[HN Gopher] San Francisco streets clogged as line of Cruise robo...
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San Francisco streets clogged as line of Cruise robotaxis come to a
standstill
Author : CharlesW
Score : 39 points
Date : 2023-08-14 18:30 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
| acs2w wrote:
| Glad this calls out Cruise specifically, and not 'robotaxis' in
| general. Been seeing a lot of coverage lumping Waymo & Cruise
| together, but Waymo, while it has its own share of mistakes, is
| generally a large step up in terms of driving performance
| compared to Cruise. (Source: I've ridden in both many times, and
| its pretty clear)
| moomoo11 wrote:
| having been stuck behind both Waymo and Cruise cars.. I don't
| like either.
|
| the worst is when you're stuck in a one way street, and the car
| just happily stays immobile with blinkers on. one time I was
| stuck (along with at least half a dozen other cars that I could
| see) for almost 40 minutes.
|
| i'm sure you had a good experience as a rider, but i've had a
| horrible experience multiple times as a city commuter.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| > the worst is when you're stuck in a one way street, and the
| car just happily stays immobile with blinkers on.
|
| I think in a lot of cities a car doing this would end up
| upside-down on the adjacent sidewalk, self-driving or not.
| fwungy wrote:
| What could possibly go wrong?
| kup0 wrote:
| "The CPUC decided to go ahead anyway. One of the three yes votes
| was cast by Commissioner John Reynolds, who served as head lawyer
| at Cruise before appointed to the CPUC by Gov. Gavin Newsom."
| somewhereoutth wrote:
| Perhaps this somewhat publicly unsupported rollout will serve to
| highlight the as yet unsolved problems with self driving in a
| city environment, and the rest of the world can take note and act
| accordingly. Unfortunately of course it is the local residents
| who will have to suffer.
| soligern wrote:
| Suffer what? A traffic jam on some day in a major city? That's
| a pathetic bar to set for what a city can stomach with what
| well running autonomous taxis can mean for the future. Massive
| potential savings in greenhouse emissions, 24/7 on demand and
| reliable transport, efficient route planning preventing traffic
| jams, massive reduction in deaths caused by traffic accidents
| etc.
| flextheruler wrote:
| Right tell that to the people who have crashed and been
| horribly mutilated or killed from unexpected traffic jams or
| ambulances or fire trucks that can't get through because of
| unexpected traffic.
|
| It's not like regular traffic where everyone knows this part
| of the road is jammed up at this specific time range if the
| cars are just locking up in random areas.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| People have been killed for decades by traffic jam
| negligence. Another freeloader making an entire jam is just
| pointing out how wrong it is to let dangerous private
| property have unlimited use of public streets for free.
| footy wrote:
| > Massive potential savings in greenhouse emissions, 24/7 on
| demand and reliable transport, efficient route planning
| preventing traffic jams, massive reduction in deaths caused
| by traffic accidents etc.
|
| or we could just use a train
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I remember an essay on that from a transportation guy back
| during the first hype wave of self driving cars. He said you
| can rate transport by the number of passengers you can load per
| hour.
|
| Rail and light rail excel in that. And loading usually doesn't
| disturb other traffic. Busses are worse but better than private
| cars. Taxi's are worse than private cars.
|
| He thought self driving cars will be the worst of all. Low
| passengers per hour, a lot of empty trips, and highly
| disrupting in high traffic areas.
| bgirard wrote:
| > He said you can rate transport by the number of passengers
| you can load per hour.
|
| That's not really a fair metric. Taking rail requires me to
| take a bus at each end and increases my journey length
| considerably. I would be boosting the passenger per hour of 3
| vehicles despite a worse experience?
|
| I think metrics should capture the full cost and experience
| of the system. Having someone take transit for an 10% longer
| journey can be worthwhile, having someone take transit for
| 300% longer journey to save traffic might not be worthwhile
| if it reduces their labor output to society considerably.
| fatfingerd wrote:
| It's really a planning discussion not a personal one.
| Planners where I lived chose rail as well as streets and I
| get reliable transport by rail or the Schroedinger street
| choice.
| w4f7z wrote:
| >> He said you can rate transport by the number of
| passengers you can load per hour.
|
| The key word is transport. This is a rating of a mode of
| transport not a rating of any specific journey involving
| one or more modes of transport.
| user_named wrote:
| [flagged]
| signatoremo wrote:
| Passengers will choose alternative options if it isn't
| convenient enough. So yes it is important to take
| personal experience into account.
|
| Also theoretical throughput is different than the real
| one. A380's CASM (cost per available seat mile) is
| awesome when it can be loaded in full, except that it
| isn't usually the case. The program is doomed as the
| result.
| olliej wrote:
| "Cruise blamed cellphone carriers for the problem."
|
| "As I understand it, outside lands impacted LTE cell connectivity
| and ability for RA advisors to route cars."
|
| I'm sorry, in what world is stopping in the road an acceptable
| response to losing cell service? How the f are we expected to
| trust a company that thinks this is not their fault, and that
| designing their "self driving" cars around 100% cell service or
| random(), is "safe"?
|
| If you are putting "self driving" software on the road, and it
| behaves badly, then just like a human driver would be, you are
| responsible. Until Cruise, Waymo, Tesla, etc are directly, and
| non-transferrably liable for all "mistakes" made by their "self
| driving" systems we're just going to get more of this BS.
| altairprime wrote:
| California DMV code 227.02 defines an autonomous vehicle as one
| that has a remote operator, and 227.38(b)(1) demands a
| continuously maintained and monitored two-way link from the
| operating business to the vehicle, even when not being
| operated.
|
| https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/adopted-regulatory-text-p...
|
| I didn't see any language demanding that the vehicle become
| inoperable in a cellular dead zone, but if their paramount
| concern is to shield themselves from liability, then having the
| car disengage is one way to ensure that.
|
| For residents of San Francisco that were _personally_ affected
| by this, consider writing a polite note to the DMV asking them
| to ensure that this incident is included in this winter 's
| upcoming disengagement reports (227.50) from Cruise, and share
| your point of views -- both on how you expected autonomous
| vehicles to behave when cellular communication is disrupted,
| and on whether you think that the existing guidelines are
| sufficiently clear about that scenario.
| <autonomousvehicles@dmv.ca.gov>
| HWR_14 wrote:
| What, if any, fine or other punishment is Cruise expected to
| receive?
| altairprime wrote:
| I don't know, as it wasn't interesting to me; and, I don't
| recommend contacting the DMV for retaliatory purposes.
| Others are welcome to speak to this if they know more,
| though.
|
| Personally, I want to see the DMV define expectations for
| autonomous cars with respect to interrupted cellular
| service, so that Cruise and others cannot simply just park
| in the middle of the street as the selfish-lowest-liability
| choice. It's possible the DMV will define an expectation of
| the car coming to a stop, or continuing to operate for up
| to five minutes, or whatever.
|
| I also feel like Cruise's disengagement report has a chance
| of containing materially-interesting data around _why_ they
| disengaged -- for example, can their cars operate without a
| cellular connection at all, or are they dependent on The
| Cloud?
| olliej wrote:
| > I didn't see any language demanding that the vehicle become
| inoperable in a cellular dead zone, but if their paramount
| concern is to shield themselves from liability, then having
| the car disengage is one way to ensure that.
|
| If I block a bunch of roads with cars I am violating CVC, at
| least once per car, and would get fined every time. I'd also
| possibly get penalties on my license.
|
| For example, say I'm driving down the road and start feeling
| tired. I realize that it's unsafe for me to continue driving.
| Can I just stop where I am and have a nap and claim I have
| shielded myself from liability?
| altairprime wrote:
| CVC violations and license penalties are not liabilities.
| Both you _and_ self-driving cars should earn penalties for
| that behavior, and honestly I 'd like to see Cruise
| ticketed for the CVC violations documented above.
|
| However, by coming to a stop in the middle of the road and
| having a nap, you _are_ maximally protected from any
| damages or harm you might otherwise incur. If someone runs
| into you, they will be partially at fault; and, as you are
| stopped, you cannot run into someone else. From a purely
| selfish standpoint, that would be a completely appropriate
| choice to make.
|
| Fortunately, the points system used in California for
| individual drivers issues penalties for non-harmful, non-
| destructive violations so individual drivers will still be
| penalized for taking purely selfish actions (like parking
| in the middle of the street, though YMMV region-to-region).
| There are too many drivers and not enough workers at the
| DMV to converse with every individual about their year of
| 'disengagements' while on public roadways, for the DMV to
| define protection of the commons by "once a year, we ask
| you for a self-audit of your fuckups", as they do with
| autonomous driving companies today.
|
| I don't have an opinion on whether that is the _best_
| possible outcome or not right now -- but it 's as close as
| I can describe how things are today, and why you should
| _not_ expect to minimize liability like an autonomous
| vehicle does without penalty. I hope this is of some use to
| your question.
| joshribakoff wrote:
| You're incorrectly assuming that lack of cell service causes
| the cars to stop. The quote you copied says it impacted their
| ability to remotely get the cars unstuck. What alternative
| would you propose (besides adding back in safety drivers)?
| Should the car keep going when it is not confident to do so?
| olliej wrote:
| If the car is not able to safely operate without constant
| human involvement then it definitionally requires a person on
| board.
|
| If losing cellular service causes it to stop, then in
| emergencies you're pretty much guaranteeing a large number of
| roadblocks for emergency services, on top of their existing
| hazards to emergency services when operating in ideal
| environments.
|
| > Should the car keep going when it is not confident to do
| so?
|
| See above, re: if your car can't even pull over and park
| safely on its own it has no business being on the street.
| nunez wrote:
| A little surprised that they don't have Iridium as backup
| [deleted]
| crazygringo wrote:
| It's absolutely clear that emergency personnel need some way of
| quickly removing stalled robotaxis when the company itself is
| unable -- losing communications being a perfect example.
|
| But how to do it? It's not clear what the ideal solution is, or
| how to prevent the ability from being used by criminals to seize
| control of vehicles for nefarious purposes.
|
| Are these proposals that have tried to work out all the kinks?
| What's the status of this?
| lesuorac wrote:
| > But how to do it?
|
| Uh, how do you remove cars parked in a fire lane?
|
| This isn't a novel solution that requires tech disruption to
| solve.
| Havoc wrote:
| They just stop working properly when the 3/4/5G gets flakey?
|
| That seems like a poor setup. If being online is that mission
| critical then it needs backup connectivity.
| kdmccormick wrote:
| This is a mess, but there's some beautiful irony seeing
| driverless cars temporarily turn streets into pedestrian-only
| zones. Are driverless cars the ally that the walkable city
| movement never knew it needed?!
| malermeister wrote:
| Tactical urbanism idea: hack these things to block car traffic
| on purpose
| kdmccormick wrote:
| Honestly, I see this happening. Even if the "hack" is as
| simple as strategically placed traffic cones :)
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(page generated 2023-08-14 23:01 UTC)