe as they are programmed to be,” White said. “Waymos pull over into bike lanes all the time for pickups and drop-offs and that’s neither legal nor safe but the companies say that is a normal practice and that’s what customers expect.”

Can't find a Waymo article about this, but Lyft and Uber (let alone trad taxis) also do this. I'm not sure that this is a particularly autonomous-car-shaped sin.

davidw• 3 months ago

Can't find a Waymo article about this, but Lyft and Uber (let alone trad taxis) also do this. I'm not sure that this is a particularly autonomous-car-shaped sin.

Yeah I think it'd probably actually be easier to prevent Waymo from doing this. Once you change the programming, they all stop doing it.

wiml• 3 months ago

What that means is that Waymo is intentionally choosing illegal behavior, at a corporate level. Uber/Lyft are merely turning a blind eye to the illegal behavior of their employees... er, "contractors".

jMyles3• 3 months ago

Can't find a Waymo article about this, but Lyft and Uber (let alone trad taxis) also do this. I'm not sure that this is a particularly autonomous-car-shaped sin.

It depends on expectations. If the pitch is (and, let's face it - it is) that automs will be less violent, then this is a problem. If we're OK with them just adopting the existing levels of misery and death visited upon our communities by cars, then the upside is far less than we've been sold.

skybrian2• 3 months ago

How do you know it’s “violent?” It might not technically be allowed but that doesn’t mean they’re doing it unsafely.

There’s quite a difference between violent and illegal and they shouldn’t be confused.

vlovich1232• 3 months ago

A) I see no evidence this is creating death or misery. Autonomous still seems safer.

B) even if in this one aspect they remain status quo, overall it would still be an improvement.

tjwebbnorfolk2• 3 months ago

I want to hear how you equate "misery and death" with "unloading a passenger in the bike lane for 30 seconds".

I can't tell if you intend this a real analogy or if you are overcome with rage when thinking about motor vehicles

nandomrumber6• 3 months ago

Cars are violence now.

What next?

teaearlgraycold• 3 months ago

the vehicles often pull into bike lanes to pick up and drop off passengers

FWIW after ~150 Waymo rides I don't think I've had a car pick me up or drop me off in a bike lane. This must depend highly on exactly where you ride to/from.

coin• 3 months ago

"it's too hard" should never be an excuse to break the law

jrowen5• 3 months ago

The argument is that "our customers expect this behavior because everyone else does it." Not that they tried to change it and failed.

bushbaba2• 3 months ago

The difference is that Uber/Lyft use external contractors who are liable for their driving. Waymo is directly liable for the driving as they directly own and operate the cars and the driver.

mothballed• 3 months ago

Seems like a mistake. I wonder if they could farm out liability to homeless people under a financially engineered IC contract 'leasing' a locked down car or similar financial vehicle.

embedding-shape• 3 months ago

I think the main context of the article is that this is in London though, where the rule is that you don't do that, and Waymo somehow seem to think that it should be OK anyways:

The Google-owned company, which officially launched its self-driving fleet in London earlier this month, has told cycling campaigners that it is “normal practice” for their taxis to veer into and block cycle lanes
According to the Highway Code, motorists “must not drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a solid white line during its times of operation” or block a bike lane marked by a broken white line “unless it is unavoidable”.

Better would be for Waymo to adapt themselves to the locale and instead program it to find safer pickup/dropoff points, rather than blocking and endangering bike traffic.

svat• 3 months ago

Yes but if you read the article closely, what it's saying is that Waymo, which launched in London earlier this month, told cycling campaigners in San Francisco that it is normal practice (and this is according to the campaigners, not a direct statement from Waymo). The article has a lot of useful information and context, but the headline framing is misleading IMO. The article at least does not suggest any data on whether this is actually happening in London. The closest it gets is "remains to be seen":

“Waymo claims they’re far safer in the US than traditional taxi services. But whether that is still the case on London’s infamously complex, congested and contested streets, remains to be seen.”

Jensson3• 3 months ago

It says that you are allowed to drop off passengers in bike lanes.

"Advisory and mandatory cycle lanes, marked by a painted line, can be entered into by taxis and PHVs for pick-up and drop-off at the kerb edge"

https://haveyoursay.tfl.gov.uk/walking-and-cycling-changes-o...

jackyinger• 3 months ago

I thought the point of driverless cars is that they are supposed to be better than humans.

This should be excepted fork that goal. If this is accepted, what would be the next thing to be deemed unrealistic?

jmclnx• 3 months ago

So the real statement is "Following the law is unrealistic".

Well if waymo was in my city, I will make sure I ride my bike in the middle of the lane in front of a waymo vehicle. Doing that is legal were I am.

lostlogin• 3 months ago

Sharing a lane with a car is a recipe for disaster.

If there isn’t space to overtake, take the middle of the lane or get off the road. It’s 30,0000km since I was last hit by a car, it’s working for me.

People who can’t judge the width of their own vehicle are common, and they commonly buy huge vehicle.

Also, buy a bike radar like a Garmin Varia or similar. They vastly improve your awareness in traffic.

xscott2• 3 months ago

As a cyclist, I'm sure you're tolerant and polite to people walking in the middle of the multi-use paths, right? /s

For a long time I thought cyclists were hypocrites because they play the victim when they're on roads while being complete jerks on walking paths. But really, it's not hypocrisy - it's self-entitlement in both cases. It's honestly very consistent behavior.

ghaff6• 3 months ago

I don't find cyclists especially obnoxious on the rail-trails I often walk on. But I have walked on rail-trails with a lot of bicycles where various people got pretty pissy because I wouldn't step off the trail every minute.

randyrand• 3 months ago

Otherwise, you'd be doored during passenger drop-off.

seanmcdirmid13• 3 months ago

We know how to keep cars out of bike lanes (curbs, barriers), and we already know that bike lanes co-located with on street parking is dangerous. We (well Americans) also don’t believe in creating pick up and drop off spots on our roads.

kibwen2• 3 months ago

I can't wait to carry a set of orange cones on me at all times so that I can put any misbehaving autonomous cars in Road Jail. After all, expecting cyclists not to resort to vigilantism to keep themselves safe from billion-dollar companies is unrealistic.

243423443• 3 months ago

That, and wear a sweater with a stop sign on it.

amelius2• 3 months ago

I'm going to put an orange cone on the back seat of my bicycle.

spankalee5• 3 months ago

Are you going to cone the Uber drivers too?

kibwen2• 3 months ago

If only Uber drivers parked in the bike lanes were as easy to pacify.

wavemode• 3 months ago

Seems easier to just toss a sheet over the roof camera. (Or spraypaint it, since both the sheet and cones are trivial for someone to come along and remove.)

claw-el• 3 months ago

I wonder if cities would want to create even more short term pick up and drop off points on the road for USPS, UPS, FedEx, DoorDash, Uber, Lyft, Waymo and other similar short term parking needs, this would mean removing some long term street parking options and potentially conflict with some bike lanes in some areas.

Would cities be willing to give up on the parking fines revenue they are generating right now? How should cities be incentivized to change with the changing mobilities needs of the people living inside dense cities?

ilovecake19844• 3 months ago

Periodic reminder to the Americans..

Self driving cars are only safer than regular cars in the US because your standards of driving are so bad.

It’s very unlikely to be the case in the UK.

dude187• 3 months ago

These kind of comments do not belong here

ilovecake19844• 3 months ago

They absolutely do. Tech and business are sensitive to culture.

Some business just don’t translate.

Where is my factual error?

US driving is objectively appalling.

lukevp• 3 months ago

You really don’t believe that software is or can become safer than human drivers?

ilovecake19844• 3 months ago

I’m dying that the bar of being safer may be met in the US, because it is a low bar.

amelius2• 3 months ago

To what extent is the data of these driverless vehicle companies available to external researchers?

nvr219• 3 months ago

I’m pretty sure to zero extent.

Jensson3• 3 months ago

I’m pretty sure to zero extent.

There is a lot, waymo gives out a bunch of data.

https://waymo.com/open/

You can see people testing it in videos like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNwCDacDE2g

Google gives out a massive amount of data from many of their parts for free, so not sure why you would think they wouldn't do so here. They don't give out all of it but large parts, they are very research friendly.

yieldcrv• 3 months ago

Most of driving is being predictable to other drivers and pedestrians and cyclists. Waymos do that very well in their respective cities, and by programmed they mean the training set of drivers in that city

If waymos are dropping off in bike lanes, it’s because that’s the behavior in that city

It’s far better that the robots aren’t literal pedants. They act far smarter than a neurodivergent savant trying to do everything literally legal because being unadaptable is not intelligence

alistairSH2• 3 months ago

How do other countries solve this?

I have a fuzzy memory of lanes being shared in the UK. Overlapping bike, parking, bus stops, etc. Not claiming that's better, only that's what I recall.

I don't recall what Amsterdam does, but the bike lanes were mostly separated, so I imagine they have dedicated short-term parking. They also have a good light rail system in the city, so much less need for taxis.

cyanydeez• 3 months ago

does it matter? we already gave cars unnecessary leeway in designing cities; should we continue bowing to the least efficient mode of transport because a technology cant actually replace thw already extravagent allowances it is afforded?

alistairSH2• 3 months ago

Assuming they've solved the problem, fully or partially, then of course it matters.

ilovecake19844• 3 months ago

The uk has both, so it depends.

There is going to be more of this though.

In London you really have to force your way out at junctions. This is not legal, but without it a waymon might never make progress.

I don’t see this being solved.

It relies on human eye contact to work.

Zopieux• 3 months ago

Other countries have public transit that works, such that taxis are only needed in specific situations warranting an expensive private chauffeur, autonomous or meatbag.

weberer• 3 months ago

In Finland bike lanes are on the sidewalk and cyclists have to respect pedestrian traffic signals. Its the safest solution for everyone, in my opinion.

Saline951513• 3 months ago

It really depends, in Helsinki many are on the road. Helsinki also has an excellent public transport system, meaning that taxis are not so necessary.

black3r• 3 months ago

What the actual fuck? Customers' expectations shouldn't matter at all if the things they expect is illegal.

And this is already a solved problem.

The city I live in (Bratislava, Slovakia) has some pedestrian-only zones in the "old town", and if you're in one of them, calling an Uber/Bolt forces you to pick a pickup spot where cars can go...

(arguably this still has issues with Uber/Bolt allowing you to choose bus stops as pickup spots, which is explicitly illegal - only buses can stop on bus stops, but it's still better than driving onto a road which does not allow cars in the first place).

EDIT: i mistakenly thought this was about driving on dedicated bike paths, idk why, but this is still a solved problem, the applications already allow to designate some roads as places which can't be picked as pickup/dropoff points...

exabrial• 3 months ago

I think Waymo expecting people to avoid flipping Waymo cars and burning them is unrealistic.

hiddencost• 3 months ago

Separated bike lanes. It is time.

spankalee5• 3 months ago

Cities that want to keep cars out of bike lanes should keep all cars out of them, autonomous or not, by ticketing them. But they don't, so taxis and delivery drivers stop in them. That's traffic enforcement's fault.

Given that human drivers stop in bike lanes, Waymo then has a tradeoff:

1) Be the only ones to follow the letter of the law, break a lot of people's expectations, and catch backlash for disrupting traffic.

2) Follow the most common expectation, even if wrong, and incrementally add to the problem.

IMO, cyclists shouldn't lobby Waymo directly, but should lobby cities to actually enforce the rules on everyone. Then Waymo would fall in line naturally. And if they're inclined to take direct action against Waymo's they should also act against Uber and DoorDash drivers who are a far bigger problem by volume (and wait time for deliveries).

seanmcdirmid13• 3 months ago

I’m pretty sure it went something like “so where are we allowed to pickup and drop off riders” and the city couldn’t answer. The problem isn’t really enforcement, the problem is that there are simply no alternatives, and the city shies away from enforcement because they know that. If they started enforcing the rules strictly, people would again ask questions that they aren’t prepared to answer.

If you compare that to a country like the Netherlands, which is not only strict, but provides “solutions” so breaking the law isn’t necessary in the first place (they use explicit drop off and pickup locations instead of American chaos).

californical• 3 months ago

Yes, in sane countries the rules are attempted to be defined in a fair way, and you can follow them. Not perfectly of course, but with that goal.

Like the Netherlands, it is (A) not possible to park in bike paths without going intentionally out of your way, and (B) there are reasonable alternatives, such as specific “loading zones” for passengers on nearly every block, on major roads. On minor neighborhood roads, you can just block the road for a few seconds and it doesn’t matter

The US is happy creating laws for everything that are impossible to follow, but only selectively enforced. It makes it so everyone always must break the law to exist in society, but will only face repercussions at the discretion of a police officer.

It means that there are effectively no laws, because everyone has slightly different definitions of when something is “right” or not, and the police only enforce the most egregious cases, but they can also target you specifically for some other reason (discrimination, bias, etc) with no repercussions, since you were breaking the law after all.

spankalee5• 3 months ago

Blocking the right car lane for a drop off is perfectly legal outside of No Stopping zones. This is how taxis have always worked.

It's just that other drivers get pissed off if you block a car lane when there's a bike lane next to it. That needs to be trained away by enforcing the rules.

dualvariable2• 3 months ago

One question the city probably can't answer is what disabled persons in the taxi are supposed to do. If you strictly enforce bike lanes the result is probably the rider needing to walk a few blocks. If the rider is disabled, that could actually be a huge burden. Since I've got an 80+ year old disabled parent with a walker this is an issue for me that does compete pretty aggressively with my support for bikes.

JumpCrisscross10• 3 months ago

The problem isn’t really enforcement

The problem is street-side parking.

nandomrumber6• 3 months ago

Share the road.

It works both ways.

Arubis2• 3 months ago

It does not work both ways.

One party to this is a high-inertia, potentially high-velocity metal box that, in an impact with the other party, typically results in an property insurance claim.

The other is a low-inertia flesh bag that, in an impact with the other party, results in a medical insurance claim, and possibly a funeral.

Rebelgecko6• 3 months ago

That's why a lot of these signs are being replaced with "cyclists use full lane".

llbeansandrice4• 3 months ago

It’s a bike lane not a road. It’s mine as a cyclist gtfo.

gambiting3• 3 months ago

>Cities that want to keep cars out of bike lanes should keep all cars out of them, autonomous or not, by ticketing them. But they don't, so taxis and delivery drivers stop in them. That's traffic enforcement's fault.

So to flip it around.....it's not Waymo's fault that they stop in bike lanes, but the fault of traffic enforcement? Is anyone forcing waymos to stop in bike lanes?

amluto2• 3 months ago

Many cities would stop functioning if everyone followed traffic laws — the whole system is built around drivers ignoring many rules. Businesses need deliveries to be unloaded and delivered. Customers need to get where they are going. And many cities do not actually leave space for loading and unloading.

There’s a related issue that will become apparent as more cars drive themselves and take responsibility for their actions: speed limits. If traffic engineers want cars to drive 75mph, they should set a speed limit of 75mph.

dangus15• 3 months ago

Waymo and other taxi services are inherently bad for cyclists compared to increasing transit utilization and providing more ways to walk and cycle that feel and are safe.

They’re even bad for drivers as they are more detrimental to traffic than personal car ownership. They take up space on the road even when they aren’t being used to transport anyone.

I think we should spend less time worrying about ride share policy and spend more time working on the root cause of the need to drive so often.

Achieving this goal is not something that necessitates giving up single family homes, or suburbs, or small towns, or the ability to own a personal car, or anything like that.

azornathogron• 3 months ago

Taxis (and Uber etc) also take up space on the road when they only have their driver and no fare paying passenger on board, so I don't see that a Waymo is any worse than that.

Both human-driven and robo-driven taxis are financially incentivised to spend as much time as possible carrying fare paying passengers and as little as possible driving empty to pick someone up.

Anyway, I agree that walking, cycling, and public transit, are all IMHO preferable to any form of taxi.

SR2Z6• 3 months ago

Being around a Waymo makes me feel WAY safer than being around a human driver. If more cars were replaced, I would probably bike even more.

Seriously, Waymos follow at a respectful distance and overtake me safely. They stop at stop signs. Sometimes they even stop and wait for me to make a decision about which way I'm heading.

alwaysdoit• 3 months ago

Personal cars also take up space on the road when they aren't being used. It would be much easier to build physically separated, safe biking lanes and drop off areas if we could use all the space we currently dedicate exclusively to personal vehicle parking on public streets.

basisword3• 3 months ago

> Waymo and other taxi services are inherently bad for cyclists compared to increasing transit utilisation and providing more ways to walk and cycle that feel and are safe.

This is nonsense. Even in places with great public transport a lot of people own cars because taxi's and Uber's are unreliable or unavailable. Given Waymo should be available at any time of day and not pick + choose rides as randomly a lot of car owners should be able to give them up.

JumpCrisscross10• 3 months ago

Waymo and other taxi services are inherently bad for cyclists compared to increasing transit utilization

Anecdote: I take transit way more in San Francisco with Waymo. Because booking is deterministic (it says 20 minutes, it will be there in 20 minutes, even if it’s a short ride), I can connect with the loose network of city and regional rail systems in a way that was tedious with human drivers.

(I lived in New York for 10 years, and eagerly take the subway there.)

SOLAR_FIELDS4• 3 months ago

Cities who want to keep cars out of bike lanes should stop offering “mom says we have bike lanes at home” repainting of streets. Create a curb and raise the bike lanes. It’s the only safe solution. I understand this is not realistic in a lot of scenarios but it is basically the only way you can achieve actual safety short of cement separators at the road level, which is basically a curb anyway. There’s just no reality where a bicycle can share the road unimpeded with a motor vehicle safely. No, plastic bollards are not enough. It needs to be either raised or a barrier enough that a car sideswiping it won’t cause the barrier to fail

cosmotic• 3 months ago

I've seen people park in these curbed bike lanes too, completely blocking it off.

Shadowed_2• 3 months ago

Or they could fine them. And increase fine for each repetition so rich can't just pay to be jerks.

trhway• 3 months ago

There’s just no reality where a bicycle can share the road unimpeded with a motor vehicle safely.

that was among the promises of self-driving cars. Because of ultimately superior sensor suite and reaction time they can be safer than humans, in particular they would never "not see a bicyclist", they wouldn't cut impatiently, etc. . Instead that superiority is used these days to drive more "efficiently", to beat/cut the human drivers in a way not every regular human would be capable of. At least that is my anecdotal observation during the last several months (and these several months experience totally differs from the more than 15 years of having Waymo cars around in MV when they were i'd say among the safest to be around)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46199294

From the more recent - saw again a Waymo cutting like a ninja into a left turn lane at the same intersection as before, and at the other intersection a Waymo car missing the point to get in line for the right turn behind several cars already waiting in line in the bike lane, drives forward on green and makes the right turn as the second layer of the cake in parallel with those cars from the bike lane.

I think all that aggressiveness/"efficiency" comes as a result of the push to increase the customer satisfaction. All these years before driving actual passengers, Waymo (and i guess others) could allow themselves to be the safest, most courteous drivers on the road. Not anymore as such "inefficient" granma-style driving obviously would conflict with the passengers satisfaction.

wffurr• 3 months ago

Yes! Concrete please!

doug_durham2• 3 months ago

Bike lanes with curbs aren’t great. On garbage days trash cans often get parked in the bike lane and cyclists have no way of going around since the curb block their way. I’m perfectly comfortable with just lines for bike lanes.

lxgr2• 3 months ago

Bike lanes on a curb are significantly more dangerous due to turning car drivers often not seeing them (due to parked cars in the way) or interpreting them as “just a sidewalk” and not properly looking for cyclists.

mcmSEA• 3 months ago

Agree with this.

The concrete barriers being added in Seattle help a lot.

bartwr• 3 months ago

My experience cycling regularly in NYC: bike lanes separated by curb, stoppers, or poles are more dangerous as cars stop at their entrances/exits and I am literally trapped or cannot enter them before/after an intersection. I'm not against them in principle, but without extremely strict enforcent of laws (let's say a ticket 5% of someone's annual income and a loss of DL on a repeated offense - this stuff endangers people's lives), they are sadly counterproductive. :(

WillAdams3• 3 months ago

The thing which I think would really help with bike lanes would be to standardize on placing underground utilities beneath them --- they'd be less expensive to dig up than a roadway structured for cars, and when maintenance is necessary, a cyclist can easily be diverted either onto the roadway (if staying on the bike) or to the sidewalk (if temporarily dismounting).

moomin• 3 months ago

People undoubtedly said this was not realistic in many car-clogged European cities before some actually did it. “Realism” here is just a measure of the current number of votes you have for making things better.

gzread• 3 months ago

There’s just no reality where a bicycle can share the road unimpeded with a motor vehicle safely.

Logically equivalent:

There’s just no reality where a motor vehicle can share the road unimpeded with a bicycle safely.

... or a pedestrian. Those motor vehicles sure are a menace!

petre5• 3 months ago

What's wrong with lane separators¹? Bollards are dangerous for cyclists.

Rised bike lanes are also parked onto. I had the displasure of sliding on reentry when a car was blocking the raised bike lane. Next time I'd rather stop and argue with the driver. Also you get to enjoy going up and fown ramps all of the time.

1. https://orcacivil.com.au/products/traffic-management-product...

HDThoreaun5• 3 months ago

Curbed bike lanes create a huge hazard when cars going the same direction turn right. Neither the bike nor the car has good visibility of the other, very likely the car turns into the bike or the bike doesn’t stop and rides into the turning car.

morkalork• 3 months ago

Humans are flawed and need punishment to correct their behaviour. Waymos are autonomous and can have their behaviour corrected with a software update. These are not the same.

spankalee5• 3 months ago

It can't be so uneven. The other drivers will react irrationally if only a few cars obey those rules. Try doing your own drop offs in the car lane, when there's a bike late there, with traffic behind you. They'll often react dangerously.

Arubis2• 3 months ago

Tickets are a discouragement. But physical barriers actually work.

notatoad• 3 months ago

Per discussions elsewhere on the internet about this story, it appears that “the letter of the law” in London, where is article is about, is that all drivers are allowed to enter the bike lane to drop off passengers.

As much as I might disagree with that, it’s crazy to expect Waymo to obey a law that doesn’t even exist.

amiga3862• 3 months ago

This is not the case. As you just read in the article:

https://highwaycode.org.uk/rule-140/

Cycle lanes. These are shown by road markings and signs. You MUST NOT drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a solid white line during its times of operation. Do not drive or park in a cycle lane marked by a broken white line unless it is unavoidable. You MUST NOT park in any cycle lane whilst waiting restrictions apply. Law: Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984: Sections 5 & 8

Here's a cycle lane with a broken white line: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5159626,-0.1020373,3a,75y,17...

You shouldn't enter, stop or park here unless it is "unavoidable". You're a taxi driver dropping off a passenger? That's not "unavoidable".

Here's a cycle lane with an unbroken line: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5162184,-0.1047894,3a,75y,15...

The latter, no you CAN'T enter it to drop people off, no matter who you are. It is literally illegal to do so.

watwut2• 3 months ago

1) Be the only ones to follow the letter of the law, break a lot of people's expectations, and catch backlash for disrupting traffic.

Plenty of drives dont use bike lanes. So, no, this is false issue. Waymo can simply act like literal majority of the drivers.

SR2Z6• 3 months ago

...I don't know why you think that a majority of drivers respect bike lanes. They don't. Nearly every driver has parked a car in a bike lane at some point. At least in the US it's uncontroversial - the bike lanes tend to be so poorly designed and thought out that it's much easier for cars to use them than cyclists.

sheepscreek• 3 months ago

Hmm the problem is many cities don’t treat bike lanes for exclusive bike use. It’s “suggestive” at best. Though I don’t know enough about SF rules to weigh in on this specific issue.

messe3• 3 months ago

1) Be the only ones to follow the letter of the law, break a lot of people's expectations, and catch backlash for disrupting traffic

Yes, they should do that. The fact that others don't follow it is completely irrelevant.

I'm sorry if it doesn't help them meet their quarterly targets, but I don't think it's unreasonable for a Company to follow the fucking law when it comes to human safety.

And if they can't, they should be dissolved and the directors prosecuted.

If they truly can't grow without compromising people's safety and breaking the laws put in place to prevent them, then they shouldn't exist. End of.

cassianoleal• 3 months ago

The fact that others don't follow it is completely irrelevant.

This shouldn't even be a discussion. Because someone kills a person, everyone else now needs to kill someone otherwise it breaks expectations? Madness...

expedition322• 3 months ago

But AI apologists told me that we should allow driverless cars because they are safer...

SR2Z6• 3 months ago

Go to any city with driverless service and ask cyclists how they feel about Waymo vs humans.

Or just keep hating on AI. Why let the truth stop you from having a good time?

slibhb3• 3 months ago

I agree with your analysis but I just want to point out that, as a general rule, cyclists do not follow traffic laws. They don't stop at stop signs/red lights. They weave in and out of traffic. They often bike the wrong way down one-way bike paths.

danny_codes• 3 months ago

That seems irrelevant, we’re talking about cars.

Also, of course bikers don’t follow car rules. Those rules are nonsensical for cyclists.

ianburrell• 3 months ago

Cars don't follow traffic laws. Cars roll through stop signs and run red lights. Cars speed and weave through traffic. They go the wrong way down one-way streets. Since cars are much bigger, this is much more dangerous.

saagarjha5• 3 months ago

Seems like something else worth working on.

TulliusCicero4• 3 months ago

Drivers generally don't follow traffic laws. They text on their phone while they drive. They routinely go over the speed limit. They go through red lights. They go into or park in bike lanes. They tailgate other drivers. They don't signal before turning or changing lanes.

jona-f2• 3 months ago

Yet cyclists rarely kill others. Car drivers on the other hand are one of the most prolific unnatural causes of death.

II2II3• 3 months ago

I regularly see more motorists run red lights in a given day than I have seen cyclists run red lights in a decade. Cycling is sufficiently common in my area to state outright that, proportionally speaking, more motorists run red lights than cyclists.

The same thing can be said for cyclists weaving in and out of traffic, and for good reason: if traffic is moving, it's a good way to kill yourself; if traffic is not moving, there is no need for it. (There is usually enough space on the right to pass. If there isn't enough space on the right to pass, it is unsafe.)

I have seen more motorists barrel the wrong way down a one way street, in reverse, than I have seen cyclists riding down one way streets the wrong way. Proportionally speaking, more cyclists may be breaking the law. In terms of safety, what motorists are doing is far more dangerous.

As for stop signs: other cyclists tend to get the hint when I stop at them on my bike. :) The ones who don't stop tend to do the same as motorists, by doing a "rolling stop". Doing anything less would be a good way to get killed.

So no, I don't agree that cyclists do not follow traffic laws as a general rule. In many cases, motorists are worse. I am not going to pretend that cyclists are better for altruistic reasons. The reality is that cyclists are much more vulnerable than motorists. Cars are made to handle collisions, bikes are not. Motorists pay more attention to cars than bikes, in the most part because other cars are more dangerous to them.

petre5• 3 months ago

You should see scooterists then. Especially those on the scooter sharing networks.

llbeansandrice4• 3 months ago

First, in many states cyclists explicitly do not have to stop at stop signs, it’s called an “Idaho stop” and it’s legal in my state. This is much safer for cyclists since most crashes occur in intersections and allowing cyclists to move thru faster is much much safer.

You’re also assuming equity of consequence. Someone not obeying the law on a bike is significantly different than not obeying the law when operating a multi-ton vehicle.

Finally, every single group of people breaks the law. There is no demographic of reasonable size that does not break the law. This argument is silly and pointless. What is your goal with pointing this out? Literally everyone breaks the law, this grandstanding is stupid.

Have you tried driving the speed limit recently? You know, the maximum speed you are legally allowed to drive? Do you always come to a full stop at every stop sign?

Mawr5• 3 months ago

As a general rule, the the frequency illusion[1] and the negativity bias[2] are a thing and combined make shallow, single-datapoint arguments like yours instantly invalid.

[1]: "The frequency illusion is a cognitive bias in which a person notices a specific concept, word, or product more frequently after recently becoming aware of it."

[2]: "The negativity bias, is a cognitive bias that human cognition is relatively more affected by a negative affect than an equally potent positive affect."

themafia• 3 months ago

You're comparing the actions of individuals with the actions of a for-profit company. These are not compatible.

The expectations are that if you are driving for profit then you are held to a higher standard. Waymo wants to publicly excuse it's way out of this expectation for their own convenience. The way any common sociopath or selfish child would.

Slow down and stop breaking things.

canpan• 3 months ago

In Tokyo many bicycle lanes are pretty useless for this reason. Cars are parking every 20m making them absolutely inaccessible. Then there is the bicycle lane between Asakusa and Ueno, which is separated from the street, but made like some sort of obstacle course. There are some good ones too though. Pretty random.

socalgal24• 3 months ago

I agree with you in priniciple but cities no longer have the money to enforce this and everyone knows it. What they do have is the ability to demand that Waymo give them video of every stop and use AI to detect if it obeyed the laws.

I've had waymo drop me off in dangerous no-stopping zones with red painted curbs. I've had waymo pick wait for me to get in blocking apartment complex garage entrances. I've seen waymo pass 10 cars in the right lane waiting to turn right and then at the last moment make an illegal right turn left of the right turning cars.

I like the idea of Waymo but they need to fix their shit, no excuses.

HDThoreaun5• 3 months ago

Witting tickets is revenue positive, “they don’t have the money” doesn’t make any sense

xnx2• 3 months ago

I commuted by bike 70 miles a week for a few years. Bike line obstruction was far down my list of concerns, behind: drivers looking at phones while driving, drivers looking at phones while stopped, drivers running stop signs without even noticing (probably looking at phone), driver speeding, cars belching smoke, etc.

culopatin• 3 months ago

At times I dont know if I prefer a car blocking the lane than someone parked next to it and surprising me with a door that opens into the lane. For SF people: the bike lane next to the panhandle going west for example.

kccqzy• 3 months ago

As a bicyclist I kinda agree with Waymo. Unless there is a strong separation (physical barrier) between the car lane and the bike lane, the rules of the road is that one always overtakes on the left; this implies that if a car is stopped, one has to overtake on the left. If the car is stopped within the bike lane, I can bike into the car lane and overtake. If the car is stopped in the car lane, well then I have to merge across two car lanes in order to overtake. I don’t stay in the bike lane because I could be doored, and my expectation is that the car could decide to drive into the bike lane to make room for overtaking traffic.

So the solution is either make it impossible for a car to drive into the bike lane through barriers, or just allow cars into the bike lanes anyways.

cyberax• 3 months ago

Eh. Just start removing bike lanes. They're destroying businesses and making life worse for everyone.

And yes, I have numbers. In Seattle, the business receipts from areas with bike lanes declined faster than receipts from areas nearby that do NOT have bike lanes.

Correlation shmorellation.... I bet you were going to cite studies that were showing how bike lanes improved the business and how proprietors were surprised at the percentage of customers on bikes, right?

SilverElfin2• 3 months ago

Yep, I have friends who ran small businesses who sold in cities (Seattle, Portland, SF) specifically because of how bike lanes destroyed their business.

People who are busy need to get around quickly and aren’t going to tolerate biking around. And it’s especially impractical with kids - not that this stops bike activists from trying to gaslight everyone into saying it’s totally possible and exactly the same effort. The bikes lanes almost always either displace traffic lanes or parking, so driving gets worse. And customers realize they have better things to do and alternative choices on where they spend money.

The bike lanes themselves are of course, often very poorly utilized. So traffic gets worse, businesses suffer, and it’s all for nothing. Now all these cities have left is intentionally crippling driving with low speed limits, speed bumps, and other hostile designs. It’s a way to try and claim that driving is no faster, even though it is trivial to keep driving fast and efficient.

mschuster91• 3 months ago

Yeah screw them. Respect the rules of the road or GTFO.

And the AI peddlers are amazed why people seem to hate them. That right here is the answer.

nmstoker• 3 months ago

This is ridiculous - passengers want to be dropped off in the zig zag lines either side of pedestrian crossing too, but that's illegal. Just because sneaky minicab drivers do it should not be justification for self driving cars - they need to be designed to obey the laws of the road.

I want Waymo to succeed but you don't do that by bending over to the passengers' whim!

loxodrome• 3 months ago

Bicycles and automobiles should not share the same roads at all.

SilverElfin2• 3 months ago

Yes the bikes belong on the sidewalk, restricted to walking speeds for safety.

ghaff6• 3 months ago

Which isn't unusual in Japan. You see bicycles sometimes trying to force themselves through swarms of people going at maybe 1 mile per hour.

nandomrumber6• 3 months ago

Not an entirely unreasonable goal.

But also not present reality.

Share the road.

It works both ways.

nharada• 3 months ago

At least here in SF the ideal thing would be that any vehicle dropping off in the bike lane gets fined or ticketed. This includes Waymo, Uber, cabs, personal cars, whatever. In practice it's very rare to get a ticket for this, which is why customers expect it from both Waymo and Uber.

stego-tech• 3 months ago

People need to understand that this is a corporate-friendly variation of, “there are no incentives for us to stop that outweigh the profits we make from the harm caused, and so we won’t.” A “fuck you and fuck off”, in other words.

Asking companies nicely to stop being dickbags is never going to work. You have to regulate them - directly via new and targeted laws, or indirectly via accountability for existing laws. If Waymo started getting tickets for obstructing bike lanes every time it happened, they’d stop immediately.

This is why I’m generally in favor of citizen reward schemes like NYC does for some violations. Give citizens a slice of the fine, and you’ll both reduce bad behavior and improve civic engagement, all without creating creepy mass surveillance systems like Flock.

Slow_Hand• 3 months ago

As a cyclist and a driver it’s not immediately apparent which Waymo behavior I prefer for passenger dropoffs/pickups.

While it’s annoying in the moment to pedal around a parked car, I’m fine with it. However, having a Waymo dropping off clear of the bike lane sounds good, until the exiting passenger accidentally doors a cyclist who isn’t prepared for that possibility.

I suppose I’d rather suffer the inconvenience of going around a parked car than risk the devastation of being doored.

daemonologist• 3 months ago

Going around a parked car is not merely an inconvenience, it introduces an extra risk of being hit from behind (obviously you should check over your shoulder before moving into the lane, but this is the imperfect real world, and even the act of checking over your shoulder is a small risk) or by a vehicle pulling out of a cross street which didn't see you through the stopped car.

However I agree that there isn't an obvious solution without making major improvements to infrastructure - right now where the bike lane is just paint everyone parks in it (Uber, taxis, delivery drivers, etc.).

Saline951513• 3 months ago

It's also possible to use a feature that is present on the bikes, even if rarely or never used by urban cyclists: braking and waiting for the passenger to drop off, before continuing for your destination.

Something car drivers and pedestrians do, usually.

crazygringo4• 3 months ago

No. Going around a parked car is a basic ability you need to have as a cyclist.

If you can't do that safely, then you have no business riding in the first place.

Looking behind you is not optional, as you seem to suggest it is. And if it is actually a "small risk", then you are going way too fast.

Again -- if you don't have the environmental awareness to go around a parked car, then you shouldn't be riding a bicycle in the first place. Full stop.

curiousgal• 3 months ago

Even if you go around the parked car, you still risk getting doored on the other side.

avidiax• 3 months ago

You can get doored on either side of the car, and when you are forced to pass, you have to enter the traffic lane, which pressures you to maintain speed.

Whereas in the bike lane, you can slow down a bit anticipating that a door may open.

Waymo does at least warn the occupants if there's a vehicle or bicycle approaching.

Saline951513• 3 months ago

It is well known that by stopping, the cyclist will burn and be consumed in flammes in mere seconds.

scarmig• 3 months ago

One thing we should be happy about: Waymo's next gen Zeekr cars have sliding doors, eliminating the traditional risk of dooring. Passengers might still jump out without paying attention, but my expectation is that they'll be more cautious than opening the door; cyclists will have more forewarning than an opening door; and even if they do get hit, it will be a less catastrophic accident if a collision does occur. (The tradeoff, as there are always tradeoffs, is that the passenger having more skin in the game means that they'll likely be physically hit more often.)

skybrian2• 3 months ago

For a Waymo unloading passengers, it seems like stopping and waiting would be safest?

Benji_San• 3 months ago

I agree here that it can depend on the infrastructure which option is better. But one way to look at it is that if a car is parked in the bike lane then the bike will be in the car lane == more risk for the bike. The bike is also at risk for being doored from either side when passing the taxi.

The best option would actually be to have some indicators on the taxi which shows which doors are "hot" and expected to open. A taxi with closed doors is always a huge risk and will always need to be passed outside the dooring range.

jlebar2• 3 months ago

having a Waymo dropping off clear of the bike lane sounds good, until the exiting passenger accidentally doors a cyclist who isn’t prepared for that possibility.

Note that Waymos will alert you if a cyclist is approaching so you don't door them. Not saying it's perfect, you can still open the door if you want, but they are very consistent about this.

tmnvix• 3 months ago

Except for the example in the article where the warning failed and an exiting passenger doored a cyclist resulting in brain injury.

II2II3• 3 months ago

While it’s annoying in the moment to pedal around a parked car, I’m fine with it.

Personally, I'm fine with it too. Problem is, a lot of motorists are not fine with that. Whether I get stuck on the road because the bike lane is curb separated or because there is an excessive number of cars parked in the bike lane, motorists start screaming at me. A few months back, I had one aggressively pass me. I checked to ensure the road was clear before entering it, the only way they could have passed me in that manner is if they accelerated (i.e. they created an issue out of something that shouldn't have impacted them).

The sense of entitlement of some motorists is dangerous. They are willing to behave in a manner that puts people's lives at risk.

datsci_est_20153• 3 months ago

Just had someone speed up and blow a stop sign on a right turn in a residential area (known for being walkable with young children) to cut in front of me my bike to make sure they wouldn’t have to wait for me to pass them at the stop sign. Full-sized SUV whose grill was at my chest height. Fairly routine and simultaneously completely unhinged behavior.

I also enjoy playing chicken on runs with the SUVs in another rather entitled urban neighborhood where if they begin accelerating into the intersection after a rolling stop while I’m still in the crosswalk (to “anticipate” me getting across the road and save 2-5 seconds), I’ll simply stop running and force them to actually come to a complete stop.

ironman1478• 3 months ago

This article is about London, but it's a problem in SF too. The problem is that cities aren't made for ride sharing, robo or otherwise. If the cities actually wanted to make ride sharing less annoying they'd have designated drop off zones on streets and make an effort to build truly separate bike lanes. That requires actual work though, so very cities will proactively do this.

Havoc• 3 months ago

respect cycle lanes is “too high a bar”

Maybe just run over cyclists & pedestrians too while you're at it because it makes the code simpler?

Kinda had it with these shitty big tech companies that feel they don't need to respect local laws when they're not convenient.

altairprime3• 3 months ago

This is the same Waymo that outright refuses to honor No Thru Traffic and No U-Turns signs in favor of “I was ticketed at coordinates xyz” reports. I assume eventually one’s going to get crushed by an oncoming train after willfully ignoring a No Turn On Red sign. Not only are they saying that unenforced laws are void, they’re also having people do ticketable things in order to collect enforcement data for others.

Weirdly, the U.S.-nationwide enemy behind the curtain here is AAA, the driver’s association that’s spent member fees for decades lobbying against automated ticketing systems that would force everyone, not just Waymo, to start honoring the traffic laws it avoids. How crass of Waymo to so brazenly exploit that, but certainly their argument lacks fault from a corporate non-person’s “you can’t hurt me in any way that matters” viewpoint.

Stratoscope• 3 months ago

I won't comment on the pick up / drop off situation, but another important scenario is right turns. In California, drivers are legally required to merge into the bike lane when making a right turn. This is for the safety of the bicyclists, to avoid the dreaded "right hook" collision.

Dylan Taylor, a beloved Menlo-Atherton High School football coach, was killed last year in one of these collisions:

https://www.almanacnews.com/atherton/2025/05/08/m-a-athletic...

(Scroll down to the comment by "T R" which describes better than the article itself what likely happened.)

Unfortunately, I've almost never seen a driver follow this law. Everyone studiously avoids the bike lane and then cuts across it.

The bike lane marker changes from a solid white stripe to a dashed line as you approach an intersection. This is supposed to be a hint to merge into the bike lane. It isn't working.

I post a reminder on Nextdoor once or twice a year about this. I'm taking the opportunity to also post it here for my California neighbors.

It would be interesting to see if the Waymo Driver follows this law. My bet is that it does.

The San Francisco Bike Coalition has an excellent page on this topic:

https://sfbike.org/news/bike-lanes-and-right-turns/

jiveturkey3• 3 months ago

huh i didn't know about a specific bike lane law. but i do know the law that right turns must be taken as "close as practicable" to the right side of the roadway. plus there's the hint of the dashed line. Sneaking into the extra space to the right isn't a shortcut -- it's required by law, ie even without a bike lane.

in california, which is where the incident in TFA occurred.

vinay427• 3 months ago

I don’t live there, but for what it’s worth, this seems to be followed fairly consistently in the San Diego area whenever I’ve visited.

ghaff6• 3 months ago

In the nearest fairly large city, there's a (sometimes separated) bike lane, a bus lane, traffic lane, and turning lane which all intersect to various degrees. It's all clear as mud especially after dark when both bicycles and pedestrians are frequently darting into traffic from behind cars without lights. I'm just surprised there aren't more accidents.

CrimsonRain2• 3 months ago

And when you do that, (most) cyclists behind you get angry. (Most) cyclists are rude and act like they own the road.

jlebar2• 3 months ago

(Most) cyclists are rude and act like they own the road.

I would bet you an arbitrary sum of money that 51% of cyclists are not rude and don't act like they own the road. (Same for drivers.)

https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/salience-bias

googlehater• 3 months ago

As soon as I saw that headline I knew it had to be on Middlefield... lo and behold. I've been aalmost hit there twice and actually hit there once. once with a car taking a left. another with a car taking a right

socalgal24• 3 months ago

Bike lane or not, the majority of drivers make illegal right turns.

If you're in SF, watch on Gough or Franklin that people don't pull in the far right or left lane to make a turn, they illegally turn from one lane over. Literally 9 of 10 cars do this.

It happens all over. My guess is they don't perceive it as a right lane because 100-200 feet back there were cars parked in it but it's clearly marked as a lane and the law makes it clearly illegal to make right turn if you're not in the right lane.

There's lots of other less illegal? but dangerous things 95% of drivers do. 2 left turn lanes, curved line drawn through intersection to guide the lanes. 95% of cars in the 2nd left turn lane cut the guide line effectively cutting off the people in the #1 left turn lane.

altairprime3• 3 months ago

People will do this to cut past people stopped at the light, but yes: at least in non-SF Bay Area, they will right hook unless otherwise compelled to put their car over the line. Some areas have started making those lanes dashed-striped but adherence is pitiful and enforcement is zero.

SomeHacker44• 3 months ago

As a pedestrian, I fear cyclists the most. Please do block the bike lane while I am getting in and out so cyclists won't hit me. I have been almost killed by cyclists many more times than cars. My office building hires someone with a sign to stand in the crosswalk in front of the building where cyclists almost never respect the crosswalk.

Cyclists here regularly ignore red lights and also go the wrong way on streets and even in bike lanes.

teachrdan2• 3 months ago

You are either very paranoid or very bad at math. The odds of a pedestrian getting killed by a cyclist are minuscule. The best data I could find making an apples-to-apples comparison showed that pedestrians are *160 times* more likely to be killed by a car than a bicyclist.

https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-11/collisio...

Saline951513• 3 months ago

Odds are conditional though.

As a father, I think that the odds are quite high that a 3 years old child will get hit by a cyclist, especially if they ride on the sidewalk. I have had several stressful close calls with my son, and my pregnant wife was hit by a cyclist who didn't respect the red light (as it is the custom among the high lords of the road).

jiveturkey3• 3 months ago

bit of an absolutist argument in california. can't speak to the UK.

it's obviously safer (for cyclists) for taxis or even carpools to drop off and pick up at the far right, ie into the bike lane. i think we can generally consider it to be "parking" not "driving" and thus within the letter of the law as well. (parking is explicitly allowed.)

we know this very well, and that's why there are curb-separated lanes and they tried a center lane on van ness for awhile.

it just generally sucks to share bikes and cars and we have to live with compromises.

pavlus• 3 months ago

I don't believe there is a country in the world, where parking on bike lanes is explicitly allowed. Merging before turns and stops for drop/pickup/load/unload sure. But not parking.

jiveturkey3• 3 months ago

CVC 21209.a.1

tcfhgj• 3 months ago

This really makes me angry and more sympathetic towards the tyre extinguishers

markvdb• 3 months ago

Looks like busy times ahead for Cycling Mikey [0]!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyclingMikey

hackerbrother• 3 months ago

CAN you always avoid a bike lane? I don't think so. There's lots of shared bike lanes/right turn lanes, bike lanes that terminate unexpectedly, etc.

jdalton• 3 months ago

Why is it when they can't make software solve a problem, they then basically blame the problem.

basisword3• 3 months ago

I think the actually problem is incredibly poorly thought out cycling infrastructure. There are long stretches of cycle lanes in some cities at least where you'd need to get out a significant distance from your destination. It's not feasible for lots of reasons. If they're completely segregated it would be better for everyone.

twoodfin• 3 months ago

Waymo didn’t “say” this. Or at least the article this article references doesn’t claim they did.

It’s a now third-hand paraphrase from an SF bike advocate who says he heard it from some unnamed representative of Waymo.

If someone has something more direct, happy to read it, since this seems to be clickbait napalm at the moment.

basisword3• 3 months ago

Thank you! I've seen this all over the place the last few days. It's clickbait from a cycling group and very few people have actually bothered to read it.

xnx2• 3 months ago

I never expected cycling groups to be some of the loudest anti-safety (anti-Waymo) voices. Shameful. I love to bike, but I'm really embarrassed to be grouped with these people.

guelo• 3 months ago

Well we have to take whatever scraps of info we can get from these secretive PR managed companies with huge public impact.

digitalPhonix• 3 months ago

Putting words in their mouths makes it harder to get the actual statements, which seems counter to getting actual information about (or from) these companies.

dang• 3 months ago

I've taken a clumsy crack at condensing the title into HN's 80 char limit. Better alternatives are welcome!

(Submitted title was "Waymo says expecting driverless taxis to stay out of bike lanes is unrealistic", but this leaves out the reason they give.)

mystraline• 3 months ago

Completely fair, since city buses and nearly every other vehicle does the same.

The YouTube Channel "Not Just Bikes" calls these abominations 'Painted Bicycle Gutters'. They should be completely abolished in favor of multiuse pathways.

c0balt• 3 months ago

A simple yet almost hard to imemt solution (given the view of an outsider on most U. S. cities respect for bicycles) is to "just" provide actual, hard seperation for the bike lane.

This can done with carve outs/ gaps for public service buses, a somewhat cheap implementation are Pop-Up bikelanes but concrete barriers of 10-15 cm also do the job well.

crazygringo4• 3 months ago

There's no way to judge this without looking at any particular street.

I live in a city with bike lanes. But some of them are one-lane (well, one vehicle lane, one bike lane), one-way streets. If a car or taxi or delivery vehicle or anything at all is going to pull over, it's necessarily going to be in the bike lane. (It's either that, or stop literally all traffic on the street.)

As a cyclist, I quickly stopped getting mad at it. I just, you know, go around it. Most streets don't have bike lanes. So turning into the regular lane is not a problem. Even when I drive a car, sometimes I'll have to drive around a car stopped in a regular lane. Such is life.

Obviously if Waymo is pulling over into a bike lane when there's no other place to pull over, it's fine. The highway code in the article literally says it's allowed when it is "unavoidable".

Without seeing examples of where Waymo is actually pulling over, and if there are safer alternatives it should be using instead, I can't judge whether it's misbehaving or not.

mmmattt• 3 months ago

Or you know, stop somewhere else ?

crazygringo4• 3 months ago

OK, where?

A lot of streets simply don't have separate shoulders to pull over on. Or if they do, they're 100% occupied by on-street parking. The bike lane is effectively doing double-duty as the shoulder. Is Waymo supposed to drop you off 5 blocks away after circling for 20 minutes looking for an available parking spot, just to stop for 30 seconds to let you out?

pseudocomposer• 3 months ago

The “cars stopping in random places everywhere in any remotely urban area” thing has become a huge problem in general. It’s probably our clearest sign of the fundamental scalability problems of car-centric design.

Assuming we can’t significantly reduce car usage (and noting that you can still prioritize bike/pedestrian-friendliness and assume this), we really need regular car equivalents to bus stops. For Waymo or human rideshare drivers, or just non-transactional human families, say, dropping grandma off at a brunch restaurant. And significant fines + license points for anyone who stops anywhere outside them, like they do now, once established. The idea is no different than frequent trash cans and significant littering fines, really.

(I’m just spitballing here and am open to being wrong, just putting the idea out there as someone who’s noticed how much worse driving in cities has become over time.)

Saline951513• 3 months ago

In France, especially in Paris, you have large "delivery" parking places where you are allowed to stop but not to park.

Unfortunately, with the rise of bike lanes, those spots are not quite dangerous, as the delivery person has to cross the lane to access the sidewalk and bicycles refuse to slow down, as usual.

jacknews• 3 months ago

Isn't it illegal?

I'm sure they just get away with it because of the low chance of 'getting caught', getting a ticket.

But in fact the evidence is in the GPS logs, so they should be either required to stop doing something illegal, or prosecuted using that data.

crq-yml• 3 months ago

I don't really see this as a Waymo story(although they are a bad actor) because this kind of blockage is mostly a combination of urban design, infrastructure and norms. Traffic is experienced individually as "that guy cut me off" or "you parked in the bike lane" or "stop riding on the sidewalk" but the accidents and delays are about the times when two people both end up taking the same risk at a conflict point. Those are things that have to be addressed long before the incident, and some countries have done so, while others have not and prefer to displace it onto "individual responsibility", which doesn't change how people drive, it just favors being the biggest on the road and relying on insurance to cover the rest.

The principal thing that changes in this story is that Waymo centralizes the responsibility for the risk-taking, and therefore is easier to hold accountable than a horde of interchangable gig workers, impulsive teenagers, etc. When a Waymo car actually does damage, they don't enjoy the same cost structure as the rest of us. The probability is high that they reached a utilitarian conclusion on the bike lane issue favoring their current approach as "the best across all key metrics". Those metrics can be changed by enforcement, or by fixing the streets. They can use words like "unrealistic" but they are mostly speaking within a particular legislative and infrastructural reality. That reality can change if we expect it to, but it means going back on the individual-responsibility outlook.

tmsbrg• 3 months ago

Kind of weird article. If you want cars to stay out of bike lanes, make them protected like in here in the Netherlands. But also why do people expect to be taken to a bike lane rather than a parking space?

Also seeing a lot of ignorance about cycling here in the comments. Would recommend some people to watch some Not Just Bikes videos. Building better cycle infrastructure is better for everyone, cars and cyclists included. Less people die, and cars don't have to deal with cyclists on the road. Ex https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k

stingrae• 3 months ago

I think this is a bigger factor for Lyft/uber where the passenger rating impacts the driver directly. Passengers are annoyed anytime their pickup isn’t directly in front of them on the street. They will down rate a driver that pulls into a legal spot farther away then a spot blocking a bike lane directly in front of them.

This is less of an issue for Waymo, because the passenger rating doesn’t mean as much except customer satisfaction with the service as a whole.

t0mas88• 3 months ago

I'm not sure how this works in the UK, but over here in the Netherlands we have cyclists everywhere and a lot less drama. Here it's OK to stop on a bike lane and to merge onto it when turning right, but not to park on it. Merging means you give way to bikes first, then drive between them. And the other way around, if the bike lane is blocked, bikes merge into the car lane and cars drive behind them.

Consider it a two lane road, where you give way when you merge into the other lane and you slow down behind slower traffic that's in your lane. Except that when both lanes are available each type of traffic prefers "their" lane due to the speed difference.

That speed difference is decreasing in the bigger cities recently. Ebikes drive 25 km/h and many shared streets are reducing from 50 to 30 km/h for cars. It probably helps that a lot of the bigger streets aren't shared, there are many separated bike lanes here.

tim333• 3 months ago

As a London cyclist I don't really mind the odd taxi / Waymo dropping off in the bike lane. It's an annoyance but I guess they have to drop off somewhere.

panick21_• 3 months ago

Fucking ridiclous. Police, Waymo and everybody else need to keep out of the bike lanes. Bike lanes are vital transportarion infrastructure that if used correctly can have more threwput then car lanes by far whipe being cheaper and better in literally every way for a city.

toofy• 3 months ago

if this is the case, they should say “won’t” rather than “can’t”

“Waymo won’t avoid bike lanes…” would be much more accurate.

obviously the can’t part would be nonsense. they can avoid lanes where traffic flows the opposite direction so obviously they can.

to me this means we should take their license away. if they said “we won’t avoid oncoming traffic, we would take their license away. just like one way streets are for cars traveling in one direction, bike lanes are for bikes.

if you or i drove the wrong way down a one way repeatedly we would rightfully be in trouble. why do these companies keep behaving like they don’t have to follow the same rules you and i do?

geor9e• 3 months ago

As a bicyclist who hates cars, I'm totally fine with this. I've been riding alongside Waymos in San Francisco for seven years now, and they are the most polite and protective drivers ever. If I'm merging into traffic and I can get in front of a Waymo, it's the best feeling in the world. Waymo will see you from any direction with lasers and always yield to you. It's better they block the whole bike lane momentarily so I can pass them on the left, rather than have their passenger surprise swing their door into the bike lane.

bastawhiz• 3 months ago

This is kind of silly. If you can pull over "into" a bike lane, it's a half assed bike lane. Bike lanes should be protected. If you can't, as a city, put any physical barrier between cars and bikes at all, you're really not doing anything to benefit cyclists. Splashing some green paint on a strip of road is just an excuse to pat yourself on the back and call yourself a "bike-friendly city".

NoPicklez• 3 months ago

Why can't Waymo's sense a blind spot issue or an incoming cyclist and prevent the door from being unlocked and opened when the car comes to a stop. Just when it comes to dooring cyclists.

RandomGerm4n• 3 months ago

This statement should be grounds for immediately banning Waymo from operating. If a driver says they can’t follow traffic rules they should lose their driver’s license until they’ve proven they’re fit to drive again. I can’t think of any reason why it should be any different for autonomous systems. If they can’t follow traffic rules they shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

rsynnott4• 3 months ago

This is absurd. Will they have per-jurisdiction settings? Because while this may not be enforced in SF, it very much is enforced in some places.

if(scofflaw) { .. }

ralferoo3• 3 months ago

This is basically the same argument as a drug dealer saying "we can't not sell drugs because some of our customers expect drugs".

The law is the law. Passengers should be dropped off somewhere where the car can legally pull over and let them out. The law doesn't allow any other car to stop in a bike lane to drop off passengers, why should a robo-taxi be given an exemption to do so?

Waymo says can't avoid bike lanes because riders want to be dropped off in them

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