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California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

reuters.com

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Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#271

Post by mint2 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #208
Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

Are these autonomous vehicles so littered throughout California that you run into them weekly? I realize I don’t have a real concrete sense of just how many of these there are. Like is this a whole thing already? Edit: thanks for the responses…. Good gravy…

They aren’t littered through CA, in CA they are exclusively in SF. In SF they are common and as they seem to drive nonstop, take more road time than a comparable number of normal cars.

They don’t stop and wait between fares, they seem to drive aimlessly in routes like ghosts or lost souls.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#272

Post by pj_mukh »

hnav wrote: post #135
pj_mukh wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. Really wish there was a way for tech (especially new AI tech) to wholesale abandon the city. Even just move south to the actual Silicon Valley. The city picking winners and losers like this is untenable

The DMV (state agency) is pulling their permit, not SF.

Based purely on city pressure. Background reading will make this clear [1]

[1]: https://sfist.com/2023/08/17/sf-city-attorney-files-motion-t...

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#273

Post by vecinu »

bdamm wrote: post #188
cp9 wrote: post #122

if people weren't VC brained they would realize that the way to prevent traffic deaths isn't to build fancy self driving cars, it's to invest in safer, more pedestrian friendly infrastructure and use the boring technology that already exists to get people where they want to go. the future is on buses and trains and bikes and pedestrian friendly 15 minute communities

Ignoring reality 101. Cars were here yesterday, people loved them for their freedom. Cars are here today, people love them and build communities around them. Cars will be here tomorrow, and people will still love them.

OP is not arguing against cars completely, they just have very limited use within high density city centers. Most people can travel by foot, bike, scooter, bus, train, trolley, etc... to get their daily errands done.

When you need to go further or out of the city, by all means, jump in your environment-destroying metal cage but you don't need it daily, I guarantee it. Please don't cite extreme exceptions like disabled people or families with 10 kids.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#274

Post by leni536 »

yieldcrv wrote: post #185
leni536 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's the job of the regulation to cover every possible corner case and to codify the exact behavior of AVs in law.

in the universe of possibilities from my post, that also means removing the minimal risk regulation since it created more danger until they figure that out, this is a not-intolerable course of action. it doesn't need to be interpreted as punitive.

I wonder how the "minimal risk regulation" is worded right now.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#275

Post by spaced-out »

xyst wrote: post #81

TxDMV needs to follow this. Fuck these companies. They are testing their garbage in dense urban areas. Too many times their vehicles just stop in the middle of the road. If it rains, vehicle stops. If the light is out, vehicle panics and stops. Somebody puts a cone on the hood, vehicle panics. If a single variable not accounted for in their algorithms shifts beyond expected range, it fucking panics. So much money dum…

>How about we invest in making our cities more pedestrian, bike, and public transportation friendly?

There are tons of companies that would love to help (get paid to) build out public transit infrastructure in cities. You think any major city would have trouble attracting bids to build tram systems, subways, or even buy more busses?

Look at your local leaders, how many of them are pro-public transit? How many of them have a long history of blocking projects because they want to "preserve neighborhood character" or some other lame excuse?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#276

Post by toast0 »

kelnos wrote: post #13
s1mon wrote: post #10

According to Cruise's X(Twitter) account [0], the suspension seems to be related to an incident in which a human driver hit-and-run propelled a pedestrian in front of a Cruise AV and the Cruise vehicle couldn't avoid hitting the person. When that incident was first reported [1], it seemed like a situation where if it was a human driver in the Cruise vehicle, they wouldn't be found to be at any fault. However given th…

The article you link to says there was more to it! The Cruise vehicle, after running over the woman, stopped on top of her with the rear axle/tires pinning her to the ground, trapping her there. And it just... sat there. I hesitate to believe that a human driver would do something like that. You could, however, argue that staying in place was the right thing to do; continuing to drive to get the woman out from under…

It's definitely unclear to me what to do if a person is trapped under a tire. Driving more may cause more injury or allow more bleeding from the existing injury. I guess a human driver would call 911 and the dispatcher may provide advice on what to do or suggest to wait for emergency services.

I think the bigger issue is the decision to move the vehicle after a collision involving a person not in a car. I've not had the misfortune to be in such a collision, but in the collisions I've been in, I would get out, and inspect the situation before taking any further action. Moving out of traffic is a good thing to do, but especially if there's a person, it's important to consider the situation before further movement. Even if it were just a vehicle to vehicle collision, I'd want to check if someone needed urgent medical attention, and acknowledge the collision with the other driver, make a plan for where to stop to discuss, and check for and clear any obviously sharp debris that may pierce tires of my vehicle or others' vehicle. A lot of that is outside the capability of an automated vehicle... but maybe human review before pulling to a safer place is a good choice especially if a person outside of a car is involved in the collision.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#277

Post by fhub »

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

From my perspective, as a relatively early adopter of Waymo (60+ rides). I have zero gripes with the driving itself. In fact I've seen Waymos do things that no human would be able to do*. Drop-offs and pickups I'd like to see improvements made like getting a bit closer to the curb. Occasionally the route selections make no sense at all.

* Waymo made a right turn up a steep hill. Two lanes each way. It then pulled a bit into the left lane abruptly and I didn't get why until a split second later a skateboarder was crouched down and went by on my right against traffic. There was zero chance a human would pull that off. Not enough time for a head check or mirror check. There wouldn't have been an accident but the Waymo clearly has insane reaction time and vision advantages - and uses them.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#278

Post by cp9 »

spaced-out wrote: post #250
cp9 wrote: post #122

if people weren't VC brained they would realize that the way to prevent traffic deaths isn't to build fancy self driving cars, it's to invest in safer, more pedestrian friendly infrastructure and use the boring technology that already exists to get people where they want to go. the future is on buses and trains and bikes and pedestrian friendly 15 minute communities

>more pedestrian friendly infrastructure and use the boring technology that already exists to get people where they want to go. the future is on buses and trains and bikes and pedestrian friendly 15 minute communities This is a political problem though, it's not something businesses can solve.

> This is a political problem though, it's not something businesses can solve.

correct. there's no easy answer, there's no silver bullet. it's on all of us to demand this of our local policymakers.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#279

Post by TulliusCicero »

mariusmg wrote: post #181
yegle wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The AV braked aggressively before impact and because it detected a collision, it attempted to pull over to avoid further safety issues," Cruise added. "When the AV tried to pull over, it continued before coming to a final stop, pulling the pedestrian forward. Our thoughts continue to be with the victim as we hope for a rapid and complete recovery." This looks like Cruise's fault, dragging a pedestrian while pullin…

>This looks like Cruise's fault Imagine having to write the code that "detects" if a pedestrain is caught underneath the car

I guarantee you every serious self driving car company (at least in the US) was looking at exactly this scenario after this happened with Cruise.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#280

Post by edge17 »

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

While I don't disagree, this is also a city that has whole lanes on major streets reserved for cable cars. The city isn't exactly known for making decisions that drive efficiency.
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