Interesting short drive today. I drove on a 2-lane per side stroad where the right lane also has parked cars. It's quite narrow so I don't usually like driving in that lane, since you only have about 1-2 feet of clearance to the parked cars. If there's a big pickup or a truck, you have to cut over into the other lane.
Anyway, FSD decided to grab that lane and I was by myself in the car, so I white-knuckled the steering wheel and supervised it to see what it would do.
* It held its position in the lane very well. As I said, I would normally not drive in this lane because it's too close to the parked cars, but if you're going to take this lane, well it did as good of a job as I would have. When it had to move over, it overlapped the left lane by a couple of feet without cutting anyone off and did so very smoothly (generally, non a-holes in the left lane know you might need space so also won't stay right next to you).
* When we had to turn right later, it took the unmarked right lane (really, the right lane becomes as wide as two lanes where the left half continues straight, but with zero lane markings) no problem.
* After that turn, it started slowing down for a pedestrian walking to the median from the other side. I would not have slowed down since it's the middle of the road and not a safe place for anyone involved, but still, I let FSD do its thing. The moment FSD saw that the pedestrian was going to wait at the median, it started speeding up again. Like, maybe 200-300ms of reaction time, just like I would have done.
Of course it fell down in other ways:
1) It probably should not have stayed in that lane with the parked cars. Might be my fault as I always enable "minimize lane changes". Honestly, if we don't have a turn coming up, I want it to ask me for permission before it even puts the blinker on. It's a source of stress for me wondering if the car will decide to change lanes or not.
2) Slowed down for a stop sign that was only for the side road. It's a tough one because the two roads come together as a Y, and the stop sign is in-between the two roads, so the stop sign looks like it's for us. There are other hints, like the lack of a stop line on our side and continuous lane markings, that tell you it doesn't apply to us. I think that's why FSD only slowed rather than jamming the brakes.
3) The thing NEVER respects green arrows. It also sometimes tries to turn on red even though it's not allowed.
Still, overall I rate the drive an 8/10.
It's strange to me but it seems to handle more complicated driving situations better than simple ones, as long as there is traffic to follow. I think I would still prefer to just drive myself on most of these drives, but this makes me more optimistic for robot-taxi after all.
