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California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

reuters.com

681–690 of 1001 posts

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#681
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't disagree, this is also a city that has whole lanes on major streets reserved for cable cars. The city isn't exactly known for making decisions that drive efficiency.

Can you gather some information that backs up your claims here? How would devoting an extra lane to cars increase efficiency? I can't see a scenario where this would do anything but the opposite effect.

Simple math? Assuming a fixed number of cars on the road, more lanes will increase the flow. The cable cars are novelty transportation for tourists that residents of the city don't actually use for commuting.

In case it's not clear, I'm refering to California st starting downtown and going all the way up the hill.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#682
post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"unable to move and blocking traffic" is not a new failure mode for cars. I get that it's particularly infuriating to be blocked by a car that is, mechanically, in good shape, but I don't find the story particularly damning. I've blocked traffic that long waiting for a tow truck.

The case he described is different in that, apparently, the vehicles in question lock all of their wheels and can't be accessed, even by law enforcement. A special tow has to be called in. It's a design decision made to protect the company at the expense of the public.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#683

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

How would you rank others? Tesla, ford, Mercedese, etc?

The others aren't fully autonomous.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#684
post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you gather some information that backs up your claims here? How would devoting an extra lane to cars increase efficiency? I can't see a scenario where this would do anything but the opposite effect.

Simple math? Assuming a fixed number of cars on the road, more lanes will increase the flow. The cable cars are novelty transportation for tourists that residents of the city don't actually use for commuting. In case it's not clear, I'm refering to California st starting downtown and going all the way up the hill.

Yeah but the cable cars only run in a limited area, basically the scenic hill you mentioned.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#685

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

> They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit [...] They don't work in the rain, they can't handle construction, they block garages and driveways. You've just described the average Subaru driver in the Seattle area. How is this notably different? Shou…

If it were Subaru's fault then yes. Or if you stop on green during your driving test, you will fail.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#686
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are these autonomous vehicles so littered throughout California that you run into them weekly? In SF yes. Even small amounts of driving in certain areas will have multiple daily interactions with these vehicles.

Where can I see videos (in the wild, not corporate) of this? I've never seen one in my life, though I'm in LA.

In LA they're currently pretty active in the Santa Monica/Venice area (although rare enough that they get a lot of stares and photos... i felt like a celebrityon my rides). If you want to try it out there's some upcoming events where they'll give out a code for 1 week of free rides

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#687
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a standard that the self-driving industry likes to promulgate, I'm guessing because it's rhetorically powerful and because it suits them. is it accepted as a standard by any professionals? Why or why not?

I'm not in the industry, though I did briefly work on a self-driving car in grad school back in 2009. One simple and obvious reason for this standard is that it optimizes for human safety.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you are in the industry. I meant they've normalized it to a large degree.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#688
post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good grief, two skateboarders lives saved by a Waymo in two consecutive comments. A couple of weeks ago I came across a biker partially lying in the road, trapped by his bike. I parked my van at an angle, so if it was hit from behind it should roll past him. I jumped out and performed an assessment (I'm a qualified, OK: certificated first aider). I diagnosed "pissed" and ascertained he was unharmed. We got his bike i…

I do want to clarify that my comment: the skateboarder would not have died. Waymo provided a larger margin of error for the board rider than a human could possibly have.

No need for this comment - you deployed an anecdote from personal experience. That's fine.

However you finish with an assertion with no evidence. Care to elaborate? What on earth does this actually mean:

"Waymo provided a larger margin of error for the board rider than a human could possibly have."

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#689

The incident last month where that woman got dragged and pinned by the Cruise vehicle was pretty disconcerting. The initial collision wasn't the fault of the cruise vehicle (another vehicle hit her pushing her into the cruise vehicle and fled the scene), but the cruise vehicle then proceeded to try to "pull over" and just dragged this woman and rolled over her leg. Weird situation but definitely something made much m…

Aside from the other comments, pulling over when you detect a collision is definitely not best human practice on an ordinary city street for a human driver. If you detect a collision, you stop the vehicle, access the situation and maybe pull over based on your assessment of the situation. And this brings a question to me: How did they create, develop , this post-collision routine? Afaik, the overall program/system gu…

> And this brings a question to me: How did they create, develop, this post-collision routine?

I’m just going to assume it’s a liability thing:

* Cruise gets in an accident and stays in the road, passenger gets out and gets hit. * Cruise gets in an accident and pulls to the curb, passenger can get out on the curb (and if they don’t, and get hit, Cruise can claim it pulled over).

I could see this decision being made (or reviewed by) legal. Which sounds like a truly awful way to build a product.

I agree with you on the adhockery as well. Sounds like it.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a Waymo come to a screeching halt in a split second as a... less than intelligent individual... skateboarded in front of a bus, into the extremely busy road . If it was a human that person would have been dead, no question. Sometimes I'm riding in a Waymo (which I do every single day, 4x) and it does something, and I double take. Then a second later I see whatever it was it reacted to, and I'm like "dang, why d…

Good grief, two skateboarders lives saved by a Waymo in two consecutive comments. A couple of weeks ago I came across a biker partially lying in the road, trapped by his bike. I parked my van at an angle, so if it was hit from behind it should roll past him. I jumped out and performed an assessment (I'm a qualified, OK: certificated first aider). I diagnosed "pissed" and ascertained he was unharmed. We got his bike i…

They have multiple radars, lidars, and cameras. They're far more capable of detecting obstacles than people are.
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