4 ms·

This article is making a mountain out of a molehill. The crux of the article seems to be “wow! If you block traffic it really adds up to wasting people’s time!

by strstr 3y ago

This article is making a mountain out of a molehill. The crux of the article seems to be “wow! If you block traffic it really adds up to wasting people’s time!”. Duh. Lots of things do this, many less valuable than driverless cars. As an example, Seattle’s drawbridges sound like much more of a disaster than whatever time is being wasted by Cruise vehicles. Sailboats can’t even make it under the Fremont bridge, so every rich dude with a boat blocks traffic (including multiple bus lines) for 10 min when they sail by.

advisedwang 3y ago
> As an example, Seattle’s drawbridges ... Those bridges don't open 7-9AM and 4-6PM, which shows that we have and should continue to regulate to mitigate disruptions!
dpkirchner 3y ago
> Sailboats can’t even make it under the Fremont bridge, so every rich dude with a boat blocks traffic (including multiple bus lines) for 10 min when they sail by. I've dreamt of a reverse-toll system where those folks end up paying drivers, pedestrians, and bus passengers some token amount for the delay (not enough to encourage lolligagging but enough to encourage boats to find better travel times or coordinate to spread the tolls.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Amusingly in almost all jurisdictions, based on ancient law, the boats have right-of-way over the bridge. Special laws sometimes are passed to have "boat times" so the boat has to wait until the top of the hour or similar.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    The irony being that the ship canal in Seattle was created after the roads and cars already existed, so it’s not like boats were there first and drawbridges came later. There are some special laws about when the bridge can open during the week, but not on the weekend.
akira2501 3y ago
Substitute "bus" for "ambulance" and maybe the problem becomes more apparent. The fact you can't issue a "reckless driving" ticket to a corporation is going to become a problem. There isn't a mechanism to force them to address the problems they create.
- strstr 3y ago
  Not sure what you mean? You could still fine the corporation, or block/revoke approvals. Unsafe/stupid driving is accepted as inevitable and rarely enforced against for human drivers (outside accidents). Not a good thing, but definitely the reality these days. Tbh, it’ll likely be much easier to enforce rules on a self driving car, since almost everything is tracked and recorded. Every mistake can be scrutinized for a self driving car, in ways that would never be required for human drivers.
  - akira2501 3y ago
    > You could still fine the corporation, or block/revoke approvals. If the purpose is to spot bad behavior and then correct it within these systems, then this is as far from achieving that goal as you can get. I'm not interested in penalizing the corporation, I'm interested in getting the best performance we can. What natural incentives are there otherwise? If users come to expect that their self driving cab "breaks a few rules" to get them there faster, then how do you balance that? > Unsafe/stupid driving is accepted as inevitable and rarely enforced against for human drivers What is your source for this assertion? > it’ll likely be much easier to enforce rules on a self driving car, since almost everything is tracked and recorded If the car can't correctly drive itself, then what help is this? How would you sort through this data without the very type of automation which is in the car itself? > in ways that would never be required for human drivers. There's much more to roadway enforcement than what the U.S. currently does. China has an entirely different system of police and thus traffic enforcement. European countries love speed cameras. Several U.S. states are big on red light cameras. Self driving vehicles confidently drive down one way streets and block other vehicles offering no recourse to solve the problem for the other driver. We don't have an enforcement mechanism for this because this hasn't happened before. Whether this technology is "better than humans" or not is beside the point. It's using roadways designed and still majority occupied by actual humans. This is not being properly accounted for.
mattmcknight 3y ago
The main anecdote- where the issue is that busses are not allowed to backup without a supervisor- seems to be an equal indictment of bus rules as it is about a driverless car that won't back up without a supervisor.
midoridensha 3y ago
Some rich dude should sail his boat under a bridge, then immediately turn around and sail it back under, and repeat this over and over all day long, just to screw with drivers.
- strstr 3y ago
  Gives me some strong cat asking to be let out energy ala [0]. [0] https://pbfcomics.com/comics/sir-leopold/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/sir-leopold/

by strstr 3y ago

advisedwang 3y ago

> As an example, Seattle’s drawbridges ... Those bridges don't open 7-9AM and 4-6PM, which shows that we have and should continue to regulate to mitigate disruptions!

dpkirchner 3y ago

> Sailboats can’t even make it under the Fremont bridge, so every rich dude with a boat blocks traffic (including multiple bus lines) for 10 min when they sail by. I've dreamt of a reverse-toll system where those folks end up paying drivers, pedestrians, and bus passengers some token amount for the delay (not enough to encourage lolligagging but enough to encourage boats to find better travel times or coordinate to spread the tolls.

bombcar 3y ago
Amusingly in almost all jurisdictions, based on ancient law, the boats have right-of-way over the bridge. Special laws sometimes are passed to have "boat times" so the boat has to wait until the top of the hour or similar.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  The irony being that the ship canal in Seattle was created after the roads and cars already existed, so it’s not like boats were there first and drawbridges came later. There are some special laws about when the bridge can open during the week, but not on the weekend.

akira2501 3y ago

Substitute "bus" for "ambulance" and maybe the problem becomes more apparent. The fact you can't issue a "reckless driving" ticket to a corporation is going to become a problem. There isn't a mechanism to force them to address the problems they create.

strstr 3y ago
Not sure what you mean? You could still fine the corporation, or block/revoke approvals. Unsafe/stupid driving is accepted as inevitable and rarely enforced against for human drivers (outside accidents). Not a good thing, but definitely the reality these days. Tbh, it’ll likely be much easier to enforce rules on a self driving car, since almost everything is tracked and recorded. Every mistake can be scrutinized for a self driving car, in ways that would never be required for human drivers.
- akira2501 3y ago
  > You could still fine the corporation, or block/revoke approvals. If the purpose is to spot bad behavior and then correct it within these systems, then this is as far from achieving that goal as you can get. I'm not interested in penalizing the corporation, I'm interested in getting the best performance we can. What natural incentives are there otherwise? If users come to expect that their self driving cab "breaks a few rules" to get them there faster, then how do you balance that? > Unsafe/stupid driving is accepted as inevitable and rarely enforced against for human drivers What is your source for this assertion? > it’ll likely be much easier to enforce rules on a self driving car, since almost everything is tracked and recorded If the car can't correctly drive itself, then what help is this? How would you sort through this data without the very type of automation which is in the car itself? > in ways that would never be required for human drivers. There's much more to roadway enforcement than what the U.S. currently does. China has an entirely different system of police and thus traffic enforcement. European countries love speed cameras. Several U.S. states are big on red light cameras. Self driving vehicles confidently drive down one way streets and block other vehicles offering no recourse to solve the problem for the other driver. We don't have an enforcement mechanism for this because this hasn't happened before. Whether this technology is "better than humans" or not is beside the point. It's using roadways designed and still majority occupied by actual humans. This is not being properly accounted for.

mattmcknight 3y ago

The main anecdote- where the issue is that busses are not allowed to backup without a supervisor- seems to be an equal indictment of bus rules as it is about a driverless car that won't back up without a supervisor.

midoridensha 3y ago

Some rich dude should sail his boat under a bridge, then immediately turn around and sail it back under, and repeat this over and over all day long, just to screw with drivers.

strstr 3y ago
Gives me some strong cat asking to be let out energy ala [0]. [0] https://pbfcomics.com/comics/sir-leopold/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/sir-leopold/