Live data from Hacker News

Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

techcrunch.com

41–50 of 249 posts

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#41
post #8

Uber is a company built on ignoring laws. Everything they did in the beginning was against some form of taxi or car hire regulation, in the name of disruption. (Regardless of what you think of the laws in question, they were still being broken in the eyes of most regulators) I don't know how I feel about that type of corporate philosophy (or Facebook's "move fast break things") in light of projects where people can a…

Uber exemplifies the libertarian / anarchist subculture in tech. It seems to be a winning strategy for them so far. Edit: to clarify my position. This is why software will never be regarded as an engineering profession. There is a complete disregard for everything that would make us a profession. I'm saddened with the way the world has gone in 2016. It's like we rebelled against adulthood on a global scale.

It's not 100% clear from the article that the permit applied to Uber. And the incident in question of a car running a red light was apparently being driven by a human.

> "This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate."

If their self-driving tech is still driver-assisted, then shouldn't Tesla cars also be ordered to stop driving? Or did Tesla also require a permit?

From the DMV legislation:

> (a) “Autonomous mode” means an autonomous vehicle, as defined by this article, that is operated or driven without active physical control by a natural person sitting in the vehicle’s driver’s seat. An autonomous vehicle is operating or driving in autonomous mode when it is operated or driven with the autonomous technology engaged.

To me that sounds like it would cover what Tesla and Uber is doing if the driver is entirely hands-off. But this part is less clear:

> (b)(d) “Autonomous vehicle” means any vehicle equipped with technology that has the capability of operating or driving the vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person, whether or not the technology is engaged, excluding vehicles equipped with one or more systems that enhance safety or provide driver assistance but are not capable of driving or operating the vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/211897ae-c58a-4f28...

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#42
post #34

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right? If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over. edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?

[deleted]

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#43
post #8

Uber is a company built on ignoring laws. Everything they did in the beginning was against some form of taxi or car hire regulation, in the name of disruption. (Regardless of what you think of the laws in question, they were still being broken in the eyes of most regulators) I don't know how I feel about that type of corporate philosophy (or Facebook's "move fast break things") in light of projects where people can a…

Uber exemplifies the libertarian / anarchist subculture in tech. It seems to be a winning strategy for them so far. Edit: to clarify my position. This is why software will never be regarded as an engineering profession. There is a complete disregard for everything that would make us a profession. I'm saddened with the way the world has gone in 2016. It's like we rebelled against adulthood on a global scale.

I don't think Uber exemplifies any sort of anarchist culture except perhaps anarchocapitalism which is an instance of the red herring principle [1].

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/red+herring+principle

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#45
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it learned a bit too much from San Francisco drivers?

If it uses Uber drivers for training, heaven help us: I’ve seen illegal U-turns, constant double parking, reversing down 1-way streets, moving right turns through red lights, sudden stops, speeding 25+ mph over the legal limit, lane changes in intersections, lots of turning without signals, lack of proper yielding to obvious pedestrians, cyclists nearly side-swiped, etc. (Some subset of) Uber drivers are one of the w…

Curious, have you reported those things to uber/given appropriately bad ratings? (Uber always claims the rating system should filter unsafe actors out quickly)

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#46
post #34

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right? If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over. edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?

The video, published by the San Francisco Examiner, was captured by a dashcam mounted inside a vehicle operated by Luxor Cab, one of SF’s licensed cab companies.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

The car certainly should know how to respond to police lights/sirens. I was reading Google's monthly reports on their cars and they were talking about adding a pull over response to their system.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#47

I really hope California isn't overreacting, possibly due to industry pressure from taxis etc. The state should be doing all it can to support, grow, and encourage this innovation.

> The state should be doing all it can to support, grow, and encourage this innovation.

Obviously California does a good job at this. The innovative machine that is Silicon Valley has been impossible to replicate anywhere else on Earth, nothing else even comes close.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#48
post #8

Uber is a company built on ignoring laws. Everything they did in the beginning was against some form of taxi or car hire regulation, in the name of disruption. (Regardless of what you think of the laws in question, they were still being broken in the eyes of most regulators) I don't know how I feel about that type of corporate philosophy (or Facebook's "move fast break things") in light of projects where people can a…

Uber exemplifies the libertarian / anarchist subculture in tech. It seems to be a winning strategy for them so far. Edit: to clarify my position. This is why software will never be regarded as an engineering profession. There is a complete disregard for everything that would make us a profession. I'm saddened with the way the world has gone in 2016. It's like we rebelled against adulthood on a global scale.

And for us! Uber pool lowers prices, surge pricing increases availability. Uber would not let passengers ride in an autonomous deathtrap -- the negative publicity would be disastrous to their goals. If this is our libertarian dystopia, I welcome it with open arms.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#50
post #22

Uber just doesn't get the whole concept of regulations do they? I understand violating ones that are "dumb" and hurt your business (e.g. taxi medallions) or those that it's easier to just do it and figure out hte results later (e.g. insurance) but this is literally "get the permit first". They should process this nice and sloooooooooooow.

> Uber just doesn't get the whole concept of regulations do they?

I think you don't get the whole concept of free market capitalism behind Uber - any regulation they can't simply ignore if they choose to hurts their business by definition.

Post reply on HN