[jb12]

This past weekend in SF, I saw a driver slow and stop to reverse parallel park on Bush Street at Fillmore. An automated Cruise car stopped right behind him, blocking the driver from reversing into the parking spot. The guy got out to yell at the driver to back up, but then saw that it was driverless.

He drove off, and someone else got the spot.

[jeffbee]

Did they signal? This has happened to me many times with humans driving right up on my bumper even while I signal and am in reverse gear.

[CoffeeOnWrite]

What’s your angle here?

In practice humans frequently neglect to signal in instances where it is legally required (I don’t know if it is strictly legally required in California when parallel parking, but it’s certainly good common sense). Human drivers know that people don’t signal and account for that.

In this particular scenario the reverse lights would be a crystal clear indication of the driver’s intent, even if they failed to signal.

I don’t want to assume the intent of your comment, I don’t know what you’re getting at..

[jeffbee]

Just wondering because it's not always apparent that a car is slowing to park parallel, especially if they don't signal. The only way I know to make it really clear is to stop alongside the open spot, signal, move ahead slowly and put it in reverse, but half the time humans still don't get the message.

[CoffeeOnWrite]

So what do you do?

I have never run into this where the human driver didn’t get the hint when I remained in front of them with my reverse lights on. They have somewhere to be so sooner or later they go around me (backing up if necessary). From my understanding, the driverless car in the OP just sat there forever.

[ummonk]

Human drivers usually back up or go around when that happens though.

[jayrot]

It's not a bug it's a feature?

[masklinn]

I fear if that happened to me the next stop would be to a hardware store for a sledgehammer.