[Tiktaalik]

Absolutely. I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily. People are completely ignoring the existence of pedestrians and cyclists. It would not be surprising to see a new crime of "hindering an autonomous automobile" be lobbied for.

[whatshisface]

It's only a matter of time before some stupid kids start jumping in the way of self-driving cars to make them brake hard. That's when we'll see the anti-pedestrian regulations appear, by my estimation.

[adrianN]

Self driving cars are not magic and judging their braking distance is not much easier than with a human driver. I think kids trying that will quickly find out that it's not too hard to make an autocar hit a human. In other words, I think the problem would quickly solve itself.

[jdhopeunique]

In bad neighborhoods, the carjackers(might not want a autonomous car though) or robbers might just roll a beach ball into the street to stop the car or maybe just a cheap open umbrella. I can imagine those people who practice "rolling coal" doing the same thing to rich autonomous car riders or just throwing a beach ball out the window on an interstate. Lots of possibilities that security researchers will need to consider.

[adrianN]

Rolling a ball on the street is probably enough to stop human drivers as well. Is carjacking that much of a problem where you live? I've never heard of anybody being carjacked here. I guess you could equip your car with one of these devices if you're concerned:

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

[kazinator]

A human driver has a good chance to recognize the situation for what it is and just hit the beachball. (Or heck, the hoodlum himself.)

[adjkant]

Um where do you think this is happening exactly that people know that beachball = carjacking? Based on the language used, I suspect you aren't in such an area and are coming up with an unrealistic scenario here.

[tripzilch]

Given that autonomous vehicles are supposed to lower the amount of traffic accidents, they should be programmed to exclude the lethal traffic accidents which are justified (basic on split-second information, live a little). At least beach balls will be relatively easy to recognize with computer vision. Problem is those pesky hoodlums will start dressing up as beach balls, throwing inflatable dolls in front of cars. And if you think that's a crazy idea, just wait and see what the actual future comes up with.

Honestly, the 21st century is basically clickbait: You won't believe what happens next!

[jopsen]

I guess flame throwers are somehow cooler than installing bullet proof glass :)

[bluGill]

Autonomous cars have a lot of data gathering sensors - even if the car doesn't know something is going on, logs of what happened will greatly aid the police in their efforts to track down the criminal.

If carjacking becomes a problem the cars will figure it out and start locking all the doors. Or if the car is unoccupied, let the carjaker in, then notify the nearest police station it is coming in with a criminal.

[throwaway30yo]

You think an unoccupied car should have the ability to lock people in and take them to the police station?

[tripzilch]

Maybe in situations where someone throws a beach ball in front of your car and your immediate split-second reaction is to turn your car into a murder weapon directed at the first "hoodlum" you spot who may or may not have thrown this ball.

[bluGill]

That is a complex question. I see both sides of the issue and a lot of grey area between (I'd be shocked if I foresee even 10% of all the things philosophers will consider).

I'll just say that it is an option with some merit. Depending on the technology and the local situation I might or might not be in favor of it.

[kelnos]

Not to mention all autonomous cars will undoubtedly have video evidence of what happened. The kids won't have a chance of proving their case if they get hit.

[kbenson]

To be fair, regulations put in place because kids are jumping in front of cars could be anti-pedestrian, but it could also just be anti-fucking-idiot if drafted well.

[sigstoat]

i don't understand; it is already a violation of traffic law to jump in front of cars. if you survive the punishment meted out by physics, the cops can fine you. what change do you think would be made if folks started doing it more often?

[jackcarter]

In Chicago, at least, that would be implicitly legal, unless the car actually hits you:

9-60-060 Pedestrian crossing. [...] (b) No pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close that it is impossible for the driver to yield.

https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cdot/supp_info/o...

[jopsen]

Well, if the car doesn't hit you, then clearly there was enough time for the driver to yield :)

So you get get punished if it hits you? Or how does this work...

[freehunter]

Yes. If the car hits you because you stepped out in front of it and the car did not have time to stop while going the speed limit with a driver paying attention to the road, the pedestrian is at fault and can be ticketed. If you don't survive the encounter, at the very least the driver doesn't receive a ticket.

[mraler]

Your comment reminded me of a Sci-Fi novel I read when I was a kid, it was a mystery with the background being a fully automated world, a fairly central point was that all vehicles were self-driving. Standing in front of cars to stop them was somewhere between a fad and a minor rebellion against the status quo.

Ever since self-driving cars started being a thing I keep being reminded of this book, and am half-waiting for at lease that part of it to come true.

I've been searching for a bit now, and I still haven't find it. I think it was from the 70s or 80s.

[gvozd]

Coils, by Zelazny & Saberhagen? It was first published in 1982.

[mraler]

Bless you, kind internet stranger! That was bugging me so much :)

[maxxxxx]

That's a good point. I can totally see how as a kid I would have tried to mess with self driving cars.

[intrasight]

We messed with human-driven cars to great amusement (to us) when we were teens.

[maxerickson]

Abruptly stepping in front of a vehicle is basically already illegal in the US. So no need to pass laws, except maybe to clarify the use of recordings from the vehicles as evidence.

Of course that won't stop the behavior completely but it won't be a free for all either.

[wildmusings]

Anti-pedestrian is a curious way of describing a rule that demands basic social cooperation. Are stop signs, red lights, and crosswalks “anti-car”?

[kazinator]

Those traffic control measures are anti-pedestrian because they purely exist because of and in support of automobiles.

A situation with pedestrians only doesn't require those traffic controls.

A situation with motor vehicles only does require them, otherwise there will be an increase in the number of accidents and unacceptable congestion.

The mixture of the two requires them only because of the presence of motor vehicles.

It's very simple, really.

[whatshisface]

Well, implicitly, I meant to hint that after one or two incidents, the lobby might convince the legislature to swing way too far in the other direction. (A very common tactic. You can't just hand liability from one party to another, not in an area people know and care about.)

[user5994461]

Kids already do that against human driven car. It's not a new problem.

[louithethrid]

Why jump in the way? All you need is a showstopper- a cheap chinese gadget that bounces back lidarlaserlight and radarwaves, ahead of time- thus creating the ilusion of a wall.

[btbuildem]

Not just kids - it's a perfect way to carjack someone.

[sigstoat]

carjacking vehicles with constant internet connections and GPS's doesn't strike me as an extremely profitable maneuver.

the whole "car detects obstacle in an untrafficed area, stops, door is opened, passenger gets out, passenger gets back in, changes destination to a place not proximate to anywhere they've ever been before" process also sounds like the sort of thing that would justifiably raise a bit of a red flag. maybe not an automated call to 911, but it should probably dump all records to the cloud and trigger a call from an onstar operator or similar.

[jimktrains2]

Dump to whose cloud? I'm not sure I want my car dumping data about my travels to something not under my control.

[nitrogen]

Many cars already do, unfortunately.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I think the idea is that they'd stop the car, incapacitate the driver, grab what they can and run like hell.

Besides, if we're talking about this happening in the "bad" parts of town, the car can call 911 and broadcast is position all it likes. There won't be any immediate response.

Finally, people who do this long enough will eventually figure out what to disconnect to allow themselves enough time to do what they want with the car- like today's car thieves do with modern car alarms.

[btbuildem]

They straight up throw a car in a cube van and drive it off to the chop shop. Not a huge leap to faraday-cage the transport vehicle.. probably acts as one already, come to think of it.

[kqr]

The irony of it all is that traffic signals were introduced to make traffic flow more easily! The primary function of the traffic signal lies not in the red period, but the green. Traffic signals are what lets you blow through intersections with bad visibility at 50 mph, rather thanhave to slow down to 15 and carefully check for cross-traffic.

[alasdair_]

>I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily.

I, too, am a fan of roundabouts.

[Tiktaalik]

Haha this is a great example of how North America can use old, tested and proven techniques to make our cities better but instead people are drawn to shiny, fanciful new technologies for a solution instead.

[sigstoat]

> People are completely ignoring the existence of pedestrians and cyclists.

just because the lights for cars are gone doesn't necessitate that the pedestrian crosswalks and buttons be removed. they might even work more effectively, if they can communicate with all the vehicles in the vicinity.

[n4r9]

Much better would be smart traffic lights that allow pedestrians or other roads to cross when there are no cars approaching for n seconds. The number of times I've waited for several minutes at a stop light in the middle of the night...

[sagarm]

Really, pedestrians should wait indefinitely until there are no cars coming?

[n4r9]

No; "when", not "only when".

[Johnny555]

You can have it both ways -- add a new light state (or just use flashing red all the time) that self-driving cars can ignore.

All other road users have to stop and the light cycles normally. (and during this specially triggered light cycle, even self-driving cars need to stop)