Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by petepete » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:17 PM UTC

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.

Or if you're impersonating another emergency vehicle, like an ambulance or fire engine.

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

#162

Post by polymatter » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:22 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #157

brazzledazzle wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, I'm not saying a car's length is an appropriate distance. Generally speaking it should be 2-3 seconds. But I see this idea a lot on the internet, particularly on reddit: I should be unsafe because other people will get mad at me for being safe which will make them do wildly unsafe things. I'm sorry, but I can't accept that. Police need to start focusing on safety instead of revenue generation. I don't care what…

On the contrary, its unsafe to not tailgate close enough. Speed and tailgating don't kill, differences in speed kills. If you are two seconds behind, they could come to a near stop and you can crash into them at full speed. If you drove with zero distance between the your bumper and the car in front of you, if they brake hard you will have no impact at all. This is why it's safe for train cars to tailgate. In my view…

If you drove with zero distance between your bumper and the car in front of you, they will be unable to brake hard, because its trying to stop an extra ton of mass. you're fine sure, but they just ran over that kid crossing the road without looking. or just t-boned someone. and heaven forbid someone was tailgating you too.

autonomous cars can form trains because they can react orders of magnitude faster than a human can to suddenly changing driving conditions.

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

#163

Post by ollie87 » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:32 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #96

threeseed wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not, though. In Germany the minimum safety distance is taught in driving classes and severe violations of it will be fined like any other reckless behaviour. The rule of thumb is "as much of a distance as you pass within two seconds". This scales wonderfully with speed and easily covers the reaction time and breaking duration. Sure, in urban traffic the typical safety distance is usually less than a vehicle leng…

It's the same in the UK.

You can also be fined for hogging lanes on a motorway, thankfully.

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

#164

Post by Piskvorrr » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:33 PM UTC

geon wrote: post #123

declan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a bit of a "lost in translation" issue here: what is usually called a "highway" in Europe is usually a "freeway" in the USA. What we'd just call a "road" (pretty much any road) is called a "highway" in the US legal codes.

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

#165

Post by amelius » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:40 PM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #90

callesgg wrote: post #87

Personally i think it is quite obvious that a self driving car a tool that you use. And therefore you as a user is accountable for the actions/damage you inflict with your tool. No different that using a gun and shooting someone by accident.

A gun isn't very autonomous, though. As tools become increasingly autonomous, it might not always be fair to place blame on the end user rather than the manufacturer.

I agree with this. But why use a gun-analogy when you can use a car-analogy?

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

#166

Post by Piskvorrr » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:43 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #126

clort wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By inductive reasoning, the proper speed of traffic is equal to the maximum speed of the car, and anything less is causing economic harm. (#cc: That was sarcasm)

In other words, that would only work for a traffic system which only moves one way, linearly, and has zero branches. Out there in meatspace, things are...a little bit more complex. Intersections and buses and trucks and pedestrians, oh my.

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

#167

Post by Piskvorrr » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:45 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #48

jws wrote: post #17

The Google cars are licensed as Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicl... This means they are legally limited to 25mph and legally allowed to drive on roadways with speed limits up to 45mph. NEVs let you have very light weight, inexpensive vehicles with exceptional economy… that would be instant death traps in a high speed collision. They don't undergo ordinary cr…

It's no more dangerous than driving a motorbike. People do that all the time without worrying about the risk.

Worrying about the risk does not correlate with the actual risk. Funny how you picked the poster example of this.

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

#168

Post by sokoloff » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:48 PM UTC

terryf wrote: post #58

Robin_Message wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In practice, people can tell the design speed of a road I think there have been quite a few studies showing most people think they are above average at driving. I don't think people do this at all. I think they are overconfident, hurrying apes, with no real conception of stopping distance or kinetic energy, aiming to just miss each other with these multi-ton projectiles. It's sadly not surprising how many people ar…

> It's sadly not surprising how many people are killed on the roads. In 2013, US, total number of traffic deaths was 32719. Total number of miles driven: 2,946,000,000,000. Miles driven per one death: 90,039,426 It's not even one-in-a-million chance of dying. It's one-in-90-million chance. That is really very good odds. Driving is really quite safe and getting safer all the time. Cars manufactured today have safety s…

> It's not even one-in-a-million chance of dying. It's one-in-90-million chance.

How many trips are only 1 mile in length?

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

#169

Post by Amezarak » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:55 PM UTC

Piskvorrr wrote: post #164

geon wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a bit of a "lost in translation" issue here: what is usually called a "highway" in Europe is usually a "freeway" in the USA. What we'd just call a "road" (pretty much any road) is called a "highway" in the US legal codes.

> what is usually called a "highway" in Europe is usually a "freeway" in the USA.

I think that usage is mostly West Coast. :)

Everywhere else, I've only heard "highway" or "interstate."

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

#170

Post by tetrep » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 1:00 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #81

developer1 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow". This is nearly equivalent to driving 40 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, and there is not a single traffic court in any Canadian city that would uphold a ticket being served for that difference. How is this even a thing down there? In a 60 km/h zone here, you'd have to be going 25 km/h to even warrant being pulled over at all (ie: doing 15 mph in 37 mph zone). If…

> It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow" It's absolutely too slow. Majority of people drive at or slightly below the speed limit. Driving that far under causes people to start behaving irrationally resulting in lots of lane changes/tailgaiting etc. This can be dangerous when lots of cars are doing it.

> Majority of people drive at or slightly below the speed limit.

For my entire driving experience, from the North East of the US to Northern California, to specificially the portion of the road this car was driving on, this is false. People drive, very reliably, ~5mph over the speed limit. When you get to 35/40+ mph speed limits, ~10 over isn't uncommon, ~15 for people going uncommonly fast. I can't recall the last time I drove under a speed limit (minus exceptional road/traffic/weather conditions) and I'm slower than most drivers I encounter.