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Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

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Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#121

Post by bombcar »

CaliforniaKarl wrote: post #6
joshuahedlund wrote: post #2

> The latest Cruise incident occurred Thursday night when a Cruise robotaxi and an emergency vehicle crashed and left a passenger injured. Cruise said in a social media post that one of its self-driving Chevy Bolt EVs entered an intersection on a green traffic light at Polk and Turk streets when it was struck by an emergency vehicle that appeared to be en route to an emergency scene. Noticing and responding to emerge…

Honestly, looking at recent news reports in the Chronicle, I don't think cone-blocking hackers need to do anything more right now. I mean, why cause trouble for someone if they're already slipping up in this way?

In fact, if they kept pushing it gives an easy excuse - it’s the coners! Even if not completely true.

You have to know when to stop and let the cards fall where they may.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#122

Post by justapassenger »

jhugo wrote: post #17

> “Over one hundred people lose their lives every day on American roadways, and countless others are badly injured, Cruise said in a statement sent via email. I’m so tired of this angle being accepted at face value. Current driverless cars are not even capable of safely navigating situations that below-average human drivers rarely struggle with, like avoiding driving into clearly marked wet concrete, or not crashing…

What boils my blood each time I hear self driving company talk about metrics, is total ignorance to decades of safety engineering and processes developed there.

They act like reasoning about safety of automated systems is brand new area that they need to develop and disrupt.

Sure, heavy reliance on AI makes some traditional forms of validation more tricky, but BS metrics and test in prod is so reckless, that will end up only hurting the industry. When there will be a big tragedy, because of reckless approach, government will be forced to drop heavy hammer of regulations and make it much harder to develop self driving tech.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#123

Post by bombcar »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #43
bdowling wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noticing and responding to emergency sounds/signals in the road… How do deaf drivers respond to sirens from emergency vehicles?

Speaking as someone who drives emergency vehicles with flashing lights and sirens - it's amazing how many people presumably with average hearing and average vision cannot see a fire truck until it's been tailing them for a while.

You’ve not been a city long if you haven’t seen an emergency vehicle have to get on the PA to start yelling at a vehicle in person.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#124

Post by gizmondo »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #48
7e wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do terrible drivers drive as much as Cruise does? Terrible drivers at least eventually get better through practice. Having 100 poorer than average driving autonomous cars in the streets driving around 24x7 is a net worsening. Autonomous cars improve more slowly than humans do.

The myth about good vs bad drivers has long been out to bed. All drivers are better than average drivers. The problem for all humans is alcohol, sleep deprivation, stress, phones, coffee, makeup, shaving, food, etc. Everyone, including you, has read at least one text while driving. Sleep deprived actors by definition cannot correctly judge their ability to be sleep deprived. None of us are immune to these realities.…

> Everyone, including you, has read at least one text while driving.

No.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#125

Post by dtgriscom »

renewiltord wrote: post #97
jhugo wrote: post #17

> “Over one hundred people lose their lives every day on American roadways, and countless others are badly injured, Cruise said in a statement sent via email. I’m so tired of this angle being accepted at face value. Current driverless cars are not even capable of safely navigating situations that below-average human drivers rarely struggle with, like avoiding driving into clearly marked wet concrete, or not crashing…

I've definitely seen human cars in wet concrete in SF before. Most human accidents in this city just don't get reported. Guy ran a red light and put me in the ICU for a week. Wasn't even in the news.

Next time you're in an accident, make sure to be more famous.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#126

Post by bombcar »

reustle wrote: post #92
seizethecheese wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flashing lights

There are many instances in dense cities where the streets are too tight between buildings or busy with buses and cars to see down the other road at an intersection. Japan gets around this by having ambulances at least slow down and look both ways for each red light they are driving through. Doesn’t seem like a huge ask.

Emergency vehicles here do the same thing, but there’s a human element that may be hard to implement- the drivers assume that a vehicle has “seen” them if it stops. But an automatic car (and some drivered cars, too) will then start up again and drive into the side of the truck.

But the biggest reason they slow down is that if two emergency vehicles are responding from different roads - they can hit each other - so much so there are multiple examples of it on YouTube.

That’s why they switch sound approaching an intersection and slow down. It actually helps them if there are cars stopped at the cross streets, running interference.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#127

Post by bombcar »

aidenn0 wrote: post #83
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to see, but emergency vehicles responding to a call (and with lights and sirens going) clearly have right of way. That said, every emergency driver I know and have seen slows to a near stop at intersections to make sure it's clear before proceeding. But perhaps that's not procedure in California, which would be madness.

> But perhaps that's not procedure in California, which would be madness. Definitely is. I was on the jury for a case that involved an officer calling for help on the radio. We watched the dash-cam footage of the first officer coming to assist. He got up to 80 between the intersections, but slowed down to near the speed-limit for green lights and almost stopped at red lights, despite the urgency and it being 3 in the…

The only time I’ve ever seen emergency vehicles violate the “slow at intersections” was when the presidential candidate motorcade went into emergency.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#129

Post by JackMorgan »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #43
bdowling wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noticing and responding to emergency sounds/signals in the road… How do deaf drivers respond to sirens from emergency vehicles?

Speaking as someone who drives emergency vehicles with flashing lights and sirens - it's amazing how many people presumably with average hearing and average vision cannot see a fire truck until it's been tailing them for a while.

As a frequent lights and sirens passenger I'm convinced that they cause such a huge adrenaline spike that surrounding drivers act completely irrationally. Drivers will see us and then slam on the gas to dart in front or sometimes just stop in front of us. So many close calls where our engine almost gets hit by a human driver who seems completely committed to hitting us. Or we'll be turning onto a street (sometimes we have to swing wide to take a tight corner) and there will be a driver trying to squeeze by and making the same turn as us.

Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

#130

Post by ryanklee »

ajross wrote: post #110
j7ake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaluating safety of self driving cars is not just a matter of comparing number of failures of number of accidents, or any one scalar number. Just to illustrate my point, imagine a case where self driving cars have same number of fatal deaths (normalised by whatever you need to convince yourself), but self driving cars disproportionately fail on dark skinned children. Then it is obvious that self driving cars are wor…

Your point is that we shouldn't have self-driving vehicles because... we can't prove they're not racist? I'm not following. I mean, yes, you're correct that there are edge cases in any moral analysis and it's not just about comparing two numbers (though in safety arguments, yeah, it's almost always about simple numbers). But you don't get to wave that fact as a get-out-of-jail-free card in an argument! You need to sh…

GP's example is just to give a hypothetical instance of why qualitative analysis needs to be considered as well.
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