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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

#121

Post by Symbiote »

ubernostrum wrote: post #72
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You meant the safest thing for people in cars. This is not the safest thing for pedestrians, thousands of whom die from being hit by cars in the USA every year.

The safest thing for pedestrians would be to ban all motorized vehicles, then ban all other vehicles, then ban pedestrians from venturing out of their homes on foot. Good road design accommodates pedestrians when pedestrians will be present (i.e., controlled-access freeways are designed with the assumption that pedestrians will not be present), but speed limits have very little to do with pedestrian safety. Pedestria…

Well-designed roads for pedestrians are designed to limit traffic speed. Common methods in Europe are to plant trees down both sides, to narrow the traffic lane and to have parked cars meaning traffic has to stop to let oncoming traffic pass etc.

Drivers are much more attentive when they're always looking all around for potential obstructions.

Speed limits are, in turn, influenced by the road's design.

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

#122

Post by georgerobinson »

threeseed wrote: post #83
joedavison wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see police start giving tickets for tailgating instead of speeding. Speeding alone is rarely very dangerous, especially on roads with few other cars. On the other hand, tailgating is always extremely dangerous, even when the speeds involved are relatively low.

Tailgaiting is a vague concept though. One person's idea of tailgaiting is another person's idea of maintaining a safe braking distance. If you tried to for example leave a car's body length distance in most busy cities you would have car after car aggressively cutting in front of you. This is even more dangerous than the original tailgaiting.

In the UK it's not uncommon to see chevrons painted along each lane where in you're meant to keep a minimum of two chevrons from the car in front (http://www.roberthempsall.co.uk/blogimages/keep-apart-2-chev...).

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

#123

Post by geon »

declan wrote: post #50
finnn wrote: post #10

They didn't link to either of their sources, so I went and found them: Mountain View Police Department blog post: http://mountainviewpoliceblog.com/2015/11/12/inquiring-minds... Google Self-Driving Car Project Google+ post: https://plus.google.com/+SelfDrivingCar/posts/j9ouVZSZnRf

Thanks! That MV police blog post says the traffic officer stopped the car to "educate the operators about impeding traffic per 22400(a) of the California Vehicle Code." That section of the vehicle code says, emphasis added: "No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, unless the reduced speed is necessary for safe operation, because of…

Is it at all allowed to drive slow vehicles like tractors or scooters on a highway?

Here in Sweden, highways are off limits if the vehicle may not legally be driven faster than (i think) 45 kmph.

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

#124

Post by DanBC »

dickdastardly wrote: post #118
ilyanep wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 difficu…

As one example of a crossing which does have warnings:

The A417 between Cirencester and Cheltenham is a dual carriageway that has pedestrian footpaths across it.

Imagine driving at 70mph toward this:

350 yard warning: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8078399,-2.0618748,3a,75y,...

actual crossing: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8051623,-2.0595278,3a,75y,...

350 yards at 70 MPH is, I think, 10 seconds.

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

#125

Post by DrScump »

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.

Except that driving artificially slowly correlates well with being intoxicated... so being slow can call attention to oneself.

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

#126

Post by nitrogen »

clort wrote: post #113
twblalock wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The point of traffic is to run an economy, not to parade at a precise speed for the amusement of deontologically obsessed nannies. If a line of traffic wants to go at speed+5, then the proper speed of traffic is speed+5, and going speed-5 is causing economic harm.

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

#127

Post by anon4 »

darkr wrote: post #51
Animats wrote: post #46

I thought Google was building the little 25MPH self driving cars for senior communities, campuses, and such. But they're running them on El Camino Real. They apparently registered the small self driving cars as what California calls a "Neighborhood Electric Vehicle".[0] A NEV is limited to 25 MPH, and cannot be operated on a road with a speed limit above 35 MPH. It's one step above a golf cart. Local municipalities c…

I regularly exceed 40mph on my road bike, on downhills at least. It's fine. I'd agree that you shouldn't be in the bike lane at those speeds (though in much of the UK they are few and far between and mostly consist of a bit of paint on the side of the road). That's what roads are for.

40mph? Really? Not 40kph? Because holy fuck -- once I managed to go 50kph for a minute and that's incredibly FAST.

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

#128

Post by DrScump »

clort wrote: post #110
agumonkey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's universal behavior. Driving at speed limits gets you angry looks, below speed limit and people wanna hurt you. All that so they can reach the red light earlier.

> angry looks I wonder how well the self driving car copes with these. In fact, I wonder how well the self driving car copes with an overly aggressive driver cutting in front and slamming on their brakes just to piss you off. I guess it would handle that better than my mothers elderly neighbour who recently didn't manage to brake in time and hit the twerp, writing off her vehicle in the process. Of course, it was cou…

I wonder how well the self driving car copes with an overly aggressive driver cutting in front and slamming on their brakes just to piss you off.

You really think Google can't afford a Death Ray in each car?

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

#129

Post by aianus »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #97
coderdude wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this a lot. Sometimes there's a car in the far left lane (the legally unofficial "fast lane") driving much slower than the social norm expects. It causes issues. People need to move when someone is in their way. It's instinct. It screws up the flow.

Having a speed gradient across the lanes is for limited-access divided highways only. Left lane / right lane == fast lane / slow lane is not applicable to ordinary streets.

Why would you think that?

"(b) If a vehicle is being driven at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at such time, and is not being driven in the right-hand lane for traffic or as close as practicable to the right-hand edge or curb, it shall constitute prima facie evidence that the driver is operating the vehicle in violation of subdivision (a) of this section."

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&gr...

Says nothing about limited-access divided highways.

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

#130

Post by DrScump »

anon4 wrote: post #98
wpietri wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impersonating a police car is, unsurprisingly, already a crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_impersonation States have similar laws for other emergency vehicles. E.g.: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/2...

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.

It's illegal to have a forward-facing red light at all (for one example)... even if it's not turned on.
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