[finnn]

They didn't link to either of their sources, so I went and found them:

Mountain View Police Department blog post: http://mountainviewpoliceblog.com/2015/11/12/inquiring-minds...

Google Self-Driving Car Project Google+ post: https://plus.google.com/+SelfDrivingCar/posts/j9ouVZSZnRf

[declan]

Thanks! That MV police blog post says the traffic officer stopped the car to "educate the operators about impeding traffic per 22400(a) of the California Vehicle Code."

That section of the vehicle code says, emphasis added: "No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, unless the reduced speed is necessary for safe operation, because of a grade, or in compliance with law." https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/vctop/vc/d11/c...

If Google's self-driving cars are limited by law to 25mph, and the car was not exceeding 25mph, then it was "in compliance with the law" and 22400(a) doesn't apply. It would be allowed to impede or block traffic, even if we human drivers would really prefer it to be going 45mph.

[kissickas]

Is that required by law? FTA '"We've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 mph for safety reasons," the post explained. "We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets."'

Sounds like Google's decision to me. Either way, it's not a highway, so that section seems irrelevant. And "in compliance with the law" is quite a broad redirect.

[rgbrenner]

Yes, it's by (federal) law... specifically Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 500

http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/rulings/lsv/lsv.html

Vehicles under 3000lbs and with a max speed of 20-25mph (like golf carts) do not have to meet the safety requirements of passenger vehicles.

This wikipedia page sums up the situation pretty well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle

[evgen]

Nice circular reasoning there. Google chooses not to meet the safety requirements that are imposed on regular vehicles. Because Google makes this choice you posit that the law is forcing it to limit the speed. I think you have causality backwards here.

There are similar laws preventing mopeds and other motor-driven bicycles from entering highways; the laws prevent the vehicle from maintaining highway speeds and therefore they are forbidden from entering the highway.

[DrScump]

You're confusing highway with freeway.

A highway, as defined in the CVC, is the generic term for any public road on which the Vehicle Code applies, even if it's one lane each way: '360. “Highway” is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street.'

As for the speed limiter, a 25 MPH hard limit is ridiculous unless they were limiting usage to streets with a 25MPH limit.

[deathanatos]

> Either way, it's not a highway, so that section seems irrelevant.

(IANAL) "Highway" means road or street[1]:

> 360. "Highway" is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street.

(I've never actually heard highway used in common speech that way; only in the vehicle code, but that I think is what would count here.) The article also seems to indicate this was El Camino Real, which is also CA State Route 82.

[1]: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/vctop/vc/d1/36...

It should also be here[2], but that page is blank for some odd reason.

[2]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayexpand...

[DonHopkins]

According to Woody Guthrie's fairly common usage of the term, you can walk on a highway in the United States of America, and nobody living can ever make you turn back or stop you. [1]

[1] https://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/This_Land.htm

[DrScump]

loads fine for me.

at first, I thought maybe you had the old link (it moved last year, but they left the old one up, broken)

[forgettableuser]

    That MV police blog post says the traffic officer stopped the car to "educate the operators about impeding traffic per 22400(a) of the California Vehicle Code."

Sounds like a Dukes of Hazzard episode where the Duke boys are driving a piece of junk and Rosco gets them in his speed trap. They explain that the car is incapable of exceeding the speed limit, so he gets them for impeding traffic.

[viraptor]

Due to unfortunate phrasing, "no person" was driving at such slow speed ;)

[afarrell]

Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, was operating the car, no?

[amatus]

Is BMW operating my car when I turn on cruise control?

[tehstone8]

Cruise Control only regulates speed so no.

This car was engineered by people representing Google with the intent to allow it to operate completely autonomously.

[WildUtah]

Alphabet's Google, as we say, was operating the car. And corporations are people, my friend.

[bryanrasmussen]

You know Alphabet has binder full of corporations so they can always send another one over to drive the car if the police take the current driver into custody.

[cbd1984]

> And corporations are people

Can we have at least one discussion forum where the notion of corporate personhood isn't abused into idiocy like this? Maybe here on a discussion board run by Y Combinator, a company with the mission of helping to create new corporations?

[afarrell]

I agree that in general, this quote gets brought into the discussion rather blindly. But in this specific case, I assert (without an actual legal background) that the word "person" in this law would refer to Google and that this loophole wouldn't work.

[ThePhysicist]

I think if the vehicle is only able to drive 25 mph it is not allowed to drive on the freeway, otherwise one would need to allow tractors by the same argument.

In most European countries there is a minimum speed requirement when driving on thr motorway (usually between 60 - 80 km/h), and sometimes there are even lane-specific speed limits (e.g. left lane requires at least 110 km/h). All that is only relevant if the traffic actually allows you to go that fast of course.

[Piskvorrr]

It was not driving on a freeway. It was going 25 in a 35 zone, taking one whole lane out of 3 in that direction. Shocking, SHOCKING! ;o) https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3955848,-122.1017317,3a,75y,...

[cyber]

Yes, it was: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&gr... states:

"360. "Highway" is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street."

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/vctop/vc/d11/c...

"22400. (a) No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, unless the reduced speed is necessary for safe operation, because of a grade, or in compliance with law."

Yes, shocking. (Also, El Camino is a State Route, I'll let you look that one up.)

[webjprgm]

El Camino is annoying enough to drive on that it really would be quite frustrating. Depending on the time of day.

[PinguTS]

In Germany the 60 km/h is not required in terms of minimum speed. It is required in terms, that the vehicle is capable of driving that speed.

My Hanomag A-L 28 is a maximum speed in the papers of 78 km/h. As such I am allowed on the Autobahn, even that I am driving only 50 km/h or sometimes 40 km/h on a hill. Because each hill does slow down a Hanomag considerably.

[throwketchup]

Tractors are allowed. The magic phrase you need to type into google to get the relevant results is "farm implement."

[eatmyshorts]

Well, the law also says "upon a highway"...which seems in line with my observations that I only ever see minimum speed limits posted on highways. It sounds to me like the google vehicle was in compliance with the law.

[cyber]

See CVC 360

"360. "Highway" is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street."

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&gr...

[geon]

Is it at all allowed to drive slow vehicles like tractors or scooters on a highway?

Here in Sweden, highways are off limits if the vehicle may not legally be driven faster than (i think) 45 kmph.

[Piskvorrr]

That's a bit of a "lost in translation" issue here: what is usually called a "highway" in Europe is usually a "freeway" in the USA. What we'd just call a "road" (pretty much any road) is called a "highway" in the US legal codes.

[Amezarak]

> what is usually called a "highway" in Europe is usually a "freeway" in the USA.

I think that usage is mostly West Coast. :)

Everywhere else, I've only heard "highway" or "interstate."

[maxerickson]

Freeway is fairly common in many parts of the US:

http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_79....

In common usage highway is still sort of reserved for larger connectors, road and street are used for local stuff.

[maxerickson]

In the US there are many roads with access limitations and minimum speeds, but many do not have those conditions.

[developer1]

It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow". This is nearly equivalent to driving 40 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, and there is not a single traffic court in any Canadian city that would uphold a ticket being served for that difference. How is this even a thing down there? In a 60 km/h zone here, you'd have to be going 25 km/h to even warrant being pulled over at all (ie: doing 15 mph in 37 mph zone).

If 24 mph is too slow for that particular road or neighbourhood, then the speed limit should be 45+ mph, not 35. Clearly the average citizen is already driving 45+, or the "slow" wouldn't even be noticeable.

Edit: wait, this is even more absurd. The traffic violation quoted is https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/vctop/vc/d11/c... which mentions "highway". 35 mph or 56 km/h is residential street speed, not highway speed. This whole thing makes no sense to me.

[threeseed]

> It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow"

It's absolutely too slow.

Majority of people drive at or slightly below the speed limit. Driving that far under causes people to start behaving irrationally resulting in lots of lane changes/tailgaiting etc. This can be dangerous when lots of cars are doing it.

[tetrep]

> Majority of people drive at or slightly below the speed limit.

For my entire driving experience, from the North East of the US to Northern California, to specificially the portion of the road this car was driving on, this is false. People drive, very reliably, ~5mph over the speed limit. When you get to 35/40+ mph speed limits, ~10 over isn't uncommon, ~15 for people going uncommonly fast. I can't recall the last time I drove under a speed limit (minus exceptional road/traffic/weather conditions) and I'm slower than most drivers I encounter.

[jacobolus]

If whoever wrote the California traffic laws didn’t want neighborhood electric vehicles to drive on 35 mph streets, they shouldn’t have written the law that way. Such vehicles are legally restricted to a top speed of 25 mph, and by law they are allowed on roads with posted speed limits of up to 35 mph, unless restricted by local ordinance. cf. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_...

More generally, urban streets, even arterial streets like El Camino, would really benefit from more strictly enforced speed limits, and lower limits wherever possible. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car going 20–25 mph is likely to sustain only minor injuries. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car going 35+ mph will probably die. Drivers also have dramatically less reaction time and much worse road awareness at 35mph compared to 20–25 mph (and realistically the speed of traffic is probably 40–45 mph on a road with 35 as the posted limit).

Cars are scary killing machines, one of the leading causes of death, and drivers are often poorly trained, distracted, or just idiots. The slower and more carefully they drive in urban environments, the better.

I’d love it if armies of 25 mph self-driving cars were constantly cruising around town, restricting other drivers to a safer speed. If they could supplant the taxi/uber/lyft industry whose drivers speed along my residential street at 55+ mph every night from 12–6 AM, that would also be dandy.

[kybernetikos]

> Driving that far under causes people to start behaving irrationally resulting in lots of lane changes/tailgaiting etc. This can be dangerous when lots of cars are doing it.

This is one of those examples of an explanation rather than a justification.

If someone else is going slow, that's no excuse to start acting like an idiot, and if you do and you get in an accident, that's on you, not the slow driver.

[coderdude]

I get this a lot. Sometimes there's a car in the far left lane (the legally unofficial "fast lane") driving much slower than the social norm expects. It causes issues. People need to move when someone is in their way. It's instinct. It screws up the flow.

[thrownaway2424]

Having a speed gradient across the lanes is for limited-access divided highways only. Left lane / right lane == fast lane / slow lane is not applicable to ordinary streets.

[coldpie]

Under free-flowing traffic conditions, there is no such thing as the "fast lane." What you're thinking of is called the "passing lane." If you are not actively passing someone in the cruising lane, then you need to get out of the passing lane, right now. If someone in the cruising lane is next to you and going the same speed as you, then you need to slow down or speed up, move over, and resume your cruising speed. There is no excuse for cruising in the passing lane.

[aianus]

Why would you think that?

"(b) If a vehicle is being driven at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at such time, and is not being driven in the right-hand lane for traffic or as close as practicable to the right-hand edge or curb, it shall constitute prima facie evidence that the driver is operating the vehicle in violation of subdivision (a) of this section."

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&gr...

Says nothing about limited-access divided highways.

[thrownaway2424]

That section has numerous exceptions, as does the referenced "subdivision (a)." The point is there are many valid reasons why someone would come to a dead stop in the left lane of a multilane 2-way road.

On a limited-access divided highway there are far fewer reasons, limited only to emergencies, and the left lane can be legitimately considered to be the fast lane.

[coderdude]

I'm California USA, driving too slow is considered a hazard. It's kinda fuzzy to be honest. They can still pop you for speeding whenever they want but they're really looking for the person who stands out.

[fletchowns]

In California, if you aren't driving 5 mph over the speed limit, the car behind you is going to tailgate the hell out of you. It's ridiculous, I know.

[joedavison]

I'd like to see police start giving tickets for tailgating instead of speeding. Speeding alone is rarely very dangerous, especially on roads with few other cars.

On the other hand, tailgating is always extremely dangerous, even when the speeds involved are relatively low.

[threeseed]

Tailgaiting is a vague concept though. One person's idea of tailgaiting is another person's idea of maintaining a safe braking distance.

If you tried to for example leave a car's body length distance in most busy cities you would have car after car aggressively cutting in front of you. This is even more dangerous than the original tailgaiting.

[brazzledazzle]

Now, I'm not saying a car's length is an appropriate distance. Generally speaking it should be 2-3 seconds. But I see this idea a lot on the internet, particularly on reddit: I should be unsafe because other people will get mad at me for being safe which will make them do wildly unsafe things.

I'm sorry, but I can't accept that. Police need to start focusing on safety instead of revenue generation. I don't care what some idiot is doing, if you're tailgating them at highway speeds in the lane next to me you're putting us all at risk just so you can get somewhere 3 minutes faster. I don't care if you're upset about the length between the car ahead of you and the one ahead of it. Cutting them off in the lane next to me and nearly causing a reck is insane. We have to stop just accepting that being an asshole is okay and start holding people accountable.

[Terretta]

On the contrary, its unsafe to not tailgate close enough. Speed and tailgating don't kill, differences in speed kills.

If you are two seconds behind, they could come to a near stop and you can crash into them at full speed.

If you drove with zero distance between the your bumper and the car in front of you, if they brake hard you will have no impact at all.

This is why it's safe for train cars to tailgate.

In my view, autonomous cars will likely one day form trains for higher traffic density and throughput while remaining safe.

[pluma]

It's not, though.

In Germany the minimum safety distance is taught in driving classes and severe violations of it will be fined like any other reckless behaviour.

The rule of thumb is "as much of a distance as you pass within two seconds". This scales wonderfully with speed and easily covers the reaction time and breaking duration.

Sure, in urban traffic the typical safety distance is usually less than a vehicle length, but with both tailgating and cutting in on someone constituting reckless driving offences, that's not a huge problem.

[ollie87]

It's the same in the UK.

You can also be fined for hogging lanes on a motorway, thankfully.

[georgerobinson]

In the UK it's not uncommon to see chevrons painted along each lane where in you're meant to keep a minimum of two chevrons from the car in front (http://www.roberthempsall.co.uk/blogimages/keep-apart-2-chev...).

[tajen]

Talgetting is measured in seconds as reaction time + braking distance = ~2s, whether you are on a highway or in a city. There is nothing sujective about it. Most drivers keep just enough room for the reaction time, and it works ok as long a the car ahead doesn't hit an immobile object (e.g. a log, a car, a kangaroo, a wild boar).

[05]

Fixed 1 second of braking time won't save you if the front car hits an immobile object. The correct formula would be (1 + .046 mph) seconds [0], where mph is speed in miles per hour. It evaluates to 3.76s at 60mph and at 4.9s 85. Note that 1 second of reaction time is not exactly generous: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/niatt_labmanual/chapters/geom... - cites times 'less than 2.5 seconds' to actual brake application.

[0] 1mph/(9.8m/s2) in seconds, according to Google, assuming friction coefficient of 1

[judk]

If tailgating is dangerous, in the sense that it is involved in a collision, the law finds the tailgater responsible 99% of cases. It just isn't applied predictively.

[ggreer]

To be fair, many of the speed limits are low. Look at street view where the car was pulled over.[1] El Camino Real is a divided boulevard with three lanes in each direction. There are stoplights and dedicated turning lanes. I'm not an aggressive driver, but I've caught myself speeding on that road before. Everything about it makes my mind think, "It's safe to go faster."

1. https://goo.gl/maps/WdfhEAGBsDP2

[ilyanep]

El Camino always seemed to me like it has an absurdly low speed limit, then a friend reminded me that there are unsignaled pedestrian crosswalks along it in Mountain View. It's true that it feels like it ought to be a 45 road, though.

[dickdastardly]

Here in Britain, it's entirely lawful and very common to cross 40-60MPH roads without signals. Often the roads don't even have a marked crossing, since you can legally cross wherever you want.

It's also not too uncommon to cross a non-motorway 70MPH dual carriageway, when walking outside a city.

I don't know if our roads are safer for pedestrians than the USA. They're considerably safer in total, but it seems difficult to compare the US and UK for pedestrians in particular because of the differing laws and distribution of methods of travel. However, they're probably at least in the same ball park, despite our more laissez faire attitude toward pedestrian-road interaction.

[DanBC]

As one example of a crossing which does have warnings:

The A417 between Cirencester and Cheltenham is a dual carriageway that has pedestrian footpaths across it.

Imagine driving at 70mph toward this:

350 yard warning: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8078399,-2.0618748,3a,75y,...

actual crossing: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8051623,-2.0595278,3a,75y,...

350 yards at 70 MPH is, I think, 10 seconds.

[brazzledazzle]

A lot of drivers in the US are hostile towards anything that's not a vehicle. Heck, they're often hostile towards anything that's not a car or a truck like motorcycles. I see more hate for those riding bicycles but pedestrians get a fair amount too.

[DrScump]

I don't know of any on El Camino in Mountain View not at a controlled intersection. There are some on ECR in Sunnyvale (e.g. just W of Halford) and two notorious ones in Santa Clara, though.

Of course, the County wants to reserve a lane for bus use only now...

[judk]

It is a stupid road. Built for speed, legistlated for slow. The road should be modified to make traffic calmer.

[jacobolus]

With three lanes in each direction, there should be plenty of room for other cars to safely pass a Google car, no?

[agumonkey]

I think it's universal behavior. Driving at speed limits gets you angry looks, below speed limit and people wanna hurt you. All that so they can reach the red light earlier.

[clort]

> angry looks

I wonder how well the self driving car copes with these.

In fact, I wonder how well the self driving car copes with an overly aggressive driver cutting in front and slamming on their brakes just to piss you off. I guess it would handle that better than my mothers elderly neighbour who recently didn't manage to brake in time and hit the twerp, writing off her vehicle in the process. Of course, it was counted as her fault since she struck the car in front..

[DrScump]

I wonder how well the self driving car copes with an overly aggressive driver cutting in front and slamming on their brakes just to piss you off.

You really think Google can't afford a Death Ray in each car?

[TeMPOraL]

Death Ray or a dash cam and sensor logs. Let the insurer handle rest.

[judk]

Sad and interesting. I rear ended a vehicle who turned into my lane, and the officer cited the other driver for an unsafe turn.

I guess it depends on officer mood and how long the car was safely in your lane before the breaking. Mostly officer mood.

Still, there are lots of completely legal sudden braking activities that would cause a collision over 10% of the time. People don't actually drive totally defensively all the time.

[agumonkey]

I'd love to see fringe behavior, I couldn't find anything like these, how their system react to limit cases. I'm sure they're overly conservative and always overstimate margins so they can handle crazy drivers, but surely there's a limit.

[lsaferite]

I find myself hitting red lights by those precious few seconds the slow driver stole form me more often than not. I just want to get from A to B with as few interruptions as possible. A self-driving car would be... amazing and calm my stress levels greatly.

[tajen]

Speed limits are systematically set 20km/h lower than reasonable.

[developer1]

That is normal here too, and it's more like 7-8 mph. So you can receive a ticket for impeding traffic even if the people you are supposedly obstructing would be exceeding the speed limit? Instead of ticketing the slow guy, set up a sting and ticket every person exceeding the limit by more than 6 mph. This whole thing sounds backwards.

[mmmBacon]

Driving substantially slower than the speed of traffic is extremely dangerous because of the potential speed differential. Relative velocity matters.

Also Regensdorf is really pretty busy and all you're doing by going slow is pissing people off. If you want to go that slow, that's what side streets are for.

[clort]

An alternative viewpoint is that attempting to drive substantially faster than the slowest vehicle is extremely dangerous because of the potential speed differential. Relative velocity matters, as you know!

[twblalock]

It's a matter of public safety. Holding up a line of cars is likely to result in road rage, or an accident.

It's also very rare for slow drivers to get ticketed.

[clort]

Incitement to riot is no excuse for rioting, surely?

Holding up a line of cars that would otherwise be driving too fast is not going to be the cause of an accident. The cause of the accident would be the driver who was driving too fast!

[nitrogen]

The point of traffic is to run an economy, not to parade at a precise speed for the amusement of deontologically obsessed nannies. If a line of traffic wants to go at speed+5, then the proper speed of traffic is speed+5, and going speed-5 is causing economic harm.

[DrScump]

Except that driving artificially slowly correlates well with being intoxicated... so being slow can call attention to oneself.

[CamperBob2]

Yeah, it's almost as if the speed limits are unreasonably low, or something. Someone should look into that.

[twblalock]

In Mountain View, 24 in a 35 zone will cause traffic jams and road rage. It's a busy place.

[judk]

And a large part of this is Mountain View's refusal to allow housing and deploy public transit, pushing people into becoming traffic.