> 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. It sounds serious. But more impor…
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.
Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
141–150 of 205 posts
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>BS metrics and test in prod is so reckless, When you put it that way, it strongly mirrors what is seen in computer programming and I am inclined to wonder how much of it is simply the computer programming culture leaking into the automotive world.
I’m a software developer, and being asked to test in prod is a massive red flag. It’s almost always prompted by someone with fairly little technical background.
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#143> According to a CPUC press release, Cruise could charge for service between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. without a safety drive, while Waymo could charge for passenger service at any time but only with a safety driver in the car. Waymo was also able to operate its cars completely autonomously but was unable to charge passengers for those services.
Once again, why the fuck was and is GM/Cruise getting special privileges up and over Waymo when Waymo doesn't have this level of critical failures on the road?
There's some point where we need to start leaning in and actually fining AV companies for this horseshit and taking actual action. Limiting the fleet is one thing, but actually stripping them of special privileges would be a better idea. It sounds like Cruise needs to go back to safety drivers in every vehicle.
On top of this, GM's allowed to market and sell Super Cruise (their Autopilot-esque clone) on public highways. Why isn't the NHTSA looking a lot closer at GM and scrutinizing their products?
@kvogt has some explaining to do.
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have untrained people using multi-ton motorized equipment on streets where people cross. And you don't even ask them if they'd be okay with this experiment. At least a bit unethical.
They have to take a test after training. Also a two year probation with zero tolerance on drunk driving and other offenses.
Seems like a low bar to me - for both robots and humans. We should instead raise the standards even higher for both!
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#145From another article: > According to a CPUC press release, Cruise could charge for service between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. without a safety drive, while Waymo could charge for passenger service at any time but only with a safety driver in the car. Waymo was also able to operate its cars completely autonomously but was unable to charge passengers for those services. Once again, why the fuck was and is GM/Cruise getting spe…
GM has better lobbyists?
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
>BS metrics and test in prod is so reckless, When you put it that way, it strongly mirrors what is seen in computer programming and I am inclined to wonder how much of it is simply the computer programming culture leaking into the automotive world.
There are reckless people in software development, and there are reckless people in the automotive world. Any industry is going to have people who cut corners to be early to a new market. I’m a software developer, and being asked to test in prod is a massive red flag. It’s almost always prompted by someone with fairly little technical background.
Or it's a sales team that knows a big $$$ contract is out there and this thing needs to be in PROD now and not in the normal cycle of DEV -> QA/Staging -> PROD.
There are many reasons for doing things in prod, none of them are valid reasons, but there are many of them that people use. "The specific data we need to test against isn't in DEV" is one of my pet peeves.
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#147> “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…
My point is that picking false equivalencies and anecdotal evidence doesn't work, in both directions.
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've said it before when a self-driving Uber killed a woman, and I'll say it again: But that car had a safety driver, who turned out to be negligent. What's the difference between a company testing a self-driving car with a safety diver killing someone because the safety driver was negligent, and a company doing deliveries with a human driver, and killing someone because the driver was negligent?
The car hit her because Uber purposefully disabled the Volvo SUV's built-in autobraking systems, and because the self-driving system detected and classified her with plenty of time to react...and simply did nothing to avoid hitting her. A complete and total failure of the self-driving control logic. It's also arguable that she was killed as a direct result of Nevada happily allowing Uber to conduct their self-driving…
Are autobraking systems mandatory? If amazon is doing deliveries using vans without autobraking systems, should they also get flak?
>and because the self-driving system detected and classified her with plenty of time to react...and simply did nothing to avoid hitting her. A complete and total failure of the self-driving control logic.
But that's why the human driver is there, right? To catch the system when it fails?
>Even if the safety driver had not been playing with their phone - it's well demonstrated that the whole concept of a 'safety driver' is bullshit; in studies, the drivers are terrible at taking over when they haven't been in control of the vehicle.
No, she was terrible at taking over because she was streaming hulu.
Re: Cruise told by CA DMV to reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but the OP seems to be skipping that part entirely. The only metric we should care about is overall accident rates (controlling for reasonable variables of course), not "safely navigating situations that below-average human drivers rarely struggle with".
I don't think that IS a fair metric. Be it for Tesla or for robotaxi and let me explain why. Tesla vehicles should be compared to similar vehicles driven by people that can afford a Tesla. (Not to a national average that includes lots of small, cheap or old cars). Robotaxis incident rates should be compared to taxi incident rates in the specific areas. There should be some way of factoring in the overly-cautious driv…
>Robotaxis incident rates should be compared to taxi incident rates in the specific areas.
That's what I said in the original comment?
>overall accident rates (controlling for reasonable variables of course)