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Absolutely. I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily. People are co
by Tiktaalik 9y ago
Absolutely. I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily. People are completely ignoring the existence of pedestrians and cyclists. It would not be surprising to see a new crime of "hindering an autonomous automobile" be lobbied for.
- whatshisface 9y agoIt's only a matter of time before some stupid kids start jumping in the way of self-driving cars to make them brake hard. That's when we'll see the anti-pedestrian regulations appear, by my estimation.
- maxxxxx 9y agoThat's a good point. I can totally see how as a kid I would have tried to mess with self driving cars.
- intrasight 9y agoWe messed with human-driven cars to great amusement (to us) when we were teens.
- kbenson 9y agoTo be fair, regulations put in place because kids are jumping in front of cars could be anti-pedestrian, but it could also just be anti-fucking-idiot if drafted well.
- btbuildem 9y agoNot just kids - it's a perfect way to carjack someone.
- sigstoat 9y agocarjacking vehicles with constant internet connections and GPS's doesn't strike me as an extremely profitable maneuver. the whole "car detects obstacle in an untrafficed area, stops, door is opened, passenger gets out, passenger gets back in, changes destination to a place not proximate to anywhere they've ever been before" process also sounds like the sort of thing that would justifiably raise a bit of a red flag. maybe not an automated call to 911, but it should probably dump all records to the cloud and trigger a call from an onstar operator or similar.
- jimktrains2 9y agoDump to whose cloud? I'm not sure I want my car dumping data about my travels to something not under my control.
- nitrogen 9y agoMany cars already do, unfortunately.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y agoI think the idea is that they'd stop the car, incapacitate the driver, grab what they can and run like hell. Besides, if we're talking about this happening in the "bad" parts of town, the car can call 911 and broadcast is position all it likes. There won't be any immediate response. Finally, people who do this long enough will eventually figure out what to disconnect to allow themselves enough time to do what they want with the car- like today's car thieves do with modern car alarms.
- btbuildem 9y agoThey straight up throw a car in a cube van and drive it off to the chop shop. Not a huge leap to faraday-cage the transport vehicle.. probably acts as one already, come to think of it.
- jackcarter 9y agoIn Chicago, at least, that would be implicitly legal, unless the car actually hits you: 9-60-060 Pedestrian crossing. [...] (b) No pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle which is so close that it is impossible for the driver to yield. https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cdot/supp_info/ordinances_pertainingtopedestrians.html https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/cdot/supp_info/o...
- jopsen 9y agoWell, if the car doesn't hit you, then clearly there was enough time for the driver to yield :) So you get get punished if it hits you? Or how does this work...
- freehunter 9y agoYes. If the car hits you because you stepped out in front of it and the car did not have time to stop while going the speed limit with a driver paying attention to the road, the pedestrian is at fault and can be ticketed. If you don't survive the encounter, at the very least the driver doesn't receive a ticket.
- lurr 9y agowhich is completely fair and reasonable. I expect HN to disagree, because cars are a blight on the world or something.
- mraler 9y agoYour comment reminded me of a Sci-Fi novel I read when I was a kid, it was a mystery with the background being a fully automated world, a fairly central point was that all vehicles were self-driving. Standing in front of cars to stop them was somewhere between a fad and a minor rebellion against the status quo. Ever since self-driving cars started being a thing I keep being reminded of this book, and am half-waiting for at lease that part of it to come true. I've been searching for a bit now, and I still haven't find it. I think it was from the 70s or 80s.
- marcoperaza 9y agoAnti-pedestrian is a curious way of describing a rule that demands basic social cooperation. Are stop signs, red lights, and crosswalks “anti-car”?
- whatshisface 9y agoWell, implicitly, I meant to hint that after one or two incidents, the lobby might convince the legislature to swing way too far in the other direction. (A very common tactic. You can't just hand liability from one party to another, not in an area people know and care about.)
- kazinator 9y agoThose traffic control measures are anti-pedestrian because they purely exist because of and in support of automobiles. A situation with pedestrians only doesn't require those traffic controls. A situation with motor vehicles only does require them, otherwise there will be an increase in the number of accidents and unacceptable congestion. The mixture of the two requires them only because of the presence of motor vehicles. It's very simple, really.
- adrianN 9y agoSelf driving cars are not magic and judging their braking distance is not much easier than with a human driver. I think kids trying that will quickly find out that it's not too hard to make an autocar hit a human. In other words, I think the problem would quickly solve itself.
- jdhopeunique 9y agoIn bad neighborhoods, the carjackers(might not want a autonomous car though) or robbers might just roll a beach ball into the street to stop the car or maybe just a cheap open umbrella. I can imagine those people who practice "rolling coal" doing the same thing to rich autonomous car riders or just throwing a beach ball out the window on an interstate. Lots of possibilities that security researchers will need to consider.
- adrianN 9y agoRolling a ball on the street is probably enough to stop human drivers as well. Is carjacking that much of a problem where you live? I've never heard of anybody being carjacked here. I guess you could equip your car with one of these devices if you're concerned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLhWzMOccTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLhWzMOccTg
- jopsen 9y agoI guess flame throwers are somehow cooler than installing bullet proof glass :)
- kazinator 9y agoA human driver has a good chance to recognize the situation for what it is and just hit the beachball. (Or heck, the hoodlum himself.)
- adjkant 9y agoUm where do you think this is happening exactly that people know that beachball = carjacking? Based on the language used, I suspect you aren't in such an area and are coming up with an unrealistic scenario here.
- sigstoat 9y agoi don't understand; it is already a violation of traffic law to jump in front of cars. if you survive the punishment meted out by physics, the cops can fine you. what change do you think would be made if folks started doing it more often?
- user5994461 9y agoKids already do that against human driven car. It's not a new problem.
- maxerickson 9y agoAbruptly stepping in front of a vehicle is basically already illegal in the US. So no need to pass laws, except maybe to clarify the use of recordings from the vehicles as evidence. Of course that won't stop the behavior completely but it won't be a free for all either.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- louithethrid 9y agoWhy jump in the way? All you need is a showstopper- a cheap chinese gadget that bounces back lidarlaserlight and radarwaves, ahead of time- thus creating the ilusion of a wall.
- n4r9 9y agoMuch better would be smart traffic lights that allow pedestrians or other roads to cross when there are no cars approaching for n seconds. The number of times I've waited for several minutes at a stop light in the middle of the night...
- sigstoat 9y ago> People are completely ignoring the existence of pedestrians and cyclists. just because the lights for cars are gone doesn't necessitate that the pedestrian crosswalks and buttons be removed. they might even work more effectively, if they can communicate with all the vehicles in the vicinity.
- kqr 9y agoThe irony of it all is that traffic signals were introduced to make traffic flow more easily! The primary function of the traffic signal lies not in the red period, but the green. Traffic signals are what lets you blow through intersections with bad visibility at 50 mph, rather thanhave to slow down to 15 and carefully check for cross-traffic.
- Johnny555 9y agoYou can have it both ways -- add a new light state (or just use flashing red all the time) that self-driving cars can ignore. All other road users have to stop and the light cycles normally. (and during this specially triggered light cycle, even self-driving cars need to stop)
- alasdair_ 9y ago>I see this here on hacker news with people excited about the notion of doing away with stop lights so that AI traffic can flow easily. I, too, am a fan of roundabouts.
- Tiktaalik 9y agoHaha this is a great example of how North America can use old, tested and proven techniques to make our cities better but instead people are drawn to shiny, fanciful new technologies for a solution instead.