[HN Gopher] CA commission says Cruise withheld data about parkin...
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       CA commission says Cruise withheld data about parking atop of a
       pedestrian
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2023-12-04 20:47 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | The same week that happened, a New York Police Department tow
       | truck struck a 7-year old child in a crosswalk, walking to
       | school, and dragged him 40 feet.[1] The child died. No other
       | vehicle contributed to the accident. The tow truck driver was
       | charged with failing to yield right of way to a pedestrian.
       | 
       |  _" Tyrana Carter, who witnessed the collision, said the boy was
       | riding a bright green scooter next to his mother, who was pushing
       | another child in a stroller, as they crossed the street. The
       | driver of the tow truck, Ms. Carter said, appeared to be trying
       | to beat a yellow light when she hit the boy. "When she came
       | around the corner, she hit the kid and she rolled over him," said
       | Ms. Carter, noting that many children, including the victim, were
       | on their way to school."_
       | 
       | This did not result in any policy changes.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/nyregion/nypd-tow-
       | truck-b...
        
         | hnta2023 wrote:
         | did the tow truck driver attempt to mislead or cover up what
         | happened?
        
           | joombaga wrote:
           | The linked article does not suggest she did.
        
           | xp84 wrote:
           | I get your valid point here. I think most people would agree
           | that they should not try to hide what happened.
           | 
           | But it's also undeniable that there is an impossible double
           | standard in play here. Those who believe that no autonomous
           | vehicles should be allowed to ever exist use every accident
           | like this to try to blanket-ban them (or to make it
           | impossible to develop and test them, even if their safety is
           | factually no worse (in terms of $bad_thing per vehicle mile
           | driven) than human drivers). Those people are being emotional
           | and cherry-picking. If every car was self-driving, the
           | incident in the article here would have happened, but that
           | boy in NYC would still be alive because what AV would have
           | gunned it to beat a yellow?
           | 
           | No one can say which life is worth more, however if they can
           | demonstrate that there would be fewer deaths by developing
           | and having AVs, vs eliminating them, it's a tough sell that
           | AVs are evil, unless there is a viable alternative that
           | somehow never ever kills or hurts anyone.
        
         | morelisp wrote:
         | Did the NYPD try to hide what happened?
         | 
         | Should our bar for acceptable behavior be the NYPD?
        
         | nawgz wrote:
         | > This did not result in any policy changes.
         | 
         | Right, and why would it? The headline of the article you linked
         | is:
         | 
         | "Driver of N.Y.P.D. Tow Truck Is Charged After Killing 7-Year-
         | Old Boy"
         | 
         | Meanwhile, Cruise is a giant corporation who are performing
         | research to fuel their for-profit business on public streets,
         | which means they therefore answer to the authority of the state
         | on the bounds of this research.
         | 
         | The state, seeing that the for-profit corporation is behaving
         | in bad faith within the guidelines they've set up, are going to
         | update policy / use the punitive actions outlined within that
         | policy to answer to this bad faith behavior.
         | 
         | Can you explain to me why these seem to be comparable
         | situations that should be treated identically to you?
        
           | tiahura wrote:
           | Because they both involve pedestrian deaths?
           | 
           | The point being made is that we've got wildly different,
           | possibly irrational so, expectations of safety in these two
           | different contexts, but in the end, the consequence is the
           | same, an innocent dead pedestrian.
        
             | cyanydeez wrote:
             | one has a standard criminal procedure.
             | 
             | the other has...?
        
             | carlosdp wrote:
             | > Because they both involve pedestrian deaths?
             | 
             | To my knowledge, the Cruise incident _does not_ involve any
             | deaths. The woman was taken to the ICU, but I haven 't seen
             | anything about her dying.
        
           | emmender1 wrote:
           | allow me..
           | 
           | the person is incentivized to view the events in that manner
           | (ie works for or is associated with cruise/autopilot etc)...
        
         | ignormies wrote:
         | I'd argue that _both_ should necessitate policy changes. The
         | argument that there shouldn't be changes for one if there
         | aren't changes for another is a flawed one.
        
           | cyanydeez wrote:
           | also, a crime happened and the guilty party was punished.
           | 
           | what exactly is gonna happen if this happens?
           | 
           | if a car kills someone, what's the equivalent criminal
           | procedure.
        
         | cyanydeez wrote:
         | yes, because there was a guilty party that could be "taken care
         | of".
         | 
         | pretty simple logic.
         | 
         | if you go find the engineer who negligent code caused this,
         | pretty sure you'd have an equivalence.
        
         | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
         | I assume that the intelligence that was controlling the tow
         | truck that hit the kid is not going to drive for many years.
         | 
         | I don't see why the intelligence that was controlling the
         | Cruise vehicle should also not be able to drive for many years?
        
         | VirusNewbie wrote:
         | It's always amazing to me that people are charged so little for
         | causing the death of someone purely out of negligence.
         | 
         | If I swung a baseball bat out in public while not paying
         | attention and it killed someone, _surely_ I would be at least
         | charged with manslaughter? It 's not like we don't know that
         | driving a tow truck could crush someone.
        
       | m4jor wrote:
       | "Last week, GM CEO Mary Barra said her company would
       | "substantially" reduce its spending on Cruise after earlier
       | pausing its production of Cruise-branded "Origin" autonomous
       | vans. GM has invested around $2 billion in Cruise since it bought
       | the company in 201."
       | 
       | Damn, didn't know autonomous vehicles have been around since the
       | year 201.
        
         | actionfromafar wrote:
         | They were popular for millenia, but feel out of fashion when
         | the internal combustion engine was invented. Some say the
         | autonomous operation was limited and esily distracted by oats.
        
         | xp84 wrote:
         | Technically, horses were able to operate in autonomous mode,
         | and did have automatic collision avoidance features.
        
       | fabian2k wrote:
       | No idea why this is removed from the frontpage, it's kind of an
       | important aspect of how self-driving cars are tested in the US.
       | If you rely mostly on self-reporting by the companies testing
       | them for oversight, a company not reporting the crucial part of
       | an accident that shows that the car did not behave properly is a
       | huge deal.
       | 
       | Trying to get out of the way does make sense after a minor
       | accident. Doing so after hitting a person is clearly dangerous as
       | shown by this incident, and self-driving cars likely should not
       | attempt it at all.
        
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