[dopylitty]

It’s absolutely insane that automated driving is allowed on public streets.

It should be completely banned until such time as there exists a comprehensive testing regime for validating that the automated system functions in all the scenarios it might be expected to face including emergency vehicles, construction, pedestrians, bad weather, and damaged sensors.

[Sharlin]

To be fair, human drivers are not validated either to function correctly in those scenarios. Though it would certainly be nice if they were.

[crote]

If a human did this, they would probably be arrested and lose their driver's license. Stuff like this is something you just can't do.

But self-driving cars get away with it because we haven't figured out how to hold them responsible yet.

[stingrae]

Honestly human drivers in SF do this quite often. How many Door Dash drivers are double parked picking up a food delivery and block an emergency vehicle? SFFD doesn't keep a record of it.

When roads are closed, I see people trying to maneuver around cones and get through as if the rules don't apply to them.

The self driving cars are much safer drivers than a very high percentage of SF drivers.

[Sharlin]

But the GP was about pre-certification. We do that to some extent in the form of driver’s licenses, but as far as I know getting one is more or less a formality in many parts of the US in particular.

[phpisthebest]

>>self-driving cars get away with it because we haven't figured out how to hold them responsible yet.

We have a liability model in place. Fine the company

[masswerk]

This may not work out, as the fines may be lower than the costs of development to address the underlying issues, while it's at the same time all about basic safety of the community. (The fines would have to be higher than the cost of "oops, we have to employ human safety drivers and put them into every car.")

[1-more]

push the robotaxi out of the way with the engine (in the one way street example; this doesn't work with all of them) and bill the company for damage to the engine's bumper. If you park your (human) car in front of a hydrant they'll break your windows with an axe or a halligan and run the hoses through it and you'll be on the hook for fixing your car.

[CtrlAltDelete51]

Simplest thing to do is to confiscate the vehicles and levy fines large enough that its in the financial best interest of these companies to ensure that basic road safety situations are at the top of their priority lists.

[petre]

The state should confiscate or remove the vehicle, bill them for storage or for the removal operation and also fine the company and take it to court if something goes wrong because of them.

[SllX]

Individual humans can be arrested. The exact people found in violation can be held accountable on the spot in a manner that is proportionate and scales to exactly the responsible parties.

What are you supposed to do with a car with no humans around causing a problem for people? Key it? Break the windshield? Wait around for a tow truck to move it? Revoke an entire fleet’s license to drive in the State of California over a specific incident in San Francisco? Or wait until the fleet has tallied up enough incidents for the State to say “that’s enough”?

We probably do have to validate driverless vehicles to a higher standard than the average driver, and maybe a higher standard than the best drivers. We want correctness and accountability, because driverless or manned, an automobile mishandled is a death trap.

EDIT: How about this? The State can pass a law that gives immunity to anyone who breaks into a misbehaving unmanned autonomous car in order to disable the autonomy and take control of it and move it out of the way. No, I wouldn’t limit this to emergency personnel either. Anyone with a Driver’s License can do it. Cruise and Waymo can then decide whether to make this process easier or they can replace a lot of broken windows.

[petre]

> The State can pass a law that gives immunity to anyone who breaks into a misbehaving unmanned autonomous car in order to disable the autonomy and take control of it

What do you do with vehicles without human controls? Mandate human controls?

[SllX]

Are those a thing yet? Like not just a prototype, but in service and on the road? But yes, probably, at least for the foreseeable future.

[taylodl]

Excuse me? I had to pass a written exam and pass a driving test and maneuverability test in order to get my license. It's insane we're allowing these vehicles on public streets without a licensure process in place. We do that for aircraft, why aren't we doing it for self-driving cars?

[JoeAltmaier]

A human operator can be yelled at and made to leave. They don't become an unresponsive lump of metal blocking the road when stymied by emergency vehicle activity.

[dehrmann]

And it'd be nice to get the same list of complaints about incidents with human drivers for comparison.

[phpisthebest]

it is clear to me that most if not all of Human Progress will cease to advance as we have gone to the extreme with safety culture.

if we were still using Horse drawn carriages for travel, and someone invented the first Horseless Buggies today it would be banned and never allowed to advance at all. The amount of death and injury from the inception of the automobile would never be allowed in a new industry today. We have rationalized and assimilated the everyday human automobile into our lives, but refuse to accept any risk for something new

[anigbrowl]

Oh BS. I'm sure you're aware that when trains were first introduced some jurisdictions required that the train be preceded by someone waving a red flag. 'Safety culture' is not always correct by any means, but any tort law book will supply you with abundant nightmare fuel about what happens when safety isn't prioritized.

[tmpz22]

If you were experiencing a severe emergency and received delayed care as a result of a self-driving car misbehaving - would you feel the same way?

As you lay there bleeding out would you think "I have contributed to human progress - this is good"

I believe there are ways to advance self-driving without these problems. Why can't they have a 1800 number staffed 24/7 for fire departments to contact?

[jeffbee]

Internally your logic is flawless but I don't see how you can ignore the current delays caused by human driver traffic, not to mention the ambulance traffic created by human driver errors.

[masswerk]

Please mind that this is about fire fighting. There is reason, why they have the right of way, as this exceeds any individual concerns: would you really rather have another Great Fire, as a single car blocks critical efforts in the name of progress? Also, as it comes to emergencies, there's a certain difference between a human idiot, who can be always coerced into doing the right thing, and a dumb, but inflexible mechanism.

[jeffbee]

I guess I am not seeing your point. We know that human drivers severely impede fire response. This has only intensified in the Uber/Lyft era in central cities like SF and NY. The only known solution is to simply take road space away from human drivers, as we have seen with the lowered fire response times in Paris as bike lanes are being expanded. You can't count on human mass action to get out of the way of a fire truck. Anyone who lives in Manhattan has watched an FDNY truck blast its horn for minutes while drivers just stand there.

https://youtu.be/aB5lqUROjT4?t=44

[masswerk]

Well, it may well be that, as a European, I really don't understand how far that kind of mindset may go. My point was really that, when it comes to an individual blocking communal efforts to preserve a city as an expression of personal freedom and/or commerce, there may be always means to take over control of that car, while that may not be the case with automated systems. (There may not be even accessible and standardized controls for manual emergency override.) If so, this is an entirely different "game", with — so far — no known winning strategies.

(You may want to sort this out before inserting potential random road blocks into a city.)

[arkitaip]

This is hilariously ignorant because thats actually what happened with cars when they were first introduced. Amazing tech that caused so much societal issues that all kinds of laws and regulations came into effect.