I am having trouble imagining this scenario in a way that makes Waymo look as bad as you imply. It sounds like the human-driven vehicle if it was "boxed in" on an on-ramp needed to slow and merge, rather than racing to pass on the right, running off the road, and causing a spectacular single-vehicle wreck. The way it's described in that paragraph seems to be ironclad proof of the need to promptly relieve humans of driving tasks.
> It doesn't make the tech look bad, but to me it makes the safety driver & the other executive look callous and uncaring.
The safety driver was Anthony Levandowski, who left Google for Uber, taking with him a bunch of stolen IP, at Uber ran a cowboy self-driving car division that got pedestrians killed, Levandowski got sued by Google, ended up in prison and Uber laid off the entire division. Later he was pardoned by Trump.
So good news - the callous and uncaring safety driver has been fired, sued, and imprisoned.
Yeah, the worst read about the car here would be "it's not very courteous in merge situations" in which case I implore anyone reading to drive in Maryland one single time.
This is especially true for comments that disagree with Googlers, likely because there are soooo many Googlers now and they (and Waymo) have highly aligned perspectives. Especially on Google-launch-related posts, 5-10 point swings in 24hrs can happen.
A good piece by an ex-Googler on his 2-year journey toward recognizing the scale of institutional thought at Google: https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/
