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by tgsovlerkhgsel 762 days ago
"after two of its vehicles braked suddenly and were rear-ended by motorcyclists."

While sudden braking definitely contributes to it and is dangerous, this is mostly the fault of the drivers crashing into the self-driving vehicles even if they stopped without a good reason. And those vehicles are rather obvious, i.e. the driver following could have known that tailgating them at an unsafe distance is an even worse idea than with human drivers.
2 comments
mtreis86 762 days ago
You can't just stop suddenly out of nowhere for no reason without signaling. In traffic it is obvious that people will be starting and stopping so there the fault is the person in the back, but on a country road with no traffic the fault is not so clear.

To your second point, nothing on those vehicles says "warning, no human in control" so I'm not sure how obvious it really is.

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ceejayoz 762 days ago
> You can't just stop suddenly out of nowhere for no reason without signaling.

You absolutely can; it's what you're supposed to do if a toddler runs out in front of the car, for example. Barring malfunctioning brake lights, if you rear end a suddenly stopping vehicle, you were at fault for following at an unsafe distance.

Most legislation about this (example: https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/vehicle-code/veh-sect-22109/) says stuff like "when there is opportunity to give the signal". Screech brakes, then signal.

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bryanlarsen 760 days ago
In my jurisdiction, brake checking is illegal.

But it's pretty hard to enforce just for the reasons you mentioned. "I saw something on the road" is a fairly bullet proof defence which nobody can counter.

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mtreis86 761 days ago
> for no reason

Kid in the street is a reason to stop suddenly

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ceejayoz 761 days ago
If you’re too close to a car stopping for no reason, you’re also too close to a car stopping for a good one. The physics are the same.
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COGlory 762 days ago
You are supposed to be far enough behind the vehicle in front of you that you have enough time to stop. Assuming something about what other vehicles will do is a great way to get into an accidents. There are a lot of humans that don't drive like humans.
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alex_lav 762 days ago
A human tailgating doesn’t invalidate the fact that this was a bug that caused human harm. Both things can be true.
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