Live data from Hacker News

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

theverge.com

231–240 of 504 posts

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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1: e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#Origin_of_the_term 2: Roads are also for bicyclists, motorcyclists, and even pedestrians. It's true though that car drivers often think that roads are a car only domain and behave aggressively towards the other mentioned groups

2. No, sidewalks and bike lanes are for pedestrians and bicyclists. Bike lanes are less common than sidewalks so I think it's reasonable to include them on low-speed/highly congested stretches of road, but to assume they should have a full access to, e.g. and interstate or highway is ridiculous and would hinder literally thousands of people.

Sidewalks and bike lanes are not contiguous. Pedestrians and cyclists are not only permitted, but have the right of way, on nearly all roads other than controlled access highways and tunnels, even where sidewalks and bike lanes exist.

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

#232
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily, if you make your intentions clear, e.g. by slowing down and putting your hazards on.

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”

As a teenager, I was pulled over for speeding. I slowed down, used the indicators to signal before changing lanes, then nearly came to a complete stop before realizing I was on the shoulder of a bridge. I suddenly realized that somewhere in driver's ed or a defensive driving course it was strongly suggested that stopping on a bridge is not allowed. I decided to continue pulling forward until a "safe" spot off the bridge.

When the officer arrived at the window, he did question why I didn't stop at the original spot. After explaining, he said he appreciated the thought. I still received the ticket.

Point of the story? Not every LEO is an asshole.

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

#233
post #188
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*A teenager is worried about only about themselves and their immediate happiness

I think you'd be immediately unhappy if you crashed your parents car

In the typical teenager's mind, that would be after, not if

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

#234
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the country, but here teenagers are drilled so much during their L phase and on the cars with a manual transmission, so they are probably the safest drivers on the road.

The teenager's ability to drive safely isn't just a mechanical ability of driving a car or of just being aware of the laws/rules. Safe driving comes from years of experience on being able to decide how long it will take to stop at certain speeds in certain conditions. Being able to recognize their car's brakes are a little soft and might not stop on a dime any more. Being able to recognize that the driver in front of…

Hearsay is that you have to drive more than 100 000 km in diverse conditions with the right mindset in order to become a fluent and experienced driver. With an average mileage, that will take most people around a decade after beginning to drive. Most people never seem to become fluent, experienced drivers, because they lack the practice, or the mindset, or both.

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

#235

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”

de-amped URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/10/arkans... I thought that Google was supposed to stop the AMP project? can't they automatically redirect old AMP URLs to the correct real URL?

clearly, it's not an engrained G service that lots and lots of people depend on, as that's the typical decision Googs waits for before pulling the plug

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

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pers…

Alright but again, the anecdote of "This one time in Arkansas" can't reasonably be used as a justification for stating "All police are bad and out of control all over the country"

I think it is entirely reasonable to push for a (much) higher standard of police accountability. The problem is not that all police are bad and out of control, it's that whenever these incidents occur the leadership and police unions institutionally push back forcefully on accountability. This institutional pushback is what makes this into a systemic problem that needs to be addressed.

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

#237
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hardware failure that puts the vehicle in a semi-functioning, but non-safe condition needs to be investigated, it could be silently lurking in any number of cars.

Investigated, yes. Grounding the whole fleet? Not necessarily. It's a cost-benefit trade-off. We don't ground the whole fleet of human drivers, when one of them crashes their car, because the benefit doesn't outweigh the costs. It's not a given that the answer will change that much for self-driving cars. Especially for extremely rare failure modes.

Humans all have different versions of the 'driving' software installed, there's no way of identifying which ones will misbehave. If Teslas are malfunctioning, we shouldn't ground Chevy Cruise.

We exist on a spectrum of competence. If a type of car has a widespread issue that unexpectedly gets it into a state where a minimally competent non-impaired person can't operate it safely, that type of car should be pulled from the road. However, because humans are so sloppy (0 human drivers should be the ultimate goal), it is generally assumed that most accidents are caused by us, and so we require a significant accumulation of evidence to take a type of car off the road. Without a human in the loop, what's the unreliable part to point the finger at?

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

#238

Being used to riding motorcycles in the US, why are headlights not always on for all vehicles at this point? LED bulbs last a very long time and there is little reason to not have them on during the day. I know, it’s much more fun to anthropomorphize the car in this case, but the simple solution is to just hard wire them.

It's been required to do so in some northern European countries. The practical reason there is that dawn and dusk can take many hours during much of the year at higher latitudes thus creating a weird situation where it's not really clear when exactly you should have the lights on or off in exactly the kind of situation where a lot of accidents can happen if you don't have them on.

The simple rule of "always have your lights on" fixes that and it slightly improves visibility even in broad daylight. The only downside would be the increased power usage and the light bulb wearing out sooner. A minor issue a few decades ago when this became normal and a very minor one now that we have LEDs that last a long time without using a lot of power.

My rental bike (a Swapfiets) has the LEDs permanently on; there is no off switch. If you ride it, the lights are on. That's indeed how it should be. I can't think of any good reason to voluntarily reduce my visibility while cycling through potentially lethal traffic.

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

#239
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the country, but here teenagers are drilled so much during their L phase and on the cars with a manual transmission, so they are probably the safest drivers on the road.

The teenager's ability to drive safely isn't just a mechanical ability of driving a car or of just being aware of the laws/rules. Safe driving comes from years of experience on being able to decide how long it will take to stop at certain speeds in certain conditions. Being able to recognize their car's brakes are a little soft and might not stop on a dime any more. Being able to recognize that the driver in front of…

experience vs book learning

Why would you assume that a driver's education is a matter of book learning? Is that how you were taught?

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt your experience but let's not pretend that there haven't been any changes in the past 2 decades.

What makes you so sure? Even if there's data showing improvement, this would be data from a supremely untrustworthy source with a long history of manipulation and deception.

I mean you're making an argument that does nothing to facilitate discussion on the issue. It's basically saying "No it hasn't changed. And if you have evidence or data showing otherwise, it can't be trusted." At the point you refute any provided data or evidence the conversation just devolves into an argument instead of a debate or conversation.
Post reply on HN