5 ms·

Injured person reportedly dies after Cruise cars block first responders

43 points by ummonk 3y ago

ummonk 3y ago
Note that one of the first responders blamed the blockage for delaying care and potentially contributing to the death: 'Collectively, these interferences “contributed to a poor patient outcome, delaying the definitive care required in severe trauma cases,” according to one of the reports.'
senttoschool 3y ago
[flagged]
- mangamadaiyan 3y ago
  Citation needed.
- r053bud 3y ago
  Yeah how many have they saved to date? It’s a valid point and I’d love to know the answer now that we know self-driving vehicles are responsible for >= 1 person’s death
  - anonym29 3y ago
    I don't know how you'd even measure the numbers of deaths that would've resulted from accidents that didn't happen because an autonomous car avoided it in a situation where an inattentive, reckless, or unskilled human driver wouldn't have... especially without an otherwise identical control environment. Or even situations where partial self-driving (such as Tesla's system) reduced driver fatigue that would've later contributed to a more exhausted driver causing an accident. I'm the furthest thing from a Tesla fanboy, but I did try one for a while in order to have a more unbiased view and I will say that "autopilot" subjectively reduced my stress and fatigue during and after 5 mph bumper to bumper traffic jams and left me feeling more attentive afterwards compared to those same types of traffic conditions in cars being operated 100% by me.
    - rgmerk 3y ago
      One of the problems with trying to do this with fatalities is that fatalities are actually pretty rare per passenger/mile. Consequently, the amount of testing required to prove that the fatality rate of autonomous vehicles is lower than human-driven one’s is astronomical. Non-fatal accidents are more common but the statistics are far more rubbery.
      - taeric 3y ago
        I'd assume that a large part of the data that makes up the "mile" portion of the passenger per mile is large trips. So, look at traffic deaths in some dense cities and you will probably find much larger numbers than you'd expect. As a quick check of this idea, looking at "vehicle passenger deaths atlanta" in a search gives numbers around 100 for many years. (And Atlanta isn't that dense, all told.)
    - ummonk 3y ago
      Being able to handle 5 mph bumper to bumper traffic jams is hardly a Tesla-specific feature. It's quickly becoming a standard feature in cars, and such driver assistance features are rather independent from the conversation about full self-driving (whether via Cruise cars or Tesla FSD).
    - taeric 3y ago
      In normal circumstances, this would be easy. Just look at the base rate of deaths and see how the needle moved after these were introduced. This is how we know, for example, that automatic emergency brakes are saving lives. Unfortunately, the pandemic through normal out the window. :( Probably still possible to find some natural experiments where you can control some variables. My gut would be that their are some comparable cities that differ mainly in whether they have these cars. That said, it will be a lot harder, as the impact of the pandemic was pretty massive.
roenxi 3y ago
This article does not have enough information about the base rate. It is impossible to assess this situation without knowing how often do human drivers get in the way of emergency service vehicles.
- Teever 3y ago
  Are you going to care about some base rate when it's your loved one dying?
  - taeric 3y ago
    If the new rate is better than the old base rate, the point is that we could be making progress?
  - CaptainNegative 3y ago
    Yes? Please don't make us pull out the model trolley set again.
    - ozfive 3y ago
      Username checks out.
  - RheingoldRiver 3y ago
    well...yes? For example: wouldn't you be more upset if a collision was caused by a drunk driver than by a driver who was paying attention? That's because drunk drivers are known to be dangerous and should not be operating. If self-driving vehicles overall increase safety, then I am not as upset as I am if they are known to overall decrease safety, because the fact of their presence being just or unjust is pertinent to the case.
    - afiori 3y ago
      It depends on whose safety is increased and decreased. Car infrastructure is notorious for focusing on the safety of drivers rather than pedestrians. If self-driving cars increase safety for drivers and are worse for everybody else I am not sure it is a good trade-off. In this regard we can adapt the saying about electric cars to self-driving cars: they are here to save the car industry not you.
jimbob45 3y ago
Cruise is a self-driving service for anyone who didn’t know trying to figure out why police cruisers were blocking an ambulance like me.
justin66 3y ago
I hope Mayor Breed and the San Francisco DA hold the family of the deceased pedestrian accountable for their loved one's actions, and for any damage this negative publicity does to the reputation of Cruise self-driving cars.
- sharts 3y ago
  Indeed. It is the only rational and moral thing to do.
sigmar 3y ago
>4. SFFD members had to locate an SFPD officer and request him to move his vehicle to allow successful egress from the scene, but doing so further delayed patient care. Sorry, a human driver fatally hit a pedestrian, then a SFPD car was blocking the ambulance from leaving with the injured person? and we're going to make this story about the dangers of Cruise cars? I'm all for complaining if the cruise car did something wrong, but vehicles get disabled in the road all the time for various reasons.
- flutas 3y ago
  > Two autonomous Cruise vehicles and an empty San Francisco police vehicle were blocking the only exits from the scene, (...), forcing the ambulance to wait while first responders attempted to manually move the Cruise vehicles or locate an officer who could move the police car. aka the SFPD car was probably there, and cruise cars stalled, blocking the exit so they had to find someone to move one of the 3 cars, 2 being cruise.
- f5e4 3y ago
  I don't think that SFPD should need to anticipate in their emergency response that 2 lanes would be blocked by 2 different Cruise vehicles. Do you also take issue with the Fire Department blocking 2 lanes to shield the patients from oncoming traffic? The deflection is just weird to me. Can we only discuss issues with self-driving cars once they've replaced human drivers fully?
lamontcg 3y ago
[flagged]
onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
flandish 3y ago
As a first responder (fire) - this is odd to me. Pushing a veh is completely appropriate. Especially if its empty. Stalled. Etc. Done it many times. Can be done by hand or the 30ton truck..
- natch 3y ago
  Thank you, exactly. This was all that needed to be said and the story is incongruous without some reckoning of this.
readonthegoapp 3y ago
Cars should be banned. Robot cars, too.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

43 points by ummonk 3y ago

Note that one of the first responders blamed the blockage for delaying care and potentially contributing to the death: 'Collectively, these interferences “contributed to a poor patient outcome, delaying the definitive care required in severe trauma cases,” according to one of the reports.'

senttoschool 3y ago

[flagged]

mangamadaiyan 3y ago
Citation needed.
r053bud 3y ago
Yeah how many have they saved to date? It’s a valid point and I’d love to know the answer now that we know self-driving vehicles are responsible for >= 1 person’s death
- anonym29 3y ago
  I don't know how you'd even measure the numbers of deaths that would've resulted from accidents that didn't happen because an autonomous car avoided it in a situation where an inattentive, reckless, or unskilled human driver wouldn't have... especially without an otherwise identical control environment. Or even situations where partial self-driving (such as Tesla's system) reduced driver fatigue that would've later contributed to a more exhausted driver causing an accident. I'm the furthest thing from a Tesla fanboy, but I did try one for a while in order to have a more unbiased view and I will say that "autopilot" subjectively reduced my stress and fatigue during and after 5 mph bumper to bumper traffic jams and left me feeling more attentive afterwards compared to those same types of traffic conditions in cars being operated 100% by me.
  - rgmerk 3y ago
    One of the problems with trying to do this with fatalities is that fatalities are actually pretty rare per passenger/mile. Consequently, the amount of testing required to prove that the fatality rate of autonomous vehicles is lower than human-driven one’s is astronomical. Non-fatal accidents are more common but the statistics are far more rubbery.
    - taeric 3y ago
      I'd assume that a large part of the data that makes up the "mile" portion of the passenger per mile is large trips. So, look at traffic deaths in some dense cities and you will probably find much larger numbers than you'd expect. As a quick check of this idea, looking at "vehicle passenger deaths atlanta" in a search gives numbers around 100 for many years. (And Atlanta isn't that dense, all told.)
  - ummonk 3y ago
    Being able to handle 5 mph bumper to bumper traffic jams is hardly a Tesla-specific feature. It's quickly becoming a standard feature in cars, and such driver assistance features are rather independent from the conversation about full self-driving (whether via Cruise cars or Tesla FSD).
  - taeric 3y ago
    In normal circumstances, this would be easy. Just look at the base rate of deaths and see how the needle moved after these were introduced. This is how we know, for example, that automatic emergency brakes are saving lives. Unfortunately, the pandemic through normal out the window. :( Probably still possible to find some natural experiments where you can control some variables. My gut would be that their are some comparable cities that differ mainly in whether they have these cars. That said, it will be a lot harder, as the impact of the pandemic was pretty massive.

roenxi 3y ago

This article does not have enough information about the base rate. It is impossible to assess this situation without knowing how often do human drivers get in the way of emergency service vehicles.

Teever 3y ago
Are you going to care about some base rate when it's your loved one dying?
- taeric 3y ago
  If the new rate is better than the old base rate, the point is that we could be making progress?
- CaptainNegative 3y ago
  Yes? Please don't make us pull out the model trolley set again.
  - ozfive 3y ago
    Username checks out.
- RheingoldRiver 3y ago
  well...yes? For example: wouldn't you be more upset if a collision was caused by a drunk driver than by a driver who was paying attention? That's because drunk drivers are known to be dangerous and should not be operating. If self-driving vehicles overall increase safety, then I am not as upset as I am if they are known to overall decrease safety, because the fact of their presence being just or unjust is pertinent to the case.
  - afiori 3y ago
    It depends on whose safety is increased and decreased. Car infrastructure is notorious for focusing on the safety of drivers rather than pedestrians. If self-driving cars increase safety for drivers and are worse for everybody else I am not sure it is a good trade-off. In this regard we can adapt the saying about electric cars to self-driving cars: they are here to save the car industry not you.

jimbob45 3y ago

Cruise is a self-driving service for anyone who didn’t know trying to figure out why police cruisers were blocking an ambulance like me.

justin66 3y ago

I hope Mayor Breed and the San Francisco DA hold the family of the deceased pedestrian accountable for their loved one's actions, and for any damage this negative publicity does to the reputation of Cruise self-driving cars.

sharts 3y ago
Indeed. It is the only rational and moral thing to do.

sigmar 3y ago

>4. SFFD members had to locate an SFPD officer and request him to move his vehicle to allow successful egress from the scene, but doing so further delayed patient care. Sorry, a human driver fatally hit a pedestrian, then a SFPD car was blocking the ambulance from leaving with the injured person? and we're going to make this story about the dangers of Cruise cars? I'm all for complaining if the cruise car did something wrong, but vehicles get disabled in the road all the time for various reasons.

flutas 3y ago
> Two autonomous Cruise vehicles and an empty San Francisco police vehicle were blocking the only exits from the scene, (...), forcing the ambulance to wait while first responders attempted to manually move the Cruise vehicles or locate an officer who could move the police car. aka the SFPD car was probably there, and cruise cars stalled, blocking the exit so they had to find someone to move one of the 3 cars, 2 being cruise.
f5e4 3y ago
I don't think that SFPD should need to anticipate in their emergency response that 2 lanes would be blocked by 2 different Cruise vehicles. Do you also take issue with the Fire Department blocking 2 lanes to shield the patients from oncoming traffic? The deflection is just weird to me. Can we only discuss issues with self-driving cars once they've replaced human drivers fully?

lamontcg 3y ago

[flagged]

onetokeoverthe 3y ago

[dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

flandish 3y ago

As a first responder (fire) - this is odd to me. Pushing a veh is completely appropriate. Especially if its empty. Stalled. Etc. Done it many times. Can be done by hand or the 30ton truck..

natch 3y ago
Thank you, exactly. This was all that needed to be said and the story is incongruous without some reckoning of this.

readonthegoapp 3y ago

Cars should be banned. Robot cars, too.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]