The worst thing that happens in either situations is that the mode of transport is safely disabled.
What keeps people from doing this right now is that it is not worth the consequences for an obnoxious prank. While I’m sure some bored teenagers would love to sit on a highway overpass and watch cars come to a slow halt I’m not sure it would be much more than an inconvenience that is better than firefighters hacking away at robots with axes!
That is absolutely not the worst thing that can happen. Assume that at some point, a self driving car will have to deal with humans acting with actual intent to harm their passenger.
Ok, so here’s a scenario. Someone waits until an autonomous vehicle comes by with a specific person in it, then they disable the car, and kidnap the person.
Or for car-jackings.
So if you want to kidnap someone or rob them in a vehicle, is getting the firefighter key, which I assume has some PKE going on, and planning around that really worth the effort? Are the state-level actors with the know-how, capabilities and deeper motivations interested in disabling certain taxis?
The "fake undercover cop car" type of carjacking/robbery has existed since forever.
It's why "thou shalt never use unmarked cars for traffic enforcement and other 'officer chooses who to bother on a whim' duty" rules come and go from various jurisdictions over time.
People get carjacked/robbed -> policy created -> desire for revenue mounts -> nobody been carjacked/robbed in awhile -> policy rescinded -> go to beginning
I can disable nearly any vehicle that doesn’t have a model in World of Tanks by driving a large truck directly in front or into it. And elevator keys can be found online - you deal with abuse just like abuse of the emergency stop - by arresting the perpetrators.
It reduces the cost of said abuse. Nowadays you need to acquire a truck or weapons or whatever, in the future all you’d need is a keycard type of device.
What keeps people from doing this right now is that it is not worth the consequences for an obnoxious prank. While I’m sure some bored teenagers would love to sit on a highway overpass and watch cars come to a slow halt I’m not sure it would be much more than an inconvenience that is better than firefighters hacking away at robots with axes!