Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 446 posts

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#131

Post by kijin »

Robotbeat wrote: post #81
rosndo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is there's no designated place to park them. We have designated parking spots for rideshare scooters in London.

This is a good idea. Innovation sometimes requires some additional provision of public goods. Seems like a good way to solve the problem!

Designated parking spaces are a good idea, but they should be paid for by companies that make a profit by renting out scooters. Not taxpayers.

Public funding might be justified if the majority of scooters were owned by individual citizens with the right to vote on city affairs. Most rideshare companies, on the other hand, will simply siphon off public subsidies as additional profit to be taxed (or not) somewhere else.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#132

Post by ThunderSizzle »

avereveard wrote: post #80
thepasswordis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually when I see this, I just knock the things over and push them out of the way. So you make the problem worse ? Why don’t you take 2 minutes and push them to the side of the sidewalk if you care so much about ADA access? You can fix the problem you are encountering, and the people you want to protect CANT. You are choosing to make the problem worse for them? Why? I live in a major downtown full of these scooter…

No lol, it's the other people responsibility not to be a nuisance. But I agree throwing them aside is not the optimal solution. Municipality looking for money could get some large cash influx from ticketing improperly parked scooters, the owning company can decide to eat the loss or flip the ticket on the user, either way people will get educated fast. It would only take for the law enforcement to enforce rules that…

A fine doesn't help the person actually "inconvenienced" by the scooter(s). It just gives the city more money.

Seems like the company might eat the fine, the city will take the money, and the problem persists, but now the city is happy too.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#133

Post by CalRobert »

pengaru wrote: post #109
josephcsible wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, let's make innocent people crash their cars! That'll teach the people who left the scooters there a lesson!

> Yes, let's make innocent people crash their cars! That'll teach the people who left the scooters there a lesson! The cars are insured, the insurance companies will pursue the owners of the scooters. It's the negative feedback required to compel scooter companies to operate more responsibly.

I'm here for this 100% because cars destroy cities and lives except that this could kill motorcycle riders or cyclists. If you ride any debris in the road can be deadly.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#135

Post by reaperducer »

bourgoin wrote: post #69

A couple of years ago, I was attacked by a Kiwi bot near a UC campus. This is my story. The bot and I were moving towards each other on a sidewalk, and when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them. But there was an awkward moment as I tried to go around it and it repeatedly jerked forward an inch as its motor kicked on and off. Maybe I was walking around the very edge of its radius…

when I came close it stopped, as they do when sensing an object in front of them

The security robots at one of the big skyscrapers down the street from me do not stop for people. My wife got knocked into by one when we were standing in the plaza looking up something on her phone. (They're not little delivery robots. They're about five feet tall.)

Good thing she was confused by what happened, because she's also the type who would have knocked the robot over and asked me to shove it into traffic if she had her wits about her.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#136

Post by zenithd »

josephcsible wrote: post #120
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the gp make the problem worse? Instead of gently moving them over to the side of the sidewalk, they toss it to the side of the sidewalk. End result is the same, they’re out of the way… Just a bit more rage maybe in the process.

By knocking them over, they're now wide enough to be in the way even on the side.

GP said “and out of the way”.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#137

Post by JadoJodo »

nkrisc wrote: post #128
duxup wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the we're all sympathetic to the idea that one person's carelessness creates an impossible problem for someone else. >Don't donate free labor to corporations. That's absurd, someone takes two seconds to move an object so someone else can get their food on time. That's just being a good human rather that sweating about "free labor to corporations" first.

In the moment, perhaps it is the right thing to do after all. I won't argue that. But if corporations are allowed to externalize the costs of their service failures onto the goodwill of the public, that's a dark path to go down. But your point about it taking two seconds to help someone get their food is correct, but it's also why they'll be able to get away with it.

> if corporations are allowed to externalize the costs of their service failures onto the goodwill of the public

I would agree if the problem was the robot standing still, shouting, “I'm lost; Will somebody, please take me to {address}?!” In this case, the issue is people who leave junk in the middle of the road. The same scenario could occur where someone tosses a plastic bag out of their window, and it becomes trapped in the robot's wheels.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#138

Post by avereveard »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #132
avereveard wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No lol, it's the other people responsibility not to be a nuisance. But I agree throwing them aside is not the optimal solution. Municipality looking for money could get some large cash influx from ticketing improperly parked scooters, the owning company can decide to eat the loss or flip the ticket on the user, either way people will get educated fast. It would only take for the law enforcement to enforce rules that…

A fine doesn't help the person actually "inconvenienced" by the scooter(s). It just gives the city more money. Seems like the company might eat the fine, the city will take the money, and the problem persists, but now the city is happy too.

> A fine doesn't help the person actually "inconvenienced" by the scooter(s). It just gives the city more money.

not immediately, (albeit towing would). but would solve the problem in the long run, which will eventualy help the person be inconvenienced less.

Re: Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

#140

Post by reaperducer »

_fullpint wrote: post #13

Absolutely hate these scooters from an ADA prospective. My neighborhood is a mostly quiet one near the center of a large city, where there are a lot of mothers who push their kids in strollers, older folks with canes, and some people even in wheelchairs. On the weekends -- sometimes the weekdays as well depending on the time of the year -- the city gets flooded with both tourists, and suburbanites who want to go to a…

I just knock the things over and push them out of the way.

Start "putting them away" for the careless people. In dumpsters. Pretty soon the scooter companies will figure out a solution.

Post reply on HN