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Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

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Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#111

Post by DrScump »

deathanatos wrote: post #100
kissickas wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that required by law? FTA '"We've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 mph for safety reasons," the post explained. "We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets."' Sounds like Google's decision to me. Either way, it's not a highway, so that section seems irrelevant. And "in compliance with the law" is quite a broad redirect.

> Either way, it's not a highway, so that section seems irrelevant. (IANAL) "Highway" means road or street[1]: > 360. "Highway" is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street. (I've never actually heard highway used in common speech that way; only in the vehicle code, but that I think is what would count here.) The…

loads fine for me.

at first, I thought maybe you had the old link (it moved last year, but they left the old one up, broken)

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#112

Post by Symbiote »

executesorder66 wrote: post #64
laichzeit0 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also be great when a traffic light turned green that all cars started moving at exactly the same time, as opposed to the delay where every car waits for the car in front of them to start moving with human drivers.

Fuck I hate it when people do that i.e. 99.99% of the time. Just go as soon as the person in front of you starts going and build your gap by accelerating slightly slower than the person in front of you _after_ you are on the other side of the traffic light.

Without having a gap before you start, how do you plan on stopping in time if the car in front stops suddenly? Which they might do if they see someone running the red light, or a pedestrian thinking there's just enough time to run across.

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#113

Post by clort »

twblalock wrote: post #79
developer1 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is normal here too, and it's more like 7-8 mph. So you can receive a ticket for impeding traffic even if the people you are supposedly obstructing would be exceeding the speed limit? Instead of ticketing the slow guy, set up a sting and ticket every person exceeding the limit by more than 6 mph. This whole thing sounds backwards.

It's a matter of public safety. Holding up a line of cars is likely to result in road rage, or an accident. It's also very rare for slow drivers to get ticketed.

Incitement to riot is no excuse for rioting, surely?

Holding up a line of cars that would otherwise be driving too fast is not going to be the cause of an accident. The cause of the accident would be the driver who was driving too fast!

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#114

Post by kybernetikos »

threeseed wrote: post #81
developer1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow". This is nearly equivalent to driving 40 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, and there is not a single traffic court in any Canadian city that would uphold a ticket being served for that difference. How is this even a thing down there? In a 60 km/h zone here, you'd have to be going 25 km/h to even warrant being pulled over at all (ie: doing 15 mph in 37 mph zone). If…

> It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow" It's absolutely too slow. Majority of people drive at or slightly below the speed limit. Driving that far under causes people to start behaving irrationally resulting in lots of lane changes/tailgaiting etc. This can be dangerous when lots of cars are doing it.

> Driving that far under causes people to start behaving irrationally resulting in lots of lane changes/tailgaiting etc. This can be dangerous when lots of cars are doing it.

This is one of those examples of an explanation rather than a justification.

If someone else is going slow, that's no excuse to start acting like an idiot, and if you do and you get in an accident, that's on you, not the slow driver.

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#115

Post by anon4 »

hinoka wrote: post #107
anon4 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this apply when you're not fooling any person? As in, you're not trying to impersonate a police officer per se, you're fooling the vehicle's police detection into assuming a police vehicle is coming.

> you're fooling the vehicle's police detection Sounds like impersonation to me. The "person" in impersonation refers to the entity being imitated, not the entity being deceived.

Yeah, but is a couple of infrared lights enough to be considered "police"? What if I yell "VWEEEWOOOWEEEOOO" and someone mistakes that for a legitimate police siren -- am I still impersonating police, or is that person incredibly stupid?

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#116

Post by jrapdx3 »

Going at an unusually low speed can attract police attention up here in Oregon. The legalization of recreation cannabis has increased the number of non-alcohol intoxicated drivers. Apparently one sign of DUI of cannabis is going too slow for traffic conditions.

AFAIK no driverless cars around here (yet), but there are plenty of other potential hazards for motorists, like pedestrians and bicycles on narrow, twisty, dark and wet streets this time of year.

Ideally it calls for everyone to be patient, careful and vigilant. Above all be thankful if born with great reflexes, on the road alas only a few are so gifted.

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#117

Post by Pyxl101 »

Robin_Message wrote: post #32
Dylan16807 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If everyone were driving slower, everyone would be safer But that's always true. All the way down to 10mph speed limits. The job of speed limits is not maximum safety at the cost of everything else. In practice, people can tell the design speed of a road and mostly follow that, no matter what the signs say. Defecting or not doesn't matter very much.

> In practice, people can tell the design speed of a road I think there have been quite a few studies showing most people think they are above average at driving. I don't think people do this at all. I think they are overconfident, hurrying apes, with no real conception of stopping distance or kinetic energy, aiming to just miss each other with these multi-ton projectiles. It's sadly not surprising how many people ar…

It's not about some particular kind of skill-based estimate of the road's design speed. It's much simpler than that: people drive at the fastest speed at which they feel safe.

If people are driving on a large separated highway with big lanes, plenty of light, and it's straight with no curves, and no traffic for miles, then they might feel safe going 80 or 100 mph if their vehicle can handle it. People on a small, narrow, windy street with pedestrians around will drive another speed. The point is that people make these judgment calls primarily based on instinct, rather than based on signs.

Imagine that you were walking down a path on foot, and one sign said the walking path was supposed to be 1 mph, and another said 2 mph, and another said 3 mph. Would those signs mean much to you, or would you trust your two feet, sense of balance, and situational awareness to find the right speed? People do the same in cars. Dylan16807 is right.

Most people do, anyway. A small subset of people, I believe it's about 5%, follow the sign regardless. These people create traffic problems since they move at a different speed than the rest of traffic. I read a good article about how traffic planners are re-evaluating the idea that slow speed limits are a good thing or beneficial for safety. The conclusion was that slower speed limits do not actually benefit safety; if the posted speed limit is out of alignment with the road, and whether people feel safe, it creates more problems than it helps. The takeaway from the research was that if traffic planners want people to drive more slowly, then they need to create smaller, narrower roads.

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#118

Post by dickdastardly »

ilyanep wrote: post #94
ggreer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, many of the speed limits are low. Look at street view where the car was pulled over.[1] El Camino Real is a divided boulevard with three lanes in each direction. There are stoplights and dedicated turning lanes. I'm not an aggressive driver, but I've caught myself speeding on that road before. Everything about it makes my mind think, "It's safe to go faster." 1. https://goo.gl/maps/WdfhEAGBsDP2

El Camino always seemed to me like it has an absurdly low speed limit, then a friend reminded me that there are unsignaled pedestrian crosswalks along it in Mountain View. It's true that it feels like it ought to be a 45 road, though.

Here in Britain, it's entirely lawful and very common to cross 40-60MPH roads without signals. Often the roads don't even have a marked crossing, since you can legally cross wherever you want.

It's also not too uncommon to cross a non-motorway 70MPH dual carriageway, when walking outside a city.

I don't know if our roads are safer for pedestrians than the USA. They're considerably safer in total, but it seems difficult to compare the US and UK for pedestrians in particular because of the differing laws and distribution of methods of travel. However, they're probably at least in the same ball park, despite our more laissez faire attitude toward pedestrian-road interaction.

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#119

Post by DanBC »

anon4 wrote: post #115
hinoka wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're fooling the vehicle's police detection Sounds like impersonation to me. The "person" in impersonation refers to the entity being imitated, not the entity being deceived.

Yeah, but is a couple of infrared lights enough to be considered "police"? What if I yell "VWEEEWOOOWEEEOOO" and someone mistakes that for a legitimate police siren -- am I still impersonating police, or is that person incredibly stupid?

intent matters.

If you say "Here's some infra-red lights. They simulate enough of a police car for other cars to change their behaviours" you're not going to have a fun time in court.

Re: Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

#120

Post by clort »

mmmBacon wrote: post #102
developer1 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is normal here too, and it's more like 7-8 mph. So you can receive a ticket for impeding traffic even if the people you are supposedly obstructing would be exceeding the speed limit? Instead of ticketing the slow guy, set up a sting and ticket every person exceeding the limit by more than 6 mph. This whole thing sounds backwards.

Driving substantially slower than the speed of traffic is extremely dangerous because of the potential speed differential. Relative velocity matters. Also Regensdorf is really pretty busy and all you're doing by going slow is pissing people off. If you want to go that slow, that's what side streets are for.

An alternative viewpoint is that attempting to drive substantially faster than the slowest vehicle is extremely dangerous because of the potential speed differential. Relative velocity matters, as you know!
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