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San Francisco streets clogged as line of Cruise robotaxis come to a standstill
- acs2w 3y agoGlad this calls out Cruise specifically, and not 'robotaxis' in general. Been seeing a lot of coverage lumping Waymo & Cruise together, but Waymo, while it has its own share of mistakes, is generally a large step up in terms of driving performance compared to Cruise. (Source: I've ridden in both many times, and its pretty clear)
- moomoo11 3y agohaving been stuck behind both Waymo and Cruise cars.. I don't like either. the worst is when you're stuck in a one way street, and the car just happily stays immobile with blinkers on. one time I was stuck (along with at least half a dozen other cars that I could see) for almost 40 minutes. i'm sure you had a good experience as a rider, but i've had a horrible experience multiple times as a city commuter.
- ericbarrett 3y ago> the worst is when you're stuck in a one way street, and the car just happily stays immobile with blinkers on. I think in a lot of cities a car doing this would end up upside-down on the adjacent sidewalk, self-driving or not.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThis happens where I live without robo taxis: we have a lot of effectively one way residential streets (one way because parking is allowed on both sides, not because the street is really one way). And some delivery truck will just stop on the road, put their blinkers on, and make their deliveries. Sometimes it’s an actual moving truck, you need to reverse out of the street somehow, but if someone is behind you, your stuck.
- moomoo11 3y agoSure at least that was actual commerce or something meaningful happened. Here it was just empty car sitting in the middle for 40 minutes.
- hgsgm 3y agoWhat was it doing? Waiting for a safe chance to turn? After 5 minutes, call the police.
- saulpw 3y agoThe police, hah. What are they going to do, shoot it?
- fwungy 3y agoWhat could possibly go wrong?
- somewhereoutth 3y agoPerhaps this somewhat publicly unsupported rollout will serve to highlight the as yet unsolved problems with self driving in a city environment, and the rest of the world can take note and act accordingly. Unfortunately of course it is the local residents who will have to suffer.
- soligern 3y agoSuffer what? A traffic jam on some day in a major city? That’s a pathetic bar to set for what a city can stomach with what well running autonomous taxis can mean for the future. Massive potential savings in greenhouse emissions, 24/7 on demand and reliable transport, efficient route planning preventing traffic jams, massive reduction in deaths caused by traffic accidents etc.
- flextheruler 3y agoRight tell that to the people who have crashed and been horribly mutilated or killed from unexpected traffic jams or ambulances or fire trucks that can’t get through because of unexpected traffic. It’s not like regular traffic where everyone knows this part of the road is jammed up at this specific time range if the cars are just locking up in random areas.
- fatfingerd 3y agoPeople have been killed for decades by traffic jam negligence. Another freeloader making an entire jam is just pointing out how wrong it is to let dangerous private property have unlimited use of public streets for free.
- whimsicalism 3y agoFwiw I feel much safer as a biker and pedestrian around Waymo cars compared to typical drivers in San Francisco. They always yield in a reasonable way to bikers, they are never suddenly swerving to the right without signaling, etc.
- footy 3y ago
- olliej 3y ago"Cruise blamed cellphone carriers for the problem." "As I understand it, outside lands impacted LTE cell connectivity and ability for RA advisors to route cars." I'm sorry, in what world is stopping in the road an acceptable response to losing cell service? How the f are we expected to trust a company that thinks this is not their fault, and that designing their "self driving" cars around 100% cell service or random(), is "safe"? If you are putting "self driving" software on the road, and it behaves badly, then just like a human driver would be, you are responsible. Until Cruise, Waymo, Tesla, etc are directly, and non-transferrably liable for all "mistakes" made by their "self driving" systems we're just going to get more of this BS.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- altairprime 3y agoCalifornia DMV code 227.02 defines an autonomous vehicle as one that has a remote operator, and 227.38(b)(1) demands a continuously maintained and monitored two-way link from the operating business to the vehicle, even when not being operated. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/adopted-regulatory-text-pdf/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/adopted-regulatory-text-p... I didn't see any language demanding that the vehicle become inoperable in a cellular dead zone, but if their paramount concern is to shield themselves from liability, then having the car disengage is one way to ensure that. For residents of San Francisco that were personally affected by this, consider writing a polite note to the DMV asking them to ensure that this incident is included in this winter's upcoming disengagement reports (227.50) from Cruise, and share your point of views — both on how you expected autonomous vehicles to behave when cellular communication is disrupted, and on whether you think that the existing guidelines are sufficiently clear about that scenario. <autonomousvehicles@dmv.ca.gov>
- olliej 3y ago> I didn't see any language demanding that the vehicle become inoperable in a cellular dead zone, but if their paramount concern is to shield themselves from liability, then having the car disengage is one way to ensure that. If I block a bunch of roads with cars I am violating CVC, at least once per car, and would get fined every time. I'd also possibly get penalties on my license. For example, say I'm driving down the road and start feeling tired. I realize that it's unsafe for me to continue driving. Can I just stop where I am and have a nap and claim I have shielded myself from liability?
- kdmccormick 3y agoThis is a mess, but there's some beautiful irony seeing driverless cars temporarily turn streets into pedestrian-only zones. Are driverless cars the ally that the walkable city movement never knew it needed?!
- malermeister 3y agoTactical urbanism idea: hack these things to block car traffic on purpose
- kdmccormick 3y agoHonestly, I see this happening. Even if the "hack" is as simple as strategically placed traffic cones :)
- nullc 3y agoor a cell phone jammer. :(
- FreshStart 3y agoStrategically placed and activated electric drill
- kup0 3y ago"The CPUC decided to go ahead anyway. One of the three yes votes was cast by Commissioner John Reynolds, who served as head lawyer at Cruise before appointed to the CPUC by Gov. Gavin Newsom."
- gymbeaux 3y agoI’m sure his “yes” vote was in no way influenced by his relationship with Cruise
- Havoc 3y agoThey just stop working properly when the 3/4/5G gets flakey? That seems like a poor setup. If being online is that mission critical then it needs backup connectivity.
- jgavris 3y agoLike a store and forward wifi mesh network? I worked on this in 2008.
- whimsicalism 3y agoNo they can still work but I believe there are regulatory issues at play and if one gets stuck, there cannot be any remote intervention
- o1y32 3y agoIf a car cannot drive without having Internet connectivity, it should not be on the road in the first place. If I don't have Google Maps it can be difficult for me to get to my destination, but I'll never stop in the middle of a road because my phone died. At least I'll pull over at a proper place. Self driving cars should do the same.
- crazygringo 3y agoIt's absolutely clear that emergency personnel need some way of quickly removing stalled robotaxis when the company itself is unable -- losing communications being a perfect example. But how to do it? It's not clear what the ideal solution is, or how to prevent the ability from being used by criminals to seize control of vehicles for nefarious purposes. Are these proposals that have tried to work out all the kinks? What's the status of this?
- lesuorac 3y ago> But how to do it? Uh, how do you remove cars parked in a fire lane? This isn't a novel solution that requires tech disruption to solve.
- MaxikCZ 3y agoIts novel, because before there still was a driver you could appeal to. In occasions where the car was abandoned locked in the middle of the street, I bet the solve time would also be big enough to upset a lot of people, but such things just dont regulary happen. But now there are suddenly plenty of cars that all of sudden block a lane (or street) and you cant talk to noone, honking makes no sense, and when police arrives they dont k ow what to do.
- whimsicalism 3y ago> such things just dont regulary happen. they do in san francisco, see it all the time in mission district
- hacoo 3y agoIt’s not hard, use a tow truck. But getting a tow truck to every incident (especially in the bay area, not know for functional towing services) is the hard part. Since there’s no driver present and the controls are presumably locked, you cant push the car to the side of the road which is what would normally happen with a stalled car.
- 3y ago
- roody15 3y agoWhat is the advantage of robot taxis? I mean seriously just take jobs away from a human and concentrate more wealth in mega corporations ?
- hgsgm 3y agoWhat's the advantage of washing machines?
- o1y32 3y agoIf you just bother to do a Google search or ask chatgpt you'll get a number of very good reasons that I'll not repeat here.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThe same question was asked by the Luddites when their jobs were taken away by automated weaving looms. I doubt the answer is much different this time (yes, it does that, but in the long term that is somehow a good thing)