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Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

bbc.co.uk

51–60 of 94 posts

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#51

Can we please get some clarification on "trapped" from someone who's used a Wayno? Surely the driverless car hasn't locked him inside. Right? Surely every driverless vehicle ought to have a button that when pressed gracefully stops the car so the passengers can safely exit.

> Surely the driverless car hasn't locked him inside. Right? Every (modern) car I’ve been in, driverless or not, will lock the doors once the vehicle is in motion - automakers are not in the habit of letting passengers fall into the road like that. Just imagine the lawsuits…

Child safety locks that prevent people from opening locked doors from the inside are standard on four door vehicles for the rear doors, but they can usually be disabled.

My two-door had them disabled by default and it's not uncommon for taxis and rideshares to disable them.

It seems insane not to disable them in a Waymo - you wouldn't be able to escape in an emergency.

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#52
It's easy enough to imagine an actual emergency which would necessitate remote or local intervention to stop the car, and the call seems to indicate that they don't have an emergency override or at least not without escalation.

What if there were a:

medical emergency of the passenger

crash up ahead

fire up ahead

earthquake

flood

malfunction of the driverless car

really anything that would make you pull over your actual car to the side of the road for your own safety or emergent needs.

And then you have to imagine if so, even with an e-stop button are you in a less safe situation if you do not have ability to reach the wheel from the back seat.

Those are concerns that would give me pause.

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#53
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

these things need to have a giant E-STOP button accessible to the passengers otherwise they should simply be banned

I expressed this exact same concern a couple months ago (and was downvoted, a common theme w/ Google fanbois nowadays): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42117343 From @simonw back then, >Yes, there's a "pullover now" button on the dashboard at all times. Well, doesn't seem to be the case here.

The pull over button is in fact on the screen.

According to his spokesperson, he wasn't aware of it.

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#54
post #30

Yeah, this happened to me at home. I have this lock on the door and I couldn’t get in because it was locked. I called support and they said I needed to use the key on the lock but that SHOULDN’T BE NECESSARY. Completely unsafe that the door wouldn’t unlock. Shelter is a human right and I was trapped outside of my house just because I wouldn’t use some “device” that so-called “support” was trying to get me to use. Sam…

Beneath the satire, you're asserting that the primary purpose of locks on cars are to prevent adult passengers from exiting ? That's not right at all. Might as well design a desktop environment that forces you to enter your password in order to log off.

Ah you’re right. I should’ve used The Adage of The Man With The Door Handle. Unusual story about a guy who was trapped in his home because he had to press down on a device to disengage a lock. Perhaps President Biden will issue an order against these terrible things.

Are door handles evil? Find out this weekend on Hacker News as it explores the concept of clicking “End Trip” on an app dispatched taxi ride that was embarked on by app.

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#55

So the guy is in the car and he's concerned about catching his flight but when the operator asks him to do something in the waymo app he doesn't want to do it. Could it be that he'd rather keep filming for internet notoriety than stop filming and actually solve his problem?

"…the operator asks him to do something in the waymo app he doesn't want to do it."

Why are you trying to offer an excuse for the inexcusable?

The app should have nothing to do with it. Where are the emergency stop and exit controls for the passenger? He should be able to exit the vehicle at any time.

I fed up with this bad tech and the fact that governments let Big Tech act irresponsibly to get away with this shit. Why aren't there regulations in place before this tech is allowed loose on an unsuspecting public?

If CEOs of tech companies were held directly responsible with the threat of jail time it'd stop almost instantly.

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#56
post #52

It's easy enough to imagine an actual emergency which would necessitate remote or local intervention to stop the car, and the call seems to indicate that they don't have an emergency override or at least not without escalation. What if there were a: medical emergency of the passenger crash up ahead fire up ahead earthquake flood malfunction of the driverless car really anything that would make you pull over your actu…

these conditions will be off not already covered in the TOS, and exempted the operator from being responsible for.

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#58
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that Waymo should just be able to stop the car? It doesn't seem at all ridiculous to you that he is already on the phone with them, and then they just read the script to tell him to pull out his phone and fire up the app? Just what I want is to ride in a car with Comcast level of customer service.

> ride in a car It's riding in a robot with no reliable safety fencing. This is the mayhem these companies are subjecting the general public to.

What's mayhem is humans driving. This is downright calm by comparison. Inconvenient, sure, but it's not Mad Max, he's just slowly circling.

He didn't even miss his flight.

Re: Man trapped inside driverless Waymo car as it spins in circles

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ride in a car It's riding in a robot with no reliable safety fencing. This is the mayhem these companies are subjecting the general public to.

What's mayhem is humans driving. This is downright calm by comparison. Inconvenient, sure, but it's not Mad Max, he's just slowly circling. He didn't even miss his flight.

Yeah totes fake drama.

Like 90% of our news. Even the weather is like all drama "atmospheric cyclone tsunami" and ends up as light rain with some flooding, like last year.

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