California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment • Hacker News Board

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#121

Post by notatoad » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

eep_social wrote: post #82

But not Waymo. Which confirms all my personal biases. More seriously, the statement cites four specific clauses that caused the permit to be suspended. The second one seems really interesting as it implies that there was a lie of omission where the others are more or less what I’d expect regarding safety risks: > Today’s suspensions are based on the following: > 13 CCR §228.20 (b) (6) – Based upon the performance of…

yeah, they seem to be pretty clearly saying Cruise tried to cover something up here. i'd love to know more about that.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#122

Post by cp9 » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

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

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#123

Post by elteto » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

wstrange wrote: post #71

Link to Cruise review of incident: https://getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/a-detailed-review-of-th...

Presumably this is why the permit is being suspended:

"The AV detected a collision, bringing the vehicle to a stop; then attempted to pull over to avoid causing further road safety issues, pulling the individual forward approximately 20 feet."

First of all, I find it ironic that the human driver is still at large. I'm sure the Cruise car recorded the plate and they passed this to the police.

Second, the corporate speak on the Cruise release is very good. Notice how it says "pulling the individual forward", in other words, the car dragged the person while it attempted to get out of the way. I guess nobody thought about that edge case. And they released a completely irrelevant simulation showing that if the other car had been an AV this wouldn't have happened. Yet, the real issue with the Cruise AV is that after a collision it just blindly tried to pull over and it dragged the person. The same thing would have happened if the person had simply collided with the car on their own.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#124

Post by stfp » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

fletchowns wrote: post #92

reset2023 wrote: post #69

[flagged]

Is this just a troll comment? - Zero traffic fatalities would be nice - Reduced congestion/traffic, people can get to places faster - Never having to worry about parking again - No more need for cars parked on streets, more space & safer for cyclists and pedestrians - Reduced income requirements for those that need access to a car There are countless benefits. The transition period to get there will be a little tumul…

Except...

They won't reduce congestion and traffic, because people won't have to drive they'll be OK with being on the road longer. You just hang out in your living room on wheels.

Parking... Where are the cars going to park exactly? How far from the restaurants and homes etc? Won't the extra trips from/to parking lots create more traffic?

Reduced income requirements, that's a new one to me. These cars will have more tech that's more expensive to build and maintain. How does that make them cheaper?

50%+ of car trips are less than three miles... as a society what we need is a way to make those trips without cars.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#125

Post by dpe82 » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

carbocation wrote: post #79

This is just anecdote, but having taken trips in both Waymo and Cruise in SF, I feel very comfortable in Waymo: it drives carefully but confidently. It alerts me when cyclists are near when I'm getting out. It navigates coned-off work areas. Cruise required a lot of (remote) human intervention during my trips.

I haven't taken a Cruise, but I've used Waymo several times and my experience mirrors yours. I've seen Cruise cars on the street get confused and back up traffic enough times not to trust them.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#126

Post by HDThoreaun » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

nvy wrote: post #94

cryptoz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like 30,000 Americans alone are killed every year in car accidents. I think the primary idea is to reduce the constant death on the road by making machines that are safer at driving than humans. The toll that car accidents have on society is honestly unconscionable.

If Americans were serious about reducing car deaths they'd ban gigantic pickups and SUVs with blind spots big enough to fit a Volkswagen. They'd ban cars from city centers and build bicycle highways. They'd invest in convenient rail infrastructure. Instead we've got "it's a car but you can doomscroll while on your 45 minute commute and we harvest your data to sell ads". This has nothing to do with public safety.

This is the same mistake gun control advocates who want to take away guns make. Yes, Americans want to reduce death. But they want freedom more.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#127

Post by ocdtrekkie » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

starttoaster wrote: post #106

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress can go in the wrong direction. Self-driving cars are an elitist attempt to avoid funding a far better solution: Trains.

Better railroads would be a far better solution. But I think getting there will take a lot of convincing in America. So much money has gone into road infrastructure that I have to imagine there's a lot of sunk cost fallacy at play.

Oh certainly, sunk cost, the industries entirely dependent on cars, etc. But we regularly have to rebuild those roads anyways, and how much money is being thrown away trying to make cars less awful?

There's a rural cost/benefit that ensures we will never not need cars, probably. But I can't fathom why eight lane interstates exist. If we can justify that many lanes of road traffic, we can certainly replace six of them with a train.

Self-driving trains? Easy. And no matter how hard you try, even the most efficient electric car will never end up greener than a train on a per user basis.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#128

Post by LegitShady » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

wstrange wrote: post #71

Link to Cruise review of incident: https://getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/a-detailed-review-of-th...

>A Cruise AV named Panini

This sort of nonsense where you take a serious statement and tell me the cutesy "name" of the autonomous vehicle really detracts from the seriousness of the issue. Also, the last paragraph where they try to talk about how their vehicle wouldn't have made the same mistake as the human driver, glosses over the actual issues the cruise car had which a human driver would have known not to do.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#129

Post by hardcopy » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

wstrange wrote: post #71

Link to Cruise review of incident: https://getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/a-detailed-review-of-th...

> The AV detected a collision, bringing the vehicle to a stop; then attempted to pull over to avoid causing further road safety issues, pulling the individual forward approximately 20 feet.

Jesus Christ! Good riddance, I'm glad their permits are revoked. Can you imagine witnessing this and watching an autonomous vehicle slowly crushing and dragging someone underneath? That 20 ft must have felt like forever to witness. Let alone experience.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#130

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Oct 24, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #118

vel0city wrote: post #77

Will California ban all human drivers next? After all, the pedestrian was first hit by a human driver, and was probably the but for cause.

the Cruise dragged her 20 feet and rolled over her leg though. Obviously this is mainly the other drivers fault, but self driving cars need to be able to react properly to unexpected scenarios. A reasonable human driver would not have continued driving with a person trapped under the car.

Yeah. This is essentially a safety recall; that behavior needs to be fixed.