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

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

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 240 posts

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

#61

Post by [deleted] »

gmfawcett wrote: post #42
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…

Wouldn't the apples-to-apples comparison be: how many human drivers have been in the path of a honking fire truck, yet refused to move? Including parked cars and other "obstacle" cases is imbalanced.

[deleted]

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

#62

Post by throwaway92394 »

rglullis wrote: post #53
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.

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

To put it mildly - this is unrealistic in the US except for major cities. Even then, depending on the city and where in the city, its going to be very difficult to convince and implement methods of cutting cars.

While I think it's a good idea I just don't see this happening in the majority of the US other then major cities. In my state I just don't see how it would be possible given people commute 30+ miles regularly.

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

#64

Post by ripper1138 »

tpmx wrote: post #17

> According to Cruise, which collects camera and sensor data from its testing vehicles, the fire truck was able to move forward approximately 25 seconds after it first encountered the autonomous vehicle.

Thanks to the garbage truck driver.

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

#65

Post by gkop »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #15
gkop wrote: post #12

Um so WHY was the Cruise car stopped in a travel lane to begin with? I skimmed 2x but don’t see this explained..

Because you yield to oncoming fire trucks.

Is this mentioned in the article, or do you have inside knowledge, or are you guessing?

Edit: you are correct, flutas explained in sibling comment that it was alluded to in article. Thanks you both!

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

#66

Post by ripper1138 »

rglullis wrote: post #53
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.

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

Are there no cars in Europe?

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

#67

Post by mawise »

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…

I wouldn't point the blame to the garbage truck, but I agree with your description of it as scare-bait. I would gladly accept random 25-second delays from the fire department in exchange for eliminating the 30~40k American deaths[1] each year due to traffic fatalities.

[1]: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state...

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

#68

Post by treesprite82 »

InitialLastName wrote: post #56
mirntyfirty wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Autonomous car didn't seem to fail to notice the fire truck, just that it arguably took the wrong course of action by yielding to the right instead of reversing into the intersection.

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

#69

Post by tadfisher »

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

This example is what we're discussing, e.g. the article.

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

#70

Post by SllX »

sokoloff wrote: post #41
SllX wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the real issue here is a double parked garbage truck forcing the fire truck to go into oncoming traffic in the first place. Maybe there's a need for a loading only zone there so that the garbage truck doesn't have to block the travel lane. If there’s a discussion to be had here, it’s not through the frame of the needs of driverless cars. Self-driving has to work in the driving environment that exists today…

When the emergency vehicle is delayed, what percentage of the delay is Cruise’s fault and what percentage is the garbage truck’s? I assign less than 50% to Cruise.

Let’s be generous and say 50/50.

But look at it this way: one was a vehicle with no driver present in the seat, and the other was a vehicle in which a driving agent is never not present. A human driver in that situation should not spend longer than 5 seconds figuring out and implementing a way to safely let the fire truck pass. The Cruise car took longer.

If a human were present with two working eyes and ears and armed with good judgement, they may never have been blocking the way in the first place because a fire truck in SF is blaring it’s horns while it charges to the situation it was called in to answer so it is entirely possible that seeing the garbage truck parked up ahead, they would have opted to not even continue driving because that looks like an obvious choke point for an emergency vehicle trying to pass. Alas, I cannot reasonably expect that kind of situational awareness and judgement from an average human driver so maybe that’s also too big an ask from Cruise.

Also note this from the article:

> The fire truck only passed the blockage when the garbage truck driver ran from their work to move their vehicle.

So in the end, the Cruise vehicle was not the one which allowed the fire engine to pass but a hurried garbageman moving his truck after getting back in the driver’s seat. 50/50 may actually be too generous to Cruise here.

Post reply on HN