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San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

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Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#131

Post by sseagull »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #113
sseagull wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, most of the time. If the cop feels like it, they can make you have a very bad time. https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/7645474002 “An Arkansas woman says she had no safe place to pull over in July 2020 when a state trooper tried to stop her for speeding, so she turned on her hazard lights and slowed down. Moments later, the officer rammed her vehicle, causing it to flip over and injuring the woman”

Remove "most of the time". This narrative that police are boogeymen who will subject you to their emotional whims is so overplayed its not even funny any more. There may be 1 in 100 truly awful police men and women out there, just as their are truly awful people in every known profession. People share a viral, highly edited video on tiktok to make themselves look like the victim only for the entire world to pile on a…

I generally am in agreement. However there's a complication in my mind.

My dad was a police officer and I grew up around police. It's there's one thing to know about police, it is that they are human, and subject to all the emotions, inconsistencies, and foibles as other humans.

However, they are given an extraordinary amount of power, with very little accountability. Think about what it would take for a regular person (maybe even you) to lose their job. Yet here is an example of an officer, behaving very aggressively, against department policy, causing a major accident and injuring a pregnant woman.

As far as I can tell, he still has his job (although he was "disciplined", and the lawsuit was picked up by the taxpayers).

https://apnews.com/article/lawsuits-arkansas-legal-settlemen...

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#132

Post by firstcommentyo »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #106
MereInterest wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People did say exactly the same for regular cars. The result was a massive advertising campaign to establish the concept of jaywalking, and to make the street the sole domain of the car. I can easily imagine a similar campaign to label pedestrians as irresponsible for walking outside without an ultrasonic emitter, or a lidar reflector, or whatever integrates with the self-driving system. Whatever shifts the responsib…

You say "advertising campaign" as if it were some conspiracy by the world's big auto manufacturers 1. Do you have any sources? 2. You don't think that roads should be a car only domain? What do you think roads are for?

> 2. You don't think that roads should be a car only domain? What do you think roads are for?

For example for my messanger on my horse so he doesn't get stuck in the mutt on it's voyage to the next city. ... or maybe my zenturie to support my legion?

What makes you think (or suggest) that roads where invented for cars?

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#133

Post by boondaburrah »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #76
boondaburrah wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already can. Police will simply crash your car if they feel like it by using their car.

That only happens when your running from them. Imagine if we give the DNC a kill switch to every car in America. Place it under as a tax penalty, and you'd have to wait until their audit finished in your favor for them to consider turning your car back on.

It's supposed to only happen when you're running from them (though I think it shouldn't happen then either), but the reality is they will do it if they feel like it. The only thing stopping them is physics. Police are generally not held accountable.

Either that or I could argue we already have a killswitch like that - suspending your license - if I also go along with the idea that the cop won't flip your car when you're not running from them because that's also illegal.

So either we have a world where the system works or where it doesn't, but unfortunately we have both.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#134

Post by jeffbee »

surgi wrote: post #15

I find the explanation offered by Cruise amusing: the car supposedly "figured out" that it is in a dangerous spot to be pulled over and "tried to move to a better one" (extremely complex behavior), while the actual reason for the car being pulled over was not having its headlights on (seemingly a relatively simple bug).

Perhaps the lights are not even inside the loop of the Cruise hardware and software. They may rely on the automatic lights that GM provides from the factory. Do they even have visible light optical cameras in their system?

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#135

Post by snovv_crash »

logifail wrote: post #125
hakuseki wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound silly at first, but I think suspending the one car is actually a rather elegant solution on several counts. 1. Easy to implement 2. Doesn't punish fleet scale (compare: suspending the whole fleet means a fleet that's twice as large would be suspended twice as often) 3. Punishes the fleet owner in proportion to the frequency of the error 4. Is exactly correct when the cause is really a hardware problem s…

> suspending the one car is actually a rather elegant solution If the software in a commercial aircraft were to be found defective, would we really be OK if only the individual aircraft in which the fault manifested itself gets grounded (assuming that aircraft isn't itself already on the ground in thousands of pieces spread all over a hillside...) Surely the FAA (or international equivalents) would issue an airworthi…

It depends. If it's an issue with just that vehicle then yes, you don't ground the whole fleet.

If it's non-safety-critical, then it needs to be fixed asap but nothing gets grounded.

If it's safety critical, then yes, all planes are grounded.

But, I'd argue FAA levels of safety aren't suitable for cars. If a car has an engine failure or even a structural failure, they can usually just stop. Planes don't have that option.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#136

Post by yc-kraln »

snovv_crash wrote: post #130
wyldfire wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside: I'm happy to see that teenage drivers today have a lot more required training than I did when I got my license. At least in this US state, and likely most of them. I'm also really happy about the continued advances in auto safety technology.

US driving test standards are still a joke compared to overseas.

There is no such thing as "US" driving test standards. Each state has its own requirements. Some are quite weak, and some are very vigorous: For instance, Maryland driving licenses are accepted 1:1 as equivalent to the German driving license, you can exchange them without an exam or test. NY and CA... do not simply transfer.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#137

Post by ISL »

xadhominemx wrote: post #101
jwr wrote: post #72

I am really worried by the fact that I am the unwilling tester in the Great Driverless Car Experiment. Tradition has it that when you load-test a new bridge, you put the architect underneath. I feel like this, except I didn't design those driverless cars, somebody else did. Being an experienced software engineer, my trust in the software in these cars is pretty low. And yet they are testing them on me, because I can…

We are all unwilling testers of every new teenage driver who hits the road.

And every drunk/elderly driver -- the car's decision to move after a traffic-stop felt very much the behavior of someone with impaired cognition.

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#138

Post by bo1024 »

gtirloni wrote: post #14

Imagine if every failure in a traditional car became news.

It’s the first real autonomous testbed, and the same software presumably drives all their cars (up to A/B tests). Unlike in traditional hardware, the cause of these errors is very opaque and difficult to understand (at least for us and possibly the company as well). That makes it plausible that equally dangerous and simple errors still exist.

Imagine if a traditional company had just released a new car model and someone was driving it and the front right wheel just fell off the car. It would be news because it indicates that something very basic was misunderstood by the designers and engineers. You probably wouldn’t want to get in such a car. Now imagine the general reaction is “cars are complex systems, the other three wheels actually did quite well, we fully expect to update the design to keep the front right wheel on in the future.”

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#139

Post by MisterTea »

coldcode wrote: post #115

So what would happen if the passenger is arrested by the police for being in a car that refused to stop? I wonder what legal principle could be used to justify this. Involuntary failure to stop? Are there any laws about driverless vehicles and who is responsible for problems?

Why would they arrest the passenger?

Re: San Francisco cops pull over a Cruise driverless car for no lights on

#140

Post by MathCodeLove »

marcellus23 wrote: post #119
MathCodeLove wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remove "most of the time". This narrative that police are boogeymen who will subject you to their emotional whims is so overplayed its not even funny any more. There may be 1 in 100 truly awful police men and women out there, just as their are truly awful people in every known profession. People share a viral, highly edited video on tiktok to make themselves look like the victim only for the entire world to pile on a…

I suggest watching some videos of how police behaved during the protests a couple years ago. The Verge had an excellent compilation. It’s hardly one or two bad actors. My personal favorite was the police pulling parents out of a vehicle and beating them while their children watched — the car was just trying to turn around and get out of the protest area safely. Your argument might be more valid if these “bad apples”…

I've seen plenty of those videos, and 9 times out of 10 if you're able to find the whole, unedited version of the video the officers actions suddenly seems much more reasonable. Not always, admittedly, but very often.
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