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Difficult situation on campus: traffic jam of food delivery robots

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

#301

Post by annoyingnoob »

jimmaswell wrote: post #260
annoyingnoob wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should scooter companies and robots be allowed to be rude to humans? We live in civil society and electronic things made by companies have no more right to the sidewalk than anyone else. Is it an 'anti-techbro luddite mindset' or are unattended electronic devices being bad citizens? I would treat any other jerk on the street the same way.

Maybe we need bigger sidewalks. This is historically how progress always happens, companies come up with something people want to take advantage of in the public space, then after the dust settles we accommodate it in an efficient way, like how NYC was a jungle of overhead wires for some time. The solution wasn't to ban electricity and telephones, it was to accommodate the need by investing in underground infrastruct…

Right, we need to share the space and not just take it over with electronics. Respect is a two-way street. I did not call for banning anything, I called for scooters and robots to be good citizens.

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

#302

Post by fishtacos »

vorpalhex wrote: post #210
fishtacos wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likewise, not a fan of folks who dismiss others' predicaments via injecting their own misunderstanding into an argument they neither understand, nor engage in earnestly. Clearing the sidewalk is being nice. Clearing the sidewalk to help multibillion dollar companies so they cause less of a mess while pushing millions of others out of work is not. Spare me your judgement.

I agree, you should never assist a pizza delivery driver. After all, Dominos makes billions of dollars, they can afford their own pizza-delivery assistance staff. Maybe we can even make the case you should slow down delivery drivers! Pull in front of them and go quite slow, or block their bike path.

A weird example of false equivalency, as no one would in their right mind compare helping a human being doing their job with helping a robot assist in increasing profit margins for .

Jebus...

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

#303

Post by jonnycomputer »

burlesona wrote: post #123
_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…

You should stop seeing scooters as the enemy. Scooter companies represent a lot of money that wants more space for pedestrians, bikes, and of course scooters in the city. They are a potential massive ally with deep pockets to push back against the car lobby. The battle here is not to fight over who has the right to be on the 10% of the street we call the sidewalk, it’s to take back some of the 90% of the street that’…

Tell me that when I trip over them in the dark, or when they're buried under a foot of snow.

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

#304

Post by chasd00 »

thepasswordis wrote: post #55
_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…

> 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…

In Dallas everyone started loading them up in trucks and throwing them into the lake. The city quickly banned them.

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

#305

Post by bluGill »

mywittyname wrote: post #288
bluGill wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. This seems like a public space so almost certainly. However if this was private space sometimes the rules are different. Once in a while I have to go into our factory (not even once a year, but sometimes), and they always make it clear that forklifts have the right away so watch out. (forklifts have poor visibility, so by giving them the right of way they ensure nobody expects them to stop - in practice a f…

I don't think this shields the company from liability. Instead it provides some ammunition to use in the event of a lawsuit. Things are very different between employees and the general public. I imagine a jury would find that a lady-busting security robot is negligent by default. Whereas, a fork lift driver would be assumed to be doing his job and that situational negligence would need to be proven.

Note that my company does a lot of mandatory training before you are allowed to enter the manufacturing areas. Forklift safety is only a part of it (though a large part as everything else is common sense says you wouldn't do this while forklifts don't follow common sense rules)

I agree if this is a public place a jury would and should find the robots at fault. (unless the robots are running some sort of arrest her routine, or knocking her over because a bad fall is still better than some other danger)

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

#307

Post by dheera »

slickdork wrote: post #289
dheera wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they set up the scooter system such that if you parked the previous scooter incorrectly, the next scooter you rent squirts water on your pants? It's not technologically that difficult. Or put little fisheye cameras on every scooter and if you park it incorrectly every scooter you walk past for the next 24 hours uses face recognition and blasts insults at you unless you go back and re-park it correctly.

I've often wondered why scooter companies don't keep metrics on their users, and punish the ones who use their product poorly (donuts, bad parking, use on sidewalks, etc) and came to the conclusion that these antisocial users are very likely the scooter companies largest consumer base. The scooter companies are likely incentivized to not regulate.

They spell their own death if they piss off the city though. So they are incentivized to not piss off the city and kick out the users that contribute to that.

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

#308

Post by jaclaz »

pjerem wrote: post #57
gfd wrote: post #14

I didn't realize we had food delivery bots already...

Same. That for sure fixes a huge problem of humankind. When I was young, we had to walk hundreds of meters to eat a pizza.

>When I was young, we had to walk hundreds of meters to eat a pizza.

But - to be fair - your nowadays almost unbelievable athletic feat was compensated by being able to eat a hot pizza just out of the oven.

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

#309

Post by bluGill »

outworlder wrote: post #292
KennyBlanken wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? There are numerous clips where Telsas in "full self driving" mode pull the equivalent maneuver of a teenager going "OH SHIT I WANT TO GO THERE" and veering very violently. The phantom braking problem is likely just one of the many symptoms of Musk's insistence on relying on optical systems instead of more expensive sensors.

> The phantom braking problem is likely just one of the many symptoms of Musk's insistence on relying on optical systems instead of more expensive sensors. Based on what? How would 'expensive' sensors help?

We know that in some situations expensive sensors can get data that optical cannot. What we don't know is if any of the above is enough extra data.

What we do know is there are times when humans are bad drivers, and other times when humans continue when they shouldn't relying on luck. (Ie driving in snow storms with low visibility)

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

#310

Post by rtlfe »

mywittyname wrote: post #295
rtlfe wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be glad to not see scooters as the enemy if they weren't so dangerous for everyone involved. There's absolutely no comparison between the dangers of scooters and cars. Every person who decides to use a scooter instead of driving or taking a taxi is having a huge positive effect on safety.

The thing is, cars operate on roads, while pedestrians operate, largely, on sidewalks. Roads have lights and signals to help mediate situations where pedestrians and cars need to use the same stretch of road. Pedestrians only really need to worry about cars at crosswalks, and even then, the most dangerous situations are cars making left turns (who can't see the cross walk in use). Scooters are vehicles and should ope…

> cars operate on roads, while pedestrians operate, largely, on sidewalks.

In theory yes, but in practice most cities do a terrible job of separating cars and pedestrians. Here in NYC a pedestrian dies in a crosswalk almost every day, and on a sidewalk much more often than you'd hope. Here's one from last week: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/02/10/breaking-careless-suv...

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