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Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

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Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#31
post #19

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Updated Uber statement: "This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate." https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

Does it matter who was driving? An Uber company car, involved in testing, ran a red light. That is a demerit to the operation overall.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#32
post #19

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Updated Uber statement: "This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate." https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

CA law says every autonomous car in testing needs to have an operator in charge, so technically all incidents are due to human error.

Also: Uber is not listed in the CA DMV list of companies allowed to test autonomous vehicles? https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi...

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#33
post #15

I want self-driving cars to happen as quickly as possible, but Uber seems like they were extremely reckless and negligent here. Why not apply for a permit and stay on the safe side? And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to be 100%…

Then we are better off driving for real because `not driving, meaning not being in control, but being ready to take the helm at any time` must be more exhausting (because you have to focus on everything not under your control vs focus on everything that you don't have control minus what you actually control) and increase our reaction time (since some time will pass between the moment you notice you have to take the helm and the moment when you actually are in control) than just driving.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#34

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right?

If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over.

edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#35
post #14

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Maybe it learned a bit too much from San Francisco drivers?

Been watching too many Muni busses.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#36
post #19

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Updated Uber statement: "This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been suspended while we continue to investigate." https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident...

I find it telling that they do not actually say whether the car was in autonomous mode when it ran the red light, only that it was "due to human error". Was the human error that they didn't assume manual control and stop the car?

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#37
This is really worrying for Uber. It's supposedly burning 2 billion dollars a year. It doesn't own any fleet of vehicles or it's drivers. Neither is there a sustainable cost savings that doesn't involve lighting pile of cash on fire. It desperately needs driverless cars before Tesla and Google kills their business off.

Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off. It's likely to hit more such obstacles until it realizes it's not really in the business of taxi but a business of acquiring market share with low interest rate capital.

We won't see an Uber IPO anytime soon.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#38
post #14

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Maybe it learned a bit too much from San Francisco drivers?

If it uses Uber drivers for training, heaven help us: I’ve seen illegal U-turns, constant double parking, reversing down 1-way streets, moving right turns through red lights, sudden stops, speeding 25+ mph over the legal limit, lane changes in intersections, lots of turning without signals, lack of proper yielding to obvious pedestrians, cyclists nearly side-swiped, etc. (Some subset of) Uber drivers are one of the worst hazards on the road.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#39
post #34

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right? If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over. edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?

It was a taxi.

Re: Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco

#40
post #34

Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4

Looks like the video was taken by a dash cam from a police car - am I reading that right? If thats true I wonder why the cop didn't pull the uber over. edit: This also leads to another question - how does a cop pull a self driving car over? Does the car know to respond to police lights? And if it does pull over then who does the cop talk to?

It's a taxi, actually. I'm sure they were delighted to get this video.
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