Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google self-driving car pulled over for driving too slowly

mercurynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 218 posts

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

#91

Post by jacobolus »

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.

If whoever wrote the California traffic laws didn’t want neighborhood electric vehicles to drive on 35 mph streets, they shouldn’t have written the law that way. Such vehicles are legally restricted to a top speed of 25 mph, and by law they are allowed on roads with posted speed limits of up to 35 mph, unless restricted by local ordinance. cf. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_...

More generally, urban streets, even arterial streets like El Camino, would really benefit from more strictly enforced speed limits, and lower limits wherever possible. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car going 20–25 mph is likely to sustain only minor injuries. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car going 35+ mph will probably die. Drivers also have dramatically less reaction time and much worse road awareness at 35mph compared to 20–25 mph (and realistically the speed of traffic is probably 40–45 mph on a road with 35 as the posted limit).

Cars are scary killing machines, one of the leading causes of death, and drivers are often poorly trained, distracted, or just idiots. The slower and more carefully they drive in urban environments, the better.

I’d love it if armies of 25 mph self-driving cars were constantly cruising around town, restricting other drivers to a safer speed. If they could supplant the taxi/uber/lyft industry whose drivers speed along my residential street at 55+ mph every night from 12–6 AM, that would also be dandy.

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

#92

Post by arrrg »

derefr wrote: post #76
_ph_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Germany, I never heard about anyone ticketed for this. The only case really covered by this rule is, that one drives extremely slow under good conditions. Otherwise, in many situations "safety" would be a good reason. And in general, you cannot be asked to drive faster than your car can go. With the exception of the Autobahn and a very few similar streets, the Google car would be legal to drive speed-wise,…

I'm guessing it's intended as a liability law, like jaywalking laws are. Nobody will ticket you for jaywalking; instead, it'll just serve as the defense of whoever ended up hitting you. "They just ran out onto the freeway right in front of me!"

I was ticketed for jaywalking in Germany. It’s a €5 fine.

Police was hiding in an unmarked car, watching a traffic light in front of a supermarket with the singular purpose of catching jaywalkers. I was crossing the street (definitely not a busy one, more of an access road, mostly to just that supermarket and the old center of town, decidedly not exciting on a weekday at 10pm) while the light was red.

The officer was actually running (jogging, I guess) after me because I had my headphones on and didn't hear him asking me to stop. I thought it was quite ridiculous, but, if I'm honest to myself, this experience actually did make me think twice about jaywalking. I think I'm less likely to do it now.

The fine is not a big deal, though, it's basically the mildest possible punishment.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

threeseed wrote: post #83
joedavison wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see police start giving tickets for tailgating instead of speeding. Speeding alone is rarely very dangerous, especially on roads with few other cars. On the other hand, tailgating is always extremely dangerous, even when the speeds involved are relatively low.

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.

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by ilyanep »

ggreer wrote: post #85
fletchowns wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, if you aren't driving 5 mph over the speed limit, the car behind you is going to tailgate the hell out of you. It's ridiculous, I know.

To be fair, many of the speed limits are low. Look at street view where the car was pulled over.[1] El Camino Real is a divided boulevard with three lanes in each direction. There are stoplights and dedicated turning lanes. I'm not an aggressive driver, but I've caught myself speeding on that road before. Everything about it makes my mind think, "It's safe to go faster." 1. https://goo.gl/maps/WdfhEAGBsDP2

El Camino always seemed to me like it has an absurdly low speed limit, then a friend reminded me that there are unsignaled pedestrian crosswalks along it in Mountain View. It's true that it feels like it ought to be a 45 road, though.

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

#95

Post by jacobolus »

ggreer wrote: post #85
fletchowns wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In California, if you aren't driving 5 mph over the speed limit, the car behind you is going to tailgate the hell out of you. It's ridiculous, I know.

To be fair, many of the speed limits are low. Look at street view where the car was pulled over.[1] El Camino Real is a divided boulevard with three lanes in each direction. There are stoplights and dedicated turning lanes. I'm not an aggressive driver, but I've caught myself speeding on that road before. Everything about it makes my mind think, "It's safe to go faster." 1. https://goo.gl/maps/WdfhEAGBsDP2

With three lanes in each direction, there should be plenty of room for other cars to safely pass a Google car, no?

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

#96

Post by pluma »

threeseed wrote: post #83
joedavison wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see police start giving tickets for tailgating instead of speeding. Speeding alone is rarely very dangerous, especially on roads with few other cars. On the other hand, tailgating is always extremely dangerous, even when the speeds involved are relatively low.

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 length, but with both tailgating and cutting in on someone constituting reckless driving offences, that's not a huge problem.

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

#97

Post by thrownaway2424 »

coderdude wrote: post #89
threeseed wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I get this a lot. Sometimes there's a car in the far left lane (the legally unofficial "fast lane") driving much slower than the social norm expects. It causes issues. People need to move when someone is in their way. It's instinct. It screws up the flow.

Having a speed gradient across the lanes is for limited-access divided highways only. Left lane / right lane == fast lane / slow lane is not applicable to ordinary streets.

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

#98

Post by anon4 »

wpietri wrote: post #26
gcr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait for a hacker to make a "Get-out-of-my-way" gun out of blinking lights that makes all the Google cars in front of her pull over. Maybe she could build it out of IR LEDs, so it's not obvious to humans. :)

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.

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

#99

Post by DrScump »

kissickas wrote: post #80
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 that required by law? FTA '"We've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 mph for safety reasons," the post explained. "We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets."' Sounds like Google's decision to me. Either way, it's not a highway, so that section seems irrelevant. And "in compliance with the law" is quite a broad redirect.

You're confusing highway with freeway.

A highway, as defined in the CVC, is the generic term for any public road on which the Vehicle Code applies, even if it's one lane each way: '360. “Highway” is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street.'

As for the speed limiter, a 25 MPH hard limit is ridiculous unless they were limiting usage to streets with a 25MPH limit.

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

#100

Post by deathanatos »

kissickas wrote: post #80
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 that required by law? FTA '"We've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 mph for safety reasons," the post explained. "We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets."' Sounds like Google's decision to me. Either way, it's not a highway, so that section seems irrelevant. And "in compliance with the law" is quite a broad redirect.

> Either way, it's not a highway, so that section seems irrelevant.

(IANAL) "Highway" means road or street[1]:

> 360. "Highway" is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street.

(I've never actually heard highway used in common speech that way; only in the vehicle code, but that I think is what would count here.) The article also seems to indicate this was El Camino Real, which is also CA State Route 82.

[1]: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/vctop/vc/d1/36...

It should also be here[2], but that page is blank for some odd reason.

[2]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayexpand...

Post reply on HN