Stop hard and rear end is a huge risk, this is not surprising and can happen with reasonable following distances. It takes a long time to stop and humans are bad at perceiving it. Just look at how "stop" is painted on a road compared to how you perceive that when driving. Perceived stopping distance is way shorter than actual. This is all to say, for a full and hard stop, the needed stopping distance is huge.
Thus reminds me of highways when you can see a back up a quarter mile up. I tap the brakes about 5 times before letting off the gas to cut speed by 20% before actually even braking,which again is preceding by taps on the brake.
So. I don't think the majority of these cases were even tailgaters. I would love to see the data of what the following distances were, rate of deceleration, how much space there was for the lead car to avoid the obstacle. Ade these Waymo's cars just out there brake checking people? Are they waiting to the last moment before doing emergency brake mode?
At the end of the day, drastically changing speed is up there for dangerous behaviors, human drivers go to great lengths to avoid it and signal the intent. Turning right or left off of a 50 mph road- better believe I'm signaling that turn 2000 feet away and decelerating in stages and incrementally. With luck even that vehicle 4 cars back in the convoy is going to have lots of time.
Thus reminds me of highways when you can see a back up a quarter mile up. I tap the brakes about 5 times before letting off the gas to cut speed by 20% before actually even braking,which again is preceding by taps on the brake.
So. I don't think the majority of these cases were even tailgaters. I would love to see the data of what the following distances were, rate of deceleration, how much space there was for the lead car to avoid the obstacle. Ade these Waymo's cars just out there brake checking people? Are they waiting to the last moment before doing emergency brake mode?
At the end of the day, drastically changing speed is up there for dangerous behaviors, human drivers go to great lengths to avoid it and signal the intent. Turning right or left off of a 50 mph road- better believe I'm signaling that turn 2000 feet away and decelerating in stages and incrementally. With luck even that vehicle 4 cars back in the convoy is going to have lots of time.