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An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

wired.com

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Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#51

Post by docfort »

user3939382 wrote: post #22

It’s funny reading “autonomous car” and “self-driving car”. We can be certain that will eventually sound as silly as the old name for cars “horseless carriage”.

I don’t know. “Car” is short for carriage. Arguably, horse-drawn carriages had certain levels of autonomy. An “automobile” focuses on the automated, or mechanical, nature of the conveyance. These days, “auto” is usually focused on mechanical thought. I imagine that we might just collectively redefine one of our existing terms once it is not so ambiguous anymore.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#52

Post by flutas »

aetherson wrote: post #44
flutas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that often human-driven, or human-parked, cars create similar temporary obstacles, the most important question here is: does this happen more-often, or for longer-periods, with autonomous cars? Honestly the article is pure tech-scare bait. It blames a car that stopped (while it was driving) when a truck was driving at it head on, but tries to glance over the fact that a (human driven) garbage truck is the rea…

What's your suggestion here? That garbage trucks don't pick up on streets without two lanes in each direction? The reality of driving is that there are a lot of these messy situations, and driverless cars need to be able to handle them.

> What's your suggestion here? That garbage trucks don't pick up on streets without two lanes in each direction?

Maybe they don't block the travel lane for extended periods, just like any regular person is expected to not do.

The article is basically saying "it's ok for the human driven car to do, but not the self driving car."

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#53

Post by rglullis »

aetherson wrote: post #44
flutas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that often human-driven, or human-parked, cars create similar temporary obstacles, the most important question here is: does this happen more-often, or for longer-periods, with autonomous cars? Honestly the article is pure tech-scare bait. It blames a car that stopped (while it was driving) when a truck was driving at it head on, but tries to glance over the fact that a (human driven) garbage truck is the rea…

What's your suggestion here? That garbage trucks don't pick up on streets without two lanes in each direction? The reality of driving is that there are a lot of these messy situations, and driverless cars need to be able to handle them.

This may seem an wild idea for those in North America, but how about just eliminating car dependency in the first place?

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#54

Post by 1f60c »

tyrfing wrote: post #20
boomboomsubban wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like indicating to a human driver would take about as long as the 25 seconds the autonomous car took.

According to the article, the autonomous car didn't move, the garbage truck did.

SFFD and Cruise contradict each other on this point, which doesn’t make it any less confusing.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#55

Post by anonporridge »

aetherson wrote: post #44
flutas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that often human-driven, or human-parked, cars create similar temporary obstacles, the most important question here is: does this happen more-often, or for longer-periods, with autonomous cars? Honestly the article is pure tech-scare bait. It blames a car that stopped (while it was driving) when a truck was driving at it head on, but tries to glance over the fact that a (human driven) garbage truck is the rea…

What's your suggestion here? That garbage trucks don't pick up on streets without two lanes in each direction? The reality of driving is that there are a lot of these messy situations, and driverless cars need to be able to handle them.

They need to be able to handle messy situations at least as good as human drivers, which isn't necessarily a high bar.

And importantly, unlike human drivers, autonomous cars will only get persistently better at handling these kinds of situations as they encounter more of them.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#56

Post by InitialLastName »

mirntyfirty wrote: post #49
InitialLastName wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Human drivers sometimes fail-to-notice sirens or other high-priority demands on road capacity. In the lane directly in front of them, facing them, and honking?

Proof by strawman imaginary counter-example

The first 2 sentences of the article we're discussing:

> On an early April morning, around 4 am, a San Francisco Fire Department truck responding to a fire tried to pass a doubled-parked garbage truck by using the opposing lane. But a traveling autonomous vehicle, operated by the General Motors subsidiary Cruise without anyone inside, was blocking its path.

I don't think it's intolerable to use a straw-man argument when discussing scarecrows.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#57

Post by anonporridge »

flutas wrote: post #18
gojomo wrote: post #6

Given that often human-driven, or human-parked, cars create similar temporary obstacles, the most important question here is: does this happen more-often, or for longer-periods, with autonomous cars? I don't see the article, or quoted sources, even trying to make that comparison - so this is really only a half-story, compared to what's relevant. Further, given the remote-guidance possibilities with autonomous cars, i…

> Given that often human-driven, or human-parked, cars create similar temporary obstacles, the most important question here is: does this happen more-often, or for longer-periods, with autonomous cars? Honestly the article is pure tech-scare bait. It blames a car that stopped (while it was driving) when a truck was driving at it head on, but tries to glance over the fact that a (human driven) garbage truck is the rea…

God awful "journalism".

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#58

Post by _ea1k »

tpmx wrote: post #27
SllX wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half a minute is a long time when you’re responding to an emergency.

Stating the obvious, but: 25 secs I agree that the difference (5 secs) most of the time isn't all that important. I just don't see the need to round up for no particular reason.

An average pilot takes ~4 seconds from noticing an engine failure to when they respond. I don't know how long getting out of the way would take an average driver in this situation, but I'm guessing that its at least 15 seconds.

People are nitpicking your nitpick, but the distinction really does matter in this kind of scenario where the argument is that "seconds count".

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#59

Post by _ea1k »

zinekeller wrote: post #33
tpmx wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stating the obvious, but: 25 secs I agree that the difference (5 secs) most of the time isn't all that important. I just don't see the need to round up for no particular reason.

Does your point appreciably change the meaning of the argument? Definietely not, even a 10-second delay is too long for emergencies. There are times where that five-second difference matters but I feel this falls into a bad-faith argument.

I'd bet that 10 seconds is still less than the human reaction time.

Re: An autonomous car in SF blocked a fire truck responding to an emergency

#60

Post by anyfoo »

flutas wrote: post #52
aetherson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your suggestion here? That garbage trucks don't pick up on streets without two lanes in each direction? The reality of driving is that there are a lot of these messy situations, and driverless cars need to be able to handle them.

> What's your suggestion here? That garbage trucks don't pick up on streets without two lanes in each direction? Maybe they don't block the travel lane for extended periods, just like any regular person is expected to not do. The article is basically saying "it's ok for the human driven car to do, but not the self driving car."

Garbage trucks (the article mentions the operator was working) and other service vehicles, including school busses, are expected to block travel lanes for extended periods and time, and humans are usually able to understand the situation and react accordingly in emergency situations.
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