[maltelau]

Rather disingenuous to call slamming on the brakes "it was crashed into". Rule #1 of the road is to be predictable -- if a human slammed on their brakes and caused a crash on their first day of driving, they shouldn't be driving either.

From the article:

> The self-driving bus, with passengers onboard in Gothenburg, braked suddenly and was hit from behind by a tram.

[carl_dr]

If I have to slam the brakes on to avoid hitting a pedestrian, you can be damned sure I will. If you're driving so close to me as not to be able to stop in the space between us, that's on you.

[cucumber3732842]

>paraphrased: "muh safe following distance"

You (and every other commenter over the years peddling the same garbage) are taking simplified rules of financial liability and then working backwards to get the rules of the road. You can't run it in that direction because the rules are intentionally simplified and lose resolution for the sake of expedience.

No traffic behaves like you're acting it ought to except industrial applications where some other thing dominates vehicle spacing. Following distances are set at like the 90-somethingth percentile and then other techniques are used to mitigate those last few percent.

For example in your intentional appeal to emotion pedestrian example, the other traffic is not just looking at the back of your car. It's maintaining situational awareness of "issues" coming from other directions like your pedestrian presumably coming from the side. So other cars will probably start braking around the same time as you and 90-something percent of the time there won't be any issue.

In cases without obvious external inputs humans use stereotype and vibes based judgement. When drivers see a Fiat 500 (or some other minimum viable appliance car) adorned with one of those student driver stickers everyone gets on Amazon going down an on-ramp at "this is gonna make for a spicy merge at best" speed other drivers subconsciously think "this guy is probably a bad driver, I bet he's gonna screw it up and come to a stop at the end of the ramp and just expect other traffic to deal" so they back off to maintain their "good enough" following distance.

Fielding a bunch of vehicles that are too hair trigger when it comes to hard-ish stopping is basically just exploiting intentional lack of nuance in our rules of financial liability. A "self driving car" that drives like a 16yo with a learners permit is self driving. We require those people be supervised specifically to minimize these sorts of things.

Additionally drivers who drive in such a manner (we all know someone who insists they're good driver despite being the common denominator in a lot of accidents insurance found not their fault) as to exploit the same lack pretty strong vested interest in that nobody exploit those rules at scale because that could result the rules be changed to have more nuance.

The self driving vehicle's behavior is not excusable even if they didn't wind up paying the bill for it and arguing otherwise is mis-informed at best.

[tim333]

It's safe driving. If a car emergency braking would cause you to go into the back of it you're driving dangerously.

[Markoff]

no, suddenly stopping on highway in fast lane is still bad driving and you will be at fault for accident

same with suddenly stopping self-driving bus in lane dedicated ONLY for trams and buses where trams have priority anyway, tram is pretty much never at fault, because it has right of way

[digitalPhonix]

The context was

> If I have to slam the brakes on to avoid hitting a pedestrian

In that case you will not be at fault.

> in lane dedicated ONLY for trams and buses where trams have priority anyway

I’m not sure about Swedish road rules, but I don’t see any note about it being a dedicated lane

[Markoff]

check other comments in this thread with quotes from local tram union boss, I copied it from Swedish newspaper

[stubish]

At least over here if you rear end someone you are legally responsible. Vehicles can stop suddenly for all sorts of reasons, even good ones. Slamming on your brakes doesn't cause a rear end collision; tailgating or distraction causes rear end collisions.

[menaerus]

So, by definition, driver of a tram is guilty for the accident the same way the driver would be if he had run into another vehicle. Tram hit the bus from behind.

[defrost]

Melbourne, a city with intermingled trams on rails and cars, has pretty clear rules here:

* You must not drive into the path of a moving tram, drive over raised dividing strips or cross double yellow lines.

* You must not drive on tramways and tram lanes, unless you need to avoid an obstacle, or drive on the tram lane to make a right turn.

etc.

Trams have right of way - full stop.

https://transport.vic.gov.au/road-and-active-transport/road-...

[digitalPhonix]

I’m guessing you’re not from Melbourne?

“Tramways” are a specific type of road dedicated for trams, separated by dividers. “Tram lanes” are regular roads with tracks that are for exclusive use by trams, usually for part of the day and shared with cars for the rest.

The majority of the tram network is on roads shared with regular vehicle traffic (ie. neither a tramway nor a tram lane).

When trams are moving on shared roads they have no right of way special to them EXCEPT at roundabouts.

(I also know a PTV tram operator who lost their job for rear ending a car that suddenly stopped to turn right)

[defrost]

Good grief, do I type like a latte sniffing metrosexual? :-)

FWiW I've spent way more time on Phillip Island than in Melbourne - but I do like the trams there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffDBsSgS5Q

Anyhow, fair point - I principally jaywalked and /or rode a beat up mountain bike getting about Melbourne in my time there & took the road rules more as an aspirational guideline than as Commandments from the Victorian TAC.

[Doxin]

Except trams have, as far as I know without exception, specific traffic rules around them. A tram simply does not and cannot stop as quickly as a car (or indeed a bus) can. The reason that that's largely accepted is because the tradeoff is also that a tram can't really make any sudden unexpected motions at all.

If you get hit by a tram it is because you are in a place where you should have known the tram would hit you. The things are on tracks.

[Markoff]

local tram drivers union representative from Goteborg where it happened:

"The question is whether, for example, they’ve entered the correct right-of-way rules for trams? All vehicles are required to yield to trams, with a few exceptions, and that could be what’s “triggering” the system,"