Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#131

Post by kayodelycaon » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #128

kayodelycaon wrote: post #85

The scary part of this is it went through construction cones and flaggers with stop signs to end up in the concrete. Basically, this thing went right through a construction zone without stopping. Granted, people are this dumb every single day. But who is liable for the fines here?

Do we know that the paving zone was properly signed/controlled? The single photo in the article has a cone on the outside of the zone, but we don't see the beginning of the zone.

Even if the cones weren't perfect, a flagger should be sufficient for traffic control. It's same as if there was a police officer directing traffic in an intersection. Both are explicit overrides to posted signs.

Same with emergency vehicles, which self-driving cars have already been shown to ignore.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#132

Post by danielvaughn » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:26 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #99

danielvaughn wrote: post #76

This might be a naive question, but are driverless lanes being considered? For instance we have bike lanes all over the US. It might make sense to make a similar investment for AI-friendly lanes to help transition to driverless transportation.

We absolutely do not have bike lanes all over the US, most cities are barely getting started adding them

I didn't say we had reached a saturation point, I'm merely pointing out that we've mustered up the investment to build them.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#133

Post by danielvaughn » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:28 PM UTC

frob wrote: post #103

danielvaughn wrote: post #76

This might be a naive question, but are driverless lanes being considered? For instance we have bike lanes all over the US. It might make sense to make a similar investment for AI-friendly lanes to help transition to driverless transportation.

Doing something like that takes massive public investments in changing our roads and infrastructure. Given that this money will come from the public, I would argue that it should be spent on publicly accessible tools and services, like enhanced public transit. I do not want to spend public money to build public infrastructure for the gain of massive private companies' experiments.

I mean, maybe? But it could be something as simple as (a) pick a designated color like purple or something, (b) paint a purple line in that lane, (c) make it a law that you can't operate the vehicle yourself while you're in that lane.

I don't mean doing this today. I'm talking about a future where most vehicles have a driverless capability. The reason why it would be useful is that a lane of automated cars would be safer and more efficient. But the reality we have right now is that driverless cars are intermixed with human-driven cars, which will always be a danger.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#134

Post by HPsquared » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #126

This must've been proposed, but why don't we ticket Cruise as a single "driver"? The number of infractions they've had would certainly get their license suspended.

Reminds me a bit of the Onion clip "High Unemployment Rate Linked to One Man with 42,000 Jobs"

https://www.theonion.com/high-unemployment-rate-linked-to-on...

EDIT: or, more appropriately, the case of Prawo Jazdy: an alleged Polish national with hundreds of speeding tickets (Prawo Jazdy is Polish for driving licence)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#135

Post by fuzzbazz » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #80

danielvaughn wrote: post #76

This might be a naive question, but are driverless lanes being considered? For instance we have bike lanes all over the US. It might make sense to make a similar investment for AI-friendly lanes to help transition to driverless transportation.

It'll be a dark, sick twist that driverless cars will get their own protected lanes in many American cities before bikes do.

Isn't San Francisco very hilly? That's pretty bad for biking, it's a waste to reserve lanes for bikes if nobody will use them.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#136

Post by alistairSH » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

forgetfreeman wrote: post #23

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #18

What I'd like to know is if the concrete was marked out with cones. If it was then clearly the car's fault, if not then the worker's fault. Cones become more critical with the proliferation of non-human drivers.

Ah yes, it is clearly incumbent upon all other industries to modify their practices to pave over the gross deficiencies of self-driving cars.

Properly marking a construction zone isn't a change in practice - it's already required. But that doesn't mean it was done properly in this case.

If a construction zone is unmarked, human drivers are more likely to drive into it as well.

Anyway, AI cars should be smart enough to "see" a potential unmarked construction zone, just as most humans can. I'm only saying construction zones should be marked explicitly for the safety of all involved.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#137

Post by arp242 » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

dlokshin wrote: post #90

Was fun to google image search "car drives into wet concrete." Humans are worse drivers than I thought! https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=557782243&sxsrf=AB5stB...

I've walked over wet concrete. It wasn't really signed very clearly (there were some cones on the corners, but that doesn't automatically mean "wet concrete"), it's really not that obvious unless you're looking for it, and I was late and in a hurry.

Looking at those pictures, I think loads of people could have made that mistake for quite a few of them, as it often doesn't seem indicated very clearly, and in some situations going through the wet concrete was the only way the car could go from a parked position.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#138

Post by alistairSH » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:39 PM UTC

kayodelycaon wrote: post #131

alistairSH wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know that the paving zone was properly signed/controlled? The single photo in the article has a cone on the outside of the zone, but we don't see the beginning of the zone.

Even if the cones weren't perfect, a flagger should be sufficient for traffic control. It's same as if there was a police officer directing traffic in an intersection. Both are explicit overrides to posted signs. Same with emergency vehicles, which self-driving cars have already been shown to ignore.

Sure, but we don't know if there was a flagger either. Only a single construction worker standing to the side.

I'm not debating whether an AI car should "see" possible construction, even when not marked appropriately (most humans can too). Only pointing out we don't know if this zone was marked/flagged - and if it wasn't, there's a higher likelihood of human driver error as well.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#139

Post by alistairSH » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:41 PM UTC

danielvaughn wrote: post #129

alistairSH wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to those problems is more public transit (in the US, it's mostly working class - if we make it normal across the socio-economic spectrum, people will demand more of it), more bike lanes, and safer spaces for pedestrians. If it took you ~10 minutes to get to the store, it's probably ~2 miles by car. Maybe a bit further. That's easily done on a bicycle (not for large boards, but easily doable for moderate gr…

I fail to see how more public transit would solve the drunk-guy-pissing-in-the-corner issue.

If public transit is normalized (used by the majority of people, particularly those with money and some political power), those people will demand enforcement of "don't piss in the corner" laws. The problem today is mass transit (outside NYC and a few other places) is largely used by working class with neither the means, power, or time to push for change.

Re: Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco

#140

Post by dotnet00 » Thu, Aug 17, 2023, 2:47 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #114

dotnet00 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of autonomous vehicles is to not have to totally reshape the world before being able to accommodate them. But small shifts like adjusting signs to also be easily read by autonomous vehicles aren't that crazy. It'd just be done such that new signage is made to be easily readable, so that over time, as old stuff is replaced, the signage becomes more readable for machines. This sort of thing can also benefit r…

It's corralling in the possible range of the vehicles - anywhere without the enhanced signage will have to be no man's land. If an autonomous car drives to a small town that doesn't have the enhanced cones and gets into an accident at a construction zone whose fault is it? I'm not sure what "This sort of thing can also benefit regular vehicles." means in this instance. If the cone is machine readable how does that he…

Enhanced signage doesn't mean that the cars shouldn't be able to read regular signage, it just means that future usages of signage will make the task easier and lower risk. As such, locations without the signage aren't "no man's land". Would be similar to how many places aren't outright banning ICE cars, just banning the sale of new ones at some point in the future. Allowing for a comparatively smooth transition.

The cones being machine readable would allow regular vehicles to also be given the ability to read them more reliably (and potentially with less equipment than needed by a current autonomous vehicle), so, they could do things like warn the driver, which could be valuable in reducing the cases of distracted drivers slamming into closed off lanes.