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San Francisco is getting cold feet about self-driving car tests

fragmede 4y ago
The self-driving car almost running over hoses thing? That's a problem. The obvious answer to me is an emergency stop button mounted on the hood behind glass like fire alarms have. I took a ride in a Cruise self-driving car. I used the Cruise app, told it where to pick me up and where to drop me off, and then a car showed up. I used the app to unlock the doors and then got in, and then got to my destination, in awe. There are ton of nits I could pick about the trip, and it was a bit contrived because I'm not in the service area, but holy shit I got from point A to point B without a driver in the car and it wasn't a ride at Disneyland. I'm sure there will continue to be growing pains. Uber killing the bicyclist is simply terrible. My un-expert opinion is it'll take years longer to arrive, but the self-driving car future is coming, ever so slowly.
- hedora 4y ago
  > In another incident, a Cruise car entered an area where firefighters were working and nearly ran over their hoses – it only stopped when firefighters shattered the front window of the vehicle. How is this not on YouTube? Instead of the hood button, I think everyone should just carry one of those little windshield shattering hammers on their keychains. It'd save on red buttons, and improve survivability of water-related automobile accidents.
Tempest1981 4y ago
Similar article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34567186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34567186
snozolli 4y ago
As someone who commuted by motorcycle in SF for several years, I have a hard time imagining any barely-competent self-driving car being worse than those maniacs in the Yellow Cabs.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  In SF/Oakland, so many non-cabs run red lights all the time. While cabs are typically the most aggressive drivers anywhere in the world, we have a problem of lawlessness in SF. This is becoming a culture. An accepted culture, precisely because of lack of enforcement by police and lack of will to enforce laws, voted in by the population that is enamored by ostensible "kindness". The whole thing is bizarre. No red light cameras. Not many cops interested in pursuing speeders. Not enough cops, actually. Don't ride a motorcycle here.
  - ilostmyshoes 4y ago
    It's a well known phenomenon that when cops don't like the people in the office of prosecutor, DA, or other similar positions the police will cease enforcing laws so they can shout about how crime is on the rise in order to get their way.
    - passwordoops 4y ago
      That may be so, but SF in particular did decriminalize A LOT of things. Most notable is theft under $950, for example, where is not hard to find videos and news items, e.g: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplifting-epidemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplift...
      - oldgradstudent 4y ago
        Due to inflation, this will soon be irrelevant.
      - mjburgess 4y ago
        If you follow the Prop link, the article says that the state of california reduced theft under that amount to a misdemeanour because there wasn't enough room in prisons to keep people arrested for it. Quite a different motivation than SF decriminalizing things
LatteLazy 4y ago
There is only one set of stats that matters here: crashes, fatalities, incidents etc per km compared to similar journeys. Everything else is bullshit and emotion and politics.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  From the lede: > which have blocked traffic and hampered emergency services Like, if the only stats that matter are road accidents, the obvious thing would be to just ban all motorised vehicles. A slightly more nuanced view is perhaps required.
- epgui 4y ago
  I think that’s a rather narrow accounting of all the possible costs. Stopping the flow of traffic can be very costly. It’s a balancing act: you do want to maximize the economic benefits of the technology, and on the other hand you do want to minimize the costs to society.
- threeseed 4y ago
  That's the only metrics that you've decided are important. SF and likely most cities will have others such as how disruptive you are. People rarely stop in the middle of a road, even with emergency services need to pass and refuse to move.
  - wwqrd 4y ago
    > People rarely stop in the middle of a road How rarely? How does it compare to self driving cars per km driven?
    - notafraudster 4y ago
      If a person stops in the middle of a road, other people talk to that person, and typically learn what's going on and can help work on resolving it. Are they having a heart attack? Do they need people to push the car? Are they having a road rage incident? Are they a jerk who needs to run into a store and picked the wrong place to stop temporarily to do it? Even if the situation can't be solved, the ability to communicate (or the implication of not being able to communicate) gives predictable, human-friendly feedback which can be shared with emergency services and other people.
nzoschke 4y ago
Driving home the other night an empty Cruise car with no driver was stopped in the center lane on Fell street. A little off center in the lane with no hazard lights on. Does Cruise have remote operators that are watching for weird stuff and can take some manual intervention from afar? Like someone to remotely turn on the hazards and to dispatch a person to go move it if it’s malfunctioning. I’m very pro self driving cars but obviously there are some “bugs” to work out still.
lost_tourist 4y ago
Bring them to Austin, TX, we aren't afraid of technology. I would take a bet anytime that on average these are far more safe and less apt to wreck than the average driver here; drivers here are awful.
henearkr 4y ago
All the examples of bad interactions are from Cruise, not Waymo. So maybe restrict Cruise? Or allow expansion only for companies that show excellency? In my opinion that would be a shame to prevent good implementations from being used because of the existence of bad implementations from competitors.
- kotaKat 4y ago
  I think the bigger concern here is how fast and loose GM/Cruise got approval to run all this alongside deploying Super Cruise to normal customers in their normal vehicles. I reaaaaaaally don't trust GM's autonomous literally anywhere seeing the Cruise debacle. But hey, they're the American carmaker, so they got a free pass from the government to run wreckfully.
- xnx 4y ago
  It's annoying in self driving artcles to see Cruise and Tesla grouped together with Waymo. The authors either dont realize how far ahead Waymo is or think it would somehow be improper to point it out.
- jjulius 4y ago
  >All examples of bad interactions are from Cruise, not Waymo In this article, sure. However, Waymo is certainly not without incident in SF, especially recently (article below is from 1/24/23)... >A Waymo autonomous vehicle was apparently stopped in the middle of a key San Francisco intersection, bringing traffic to a halt during morning rush hour. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/waymo-rush-hour-traffic-standstill-17739556.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/waymo-rush-hour-traff...
GaryNumanVevo 4y ago
Does the local government have any leverage over a firm that's causing issues on the road? Beyond individual ticketing I mean. Like if Uber is causing issues, what legal standing does SF have to prevent them from doing so? Doing drive testing of self-driving cars on public roads is always a risk, but lots of other entities cause road issues.

The self-driving car almost running over hoses thing? That's a problem. The obvious answer to me is an emergency stop button mounted on the hood behind glass like fire alarms have. I took a ride in a Cruise self-driving car. I used the Cruise app, told it where to pick me up and where to drop me off, and then a car showed up. I used the app to unlock the doors and then got in, and then got to my destination, in awe. There are ton of nits I could pick about the trip, and it was a bit contrived because I'm not in the service area, but holy shit I got from point A to point B without a driver in the car and it wasn't a ride at Disneyland. I'm sure there will continue to be growing pains. Uber killing the bicyclist is simply terrible. My un-expert opinion is it'll take years longer to arrive, but the self-driving car future is coming, ever so slowly.

hedora 4y ago
> In another incident, a Cruise car entered an area where firefighters were working and nearly ran over their hoses – it only stopped when firefighters shattered the front window of the vehicle. How is this not on YouTube? Instead of the hood button, I think everyone should just carry one of those little windshield shattering hammers on their keychains. It'd save on red buttons, and improve survivability of water-related automobile accidents.

Tempest1981 4y ago

Similar article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34567186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34567186

snozolli 4y ago

As someone who commuted by motorcycle in SF for several years, I have a hard time imagining any barely-competent self-driving car being worse than those maniacs in the Yellow Cabs.

systemvoltage 4y ago
In SF/Oakland, so many non-cabs run red lights all the time. While cabs are typically the most aggressive drivers anywhere in the world, we have a problem of lawlessness in SF. This is becoming a culture. An accepted culture, precisely because of lack of enforcement by police and lack of will to enforce laws, voted in by the population that is enamored by ostensible "kindness". The whole thing is bizarre. No red light cameras. Not many cops interested in pursuing speeders. Not enough cops, actually. Don't ride a motorcycle here.
- ilostmyshoes 4y ago
  It's a well known phenomenon that when cops don't like the people in the office of prosecutor, DA, or other similar positions the police will cease enforcing laws so they can shout about how crime is on the rise in order to get their way.
  - passwordoops 4y ago
    That may be so, but SF in particular did decriminalize A LOT of things. Most notable is theft under $950, for example, where is not hard to find videos and news items, e.g: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplifting-epidemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/us/san-francisco-shoplift...
    - oldgradstudent 4y ago
      Due to inflation, this will soon be irrelevant.
    - mjburgess 4y ago
      If you follow the Prop link, the article says that the state of california reduced theft under that amount to a misdemeanour because there wasn't enough room in prisons to keep people arrested for it. Quite a different motivation than SF decriminalizing things

LatteLazy 4y ago

There is only one set of stats that matters here: crashes, fatalities, incidents etc per km compared to similar journeys. Everything else is bullshit and emotion and politics.

rsynnott 4y ago
From the lede: > which have blocked traffic and hampered emergency services Like, if the only stats that matter are road accidents, the obvious thing would be to just ban all motorised vehicles. A slightly more nuanced view is perhaps required.
epgui 4y ago
I think that’s a rather narrow accounting of all the possible costs. Stopping the flow of traffic can be very costly. It’s a balancing act: you do want to maximize the economic benefits of the technology, and on the other hand you do want to minimize the costs to society.
threeseed 4y ago
That's the only metrics that you've decided are important. SF and likely most cities will have others such as how disruptive you are. People rarely stop in the middle of a road, even with emergency services need to pass and refuse to move.
- wwqrd 4y ago
  > People rarely stop in the middle of a road How rarely? How does it compare to self driving cars per km driven?
  - notafraudster 4y ago
    If a person stops in the middle of a road, other people talk to that person, and typically learn what's going on and can help work on resolving it. Are they having a heart attack? Do they need people to push the car? Are they having a road rage incident? Are they a jerk who needs to run into a store and picked the wrong place to stop temporarily to do it? Even if the situation can't be solved, the ability to communicate (or the implication of not being able to communicate) gives predictable, human-friendly feedback which can be shared with emergency services and other people.

nzoschke 4y ago

Driving home the other night an empty Cruise car with no driver was stopped in the center lane on Fell street. A little off center in the lane with no hazard lights on. Does Cruise have remote operators that are watching for weird stuff and can take some manual intervention from afar? Like someone to remotely turn on the hazards and to dispatch a person to go move it if it’s malfunctioning. I’m very pro self driving cars but obviously there are some “bugs” to work out still.

lost_tourist 4y ago

Bring them to Austin, TX, we aren't afraid of technology. I would take a bet anytime that on average these are far more safe and less apt to wreck than the average driver here; drivers here are awful.

henearkr 4y ago

All the examples of bad interactions are from Cruise, not Waymo. So maybe restrict Cruise? Or allow expansion only for companies that show excellency? In my opinion that would be a shame to prevent good implementations from being used because of the existence of bad implementations from competitors.

kotaKat 4y ago
I think the bigger concern here is how fast and loose GM/Cruise got approval to run all this alongside deploying Super Cruise to normal customers in their normal vehicles. I reaaaaaaally don't trust GM's autonomous literally anywhere seeing the Cruise debacle. But hey, they're the American carmaker, so they got a free pass from the government to run wreckfully.
xnx 4y ago
It's annoying in self driving artcles to see Cruise and Tesla grouped together with Waymo. The authors either dont realize how far ahead Waymo is or think it would somehow be improper to point it out.
jjulius 4y ago
>All examples of bad interactions are from Cruise, not Waymo In this article, sure. However, Waymo is certainly not without incident in SF, especially recently (article below is from 1/24/23)... >A Waymo autonomous vehicle was apparently stopped in the middle of a key San Francisco intersection, bringing traffic to a halt during morning rush hour. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/waymo-rush-hour-traffic-standstill-17739556.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/waymo-rush-hour-traff...

GaryNumanVevo 4y ago

Does the local government have any leverage over a firm that's causing issues on the road? Beyond individual ticketing I mean. Like if Uber is causing issues, what legal standing does SF have to prevent them from doing so? Doing drive testing of self-driving cars on public roads is always a risk, but lots of other entities cause road issues.