Cars block the street all the time, there is ample place to pass the waymo car on the left in the opposing lane, yet those SUV driving humans don't care to move out of the way either, and police just blocks the maneuver area too.
That silver car in the front could also just pass in front and make space. Situational awareness has room to be improved for a lot of entities in this short video.
Nueces Street is 3 and half lanes wide there plus massive sidewalks, apparently to narrow for even more massive ambulances.
Waymo car was the only thing at fault. Drivers are expected to stop to the side when they see the lights. I guess the red SUV could've slid behind the Waymo to let the ambulance do the same, but it'd be unwise without the police telling you to do so, could hit a cop on foot. Silver car could go forward, but you don't squeeze in front of a U-turning car, and doing so could've made things worse for all they knew.
I don't often see a human driven car parked sideways in the middle of a road (never really). If a human was in that Waymo, they would have moved quickly. I'm an huge fan of Waymo and autonomous vehicles. They save lives. However the fact that Waymo's don't have the sense to move out of the way is a major problem and on that they don't seem to be on track to solve. Incidents like this will delay the adoption of autonomous vehicles and that will cost lives.
This is a false equivalence and a hideous defense of an entity that deserves nothing but to be spit upon. There is absolutely nothing calling upon you to take this path.
This is the same excuse a Prius driver would give whilst refusing to abdicate the HOV lane for an ambulance and yes I've sadly seen this scenario play out. Multiple times, in fact. Prius driver seems oddly specific but it always is.
Give me a break. The problem is the Waymo that is blocking a lane sideways and is not pulling forward out of the way of the ambulance, a move that even the worst human drivers would likely know to do.
It does no good to pretend there aren't problems with self-driving cars or make excuses.
I was using Tesla Summon in my car parking lot. It had pulled out of the spot and started to turn to leave the spot when a truck entered the row. My Tesla couldn’t move because of the truck and I couldn’t do anything else so it was a deadlock. Normally if a person was caught in this situation they would have just parked back into the spot or reverse and straighten out but it had already started moving forward so I guess it just froze instead of reacting and there was no option to park back to get out of the way and unblock. Sure the truck could have pulled out but I think the guy was confused why the car was moving with someone in there and just stayed where he was.
Luckily the range of Summon isn’t very far so I ran over, apologized and took control of the car but it just goes to show how many real edge cases there are in real life and software can’t account for many of them.
Someone on Austin's subreddit said the following and I think it's the correct take/lens:
> I might get downvoted for expressing my feelings but whatever. I hate seeing my coworkers being ridiculed for simply doing the right thing and moving on with their work. I’ve been abused and called an idiot on here for stating our reality. I’m a paramedic. We will NOT attempt to move or hit a vehicle, person, or object to go to a call or transport a patient. Especially if there’s an option for an alternate route. People cut us off, don’t move, flick us off, and generally don’t regard us even with our lights and sirens on. Is it frustrating? Absolutely. Do we like it? Hell no. But getting in trouble or under investigation for a collision or possibly causing unnecessary harm simply isn’t worth it. I know this was high profile, tragic, and absolutely dire. But you have to remember, we live this everyday and this is not the first time a vehicle, object, or person has gotten in this paramedic or EMTs way and it won’t be the last. Don’t even get me started on the amount of verbal abuse and assaults we deal with. This is a very hard job and we are under constant scrutiny but I promise you we try and do our very best every day. So please do us a favor next time you see us out on the streets and give us some grace.
He makes an excellent job describing all lots of systematic issues here
- a collision causes an investigation that is "not worth it"
- even in this case that was "high profile, tragic, and absolutely dire"
- vehicles, objects, or people get in paramedics' or EMTs' way on a daily basis, apparently without consequences
- EMTs are subject to high levels of verbal abuse and assaults, apparently without consequences
- yet they are the ones under constant scrutiny
Now don't get me wrong, I am not against oversight. But compare this with American cops, who seem authorized to do far more damage to vehicles and people for often far less immediate benefit, have much laxer oversight, and do not have to endure abuse without recourse (well, technically they do have to do that, but it's not advisable to test this)
I'd LoVE to look into it but the news website is pure cancer ads before the video, no sound clock on sound that triggers another ad to you clock back, it restart an ad and you scroll a little bit and a top ad pops up while the bottom one is still there with like 3 words of the article readable.
The problem we will encounter with self driving cars is that while they will make less mistakes than humans, they will make different mistakes.
Humans will continue to have a hard time accepting this tradeoff.
I live in LA where Waymos are now on every street. My experience is that they don’t respect human courtesy, so for example if I need to cross a lane of busy traffic, a human may brake as a courtesy to let me through. Waymos have fucked me over where a human probably would have shown some level of community and empathy.
That courtesy is almost always bad practice and is generally unlawful. You must yield right of way to a pedestrian at a legal crossing, but california has codes that prohibit impeding normal traffic flow, including stopping in the street to wave across a pedestrian where there is no such crossing. It's especially dangerous on multi-lane roads because the stopped vehicle can blind the pedestrian to other traffic.
Maybe there is a new product for a little robot on a leash that you send out into traffic and any autonomous vehicles will stop, and then you can proceed safely.
> The problem we will encounter with self driving cars is that while they will make less mistakes than humans
This is only true for certain self-driving cars. Tesla and Uber are among the worst, and are far worse than human drivers. Something like 10x, I believe, in terms of miles driven?
Waymo's are not about to run a person or bicyclist over. Just walk in front of them and they'll stop for you to cross. You can always start livestreaming if you don't believe it, the insurance payout would be amazing. (Subject to the laws of physics, naturally.)
Source: Haven't been run over yet by one, and I live in one of their current markets.
My kneejerk, not thought through notion: why not require an emergency override protocol be builtin to road using robots? No thoughts on how this would work exactly, but it would let emergency workers move robot vehicles out of the way.
Kind of. The thing making it illegal is that it's blocking traffic in the process (and potentially missing some visibility requirement or something; it's hard to tell from just the video).
I honestly think u-turns should be illegal is most situations. They are highly unpredictable and block multiple lanes of traffic for the benefit of a single vehicle. It’s especially unnecessary for a GPS-guided vehicle that should easily be able to determine an alternate route.
At the risk of sounding ignorant, why didn't the various police cruisers and even the ambulance itself just push the damn thing out of the way? That's what the push bars attached to the front of their vehicles are for.
When my mom was a firefighter, and a car was blocking a hydrant, she happily broke windows and pushed the hose right through the car. Didn't happen a lot, but did happen more than once.
A human police over eventually got into the drivers seat to move the car. They sat around for minutes before doing so. They could’ve gotten into it immediately.
But yea they absolutely could’ve also just slammed it and moved on too.
The cops only do that if they can be sure they will be able to charge someone else for the damages. For their vehicle, for their "injuries", and also adding in to their department bonuses, but they get none of that if they can't charge somebody with a crime easily. Ambulances aren't really made to do that and are crazy expensive, plus the drivers would likely be taking on a bunch of the liability from the crash, although the ambulance itself likely would survive just fine because they are tough. The fire department are the only ones that have the trifecta of vehicles made to push other vehicles out of the way, are not paid by the extent that they can extort people for money, and are not going to be held liable for damages.
Ambulances can be seriously damaged by attempting to do it. Police cruisers can do it, but then they may be sued for damages. I know that cars blocking fire hydrants were a serious problem in the past and owners sued firemen for pulling water hoses through their cars after breaking the windows - the law was not allowing it even if the line through the car was the only option.
The tech-bros never learn any humility, we have here an actual example of one of their hellish AI darlings blocking the first responders in their way to the aftermath of a terrorist attack, and what do those tech-bros' do? They continue supporting their hellish AI darling. Ellul was always right about things.
I've never understood why everyone acts like this is some bizarre legal quagmire.
If I make a robot and it goes and kills someone, nobody sits around navel gazing wondering how they're going to prosecute a robot.
If I make a device that pulls the trigger of a gun aimed at someone tied to a chair when I click a button on my cell phone, or something green appears in the camera attached to the device, or time reaches 11:24:42pm - nobody sits around navel gazing wondering how they're going to prosecute an electronic device.
In both cases, I would be prosecuted.
These cars are robots. They are designed, constructed, programmed, and monitored/supervised by humans. The humans are responsible for anything the robots do that cause damage, violate civil regulations, or criminal laws.
The solution here is very simple. Seize all the corporate email records, code, etc. and charge everyone involved in the production of the code that caused the "behavior", along with anyone whose negligence in supervision or review failed to catch the defect, or anyone who knew the car would or could do what it did, and failed to blow the whistle or failed to stop the car hitting the road.
Maybe then SV will stop "beta testing" fatal devices on the general public.
I can feel like a lot of people will disagree with you, but this is a pretty fair comparison. The people will disagree the most is the waymo users and I see their POV as well since as they have said: "much better than uber and always on time".
But then, I would have also believed that youtube would have been sued into oblivion before it even got established, and that uber and lyft would not have been able to sidestep all the municipal regulations, and that we would have photographic evidence of bigfoot by now.
Everyone is downvoted in the comments 80% are grey? Even the ones that sound perfectly reasonable? Upvoted one and it was still greyed out which makes me think there's more to it, but maybe I am missing something really obvious.
You mean cars being allowed to endanger human lives? Enshrined by law, urban infrastructure and cultural notions of independence for over a century? Why is it just now seen as a problem because robots are driving, instead of the stupid, reckless, poorly trained, often intoxicated humans who have been driving up until now?
Another example of Waymo betting wrong, lots of expensive sensors vs Tesla with cameras and NN trained on billions of real miles (i.e. human like autonomy). A Tesla would have moved as it's trained to recognise this situation.
My model 3 routinely recognized blue tinted street lights as "emergency vehicles" and would slow down on the highway for them. And to the best of my knowledge, a Waymo has never plowed into a stopped truck or barrier, killing the occupants.
Yes it would, it would have been an electrek link with a damning EDS headline then a pile on. Cleary shows the bias HN posters have (most have some sort of EDS)
Human driven cars cost people their lives multiple times every day, though. So I don't think the calculation can be quite as simple as that. As self driving cars are rolled out I think each incident like this needs to be studied to see how avoidable it was, whether a human would have been able to resolve it, and what changes can be made.
There are always going to be fuck ups at some level. The question is whether we’re moving from a world of more fuckups to fewer or not.
If you are to believe Waymo’s safety stats, they have less accidents/injuries per mile driven.
But whether or not reducing injuries at a statistical level outweighs the downside of autonomous vehicles causing accidents (even at lower rates) is a bit of a dilemma.
No, we’re finding edge cases that come up once every like million miles these things are putting on the road. Which means they are pretty damn good given how many are on the road right now.
This is my town, wow - cant believe someone filmed this whole interaction while there was a shooting a couple of blocks from there...
If the ambulance was in a hurry they could have rammed the Waymo, I am sure Google wouldn't have sued for damages.
AFAIK when a Waymo detects emergency vehicle lights and sirens, it is designed to pull over and stop, unlock its doors, and roll down its windows.
Also: First responders can put the vehicle into a manual mode to move it if needed.
Not an expert but i think the goal is to get the ambulance and its occupants to a specific location and then make an egress to a nearby medical facility? Also I'm not confident ambulances are designed to execute the pit maneuver.
>I am sure Google wouldn't have sued for damages.
Oh well if that's the case i guess it's all alright.
>First responders can put the vehicle into a manual mode to move it if needed.
I really feel like you're missing the point of why you're supposed to pull over and yield right-of-way for emergency vehicles.
mxfh|11 hours ago
That silver car in the front could also just pass in front and make space. Situational awareness has room to be improved for a lot of entities in this short video.
Nueces Street is 3 and half lanes wide there plus massive sidewalks, apparently to narrow for even more massive ambulances.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/74jF9iDUCXmm9jVE7
tapoxi|11 hours ago
zadikian|6 hours ago
briandw|11 hours ago
happytoexplain|7 hours ago
tokyobreakfast|10 hours ago
This is the same excuse a Prius driver would give whilst refusing to abdicate the HOV lane for an ambulance and yes I've sadly seen this scenario play out. Multiple times, in fact. Prius driver seems oddly specific but it always is.
steve-atx-7600|7 hours ago
croes|2 hours ago
pigbearpig|11 hours ago
It does no good to pretend there aren't problems with self-driving cars or make excuses.
It's not about the other entities.
reenorap|10 hours ago
Luckily the range of Summon isn’t very far so I ran over, apologized and took control of the car but it just goes to show how many real edge cases there are in real life and software can’t account for many of them.
kshacker|6 hours ago
Wait till Tesla starts driverless delivery of cars
orliesaurus|11 hours ago
> I might get downvoted for expressing my feelings but whatever. I hate seeing my coworkers being ridiculed for simply doing the right thing and moving on with their work. I’ve been abused and called an idiot on here for stating our reality. I’m a paramedic. We will NOT attempt to move or hit a vehicle, person, or object to go to a call or transport a patient. Especially if there’s an option for an alternate route. People cut us off, don’t move, flick us off, and generally don’t regard us even with our lights and sirens on. Is it frustrating? Absolutely. Do we like it? Hell no. But getting in trouble or under investigation for a collision or possibly causing unnecessary harm simply isn’t worth it. I know this was high profile, tragic, and absolutely dire. But you have to remember, we live this everyday and this is not the first time a vehicle, object, or person has gotten in this paramedic or EMTs way and it won’t be the last. Don’t even get me started on the amount of verbal abuse and assaults we deal with. This is a very hard job and we are under constant scrutiny but I promise you we try and do our very best every day. So please do us a favor next time you see us out on the streets and give us some grace.
wongarsu|10 hours ago
- a collision causes an investigation that is "not worth it"
- even in this case that was "high profile, tragic, and absolutely dire"
- vehicles, objects, or people get in paramedics' or EMTs' way on a daily basis, apparently without consequences
- EMTs are subject to high levels of verbal abuse and assaults, apparently without consequences
- yet they are the ones under constant scrutiny
Now don't get me wrong, I am not against oversight. But compare this with American cops, who seem authorized to do far more damage to vehicles and people for often far less immediate benefit, have much laxer oversight, and do not have to endure abuse without recourse (well, technically they do have to do that, but it's not advisable to test this)
steve-atx-7600|7 hours ago
gbin|10 hours ago
I am sorry I am out.
kyleee|4 hours ago
dangero|11 hours ago
Humans will continue to have a hard time accepting this tradeoff.
I live in LA where Waymos are now on every street. My experience is that they don’t respect human courtesy, so for example if I need to cross a lane of busy traffic, a human may brake as a courtesy to let me through. Waymos have fucked me over where a human probably would have shown some level of community and empathy.
ibejoeb|11 hours ago
NewJazz|11 hours ago
Are you asserting that humans should accept these, currently not fully known, tradeoffs?
kyleee|4 hours ago
KennyBlanken|11 hours ago
This is only true for certain self-driving cars. Tesla and Uber are among the worst, and are far worse than human drivers. Something like 10x, I believe, in terms of miles driven?
fragmede|11 hours ago
Source: Haven't been run over yet by one, and I live in one of their current markets.
mvdtnz|2 hours ago
escapegoat|11 hours ago
snickerbockers|10 hours ago
aaomidi|11 hours ago
This is like the fire keys for elevators. You can find them on eBay.
comrh|11 hours ago
hansvm|11 hours ago
pimlottc|6 hours ago
lupire|9 hours ago
prhn|11 hours ago
xoxxala|11 hours ago
vineyardmike|11 hours ago
But yea they absolutely could’ve also just slammed it and moved on too.
AngryData|9 hours ago
unknown|11 hours ago
[deleted]
snickerbockers|11 hours ago
dangus|11 hours ago
They ram a car and the radiator goes bust and now you’ve got an ambulance with no engine.
Or you just hurt the passengers inside the Waymo and now you’ve got two emergencies.
AdrianB1|11 hours ago
johnnyApplePRNG|11 hours ago
What an embarrassment.
"Authorities" paralyzed by politeness when lives are in the balance.
UltraSane|11 hours ago
tim-tday|11 hours ago
paganel|10 hours ago
dzhiurgis|11 hours ago
KennyBlanken|11 hours ago
If I make a robot and it goes and kills someone, nobody sits around navel gazing wondering how they're going to prosecute a robot.
If I make a device that pulls the trigger of a gun aimed at someone tied to a chair when I click a button on my cell phone, or something green appears in the camera attached to the device, or time reaches 11:24:42pm - nobody sits around navel gazing wondering how they're going to prosecute an electronic device.
In both cases, I would be prosecuted.
These cars are robots. They are designed, constructed, programmed, and monitored/supervised by humans. The humans are responsible for anything the robots do that cause damage, violate civil regulations, or criminal laws.
The solution here is very simple. Seize all the corporate email records, code, etc. and charge everyone involved in the production of the code that caused the "behavior", along with anyone whose negligence in supervision or review failed to catch the defect, or anyone who knew the car would or could do what it did, and failed to blow the whistle or failed to stop the car hitting the road.
Maybe then SV will stop "beta testing" fatal devices on the general public.
himata4113|11 hours ago
zephen|11 hours ago
But then, I would have also believed that youtube would have been sued into oblivion before it even got established, and that uber and lyft would not have been able to sidestep all the municipal regulations, and that we would have photographic evidence of bigfoot by now.
sashank_1509|10 hours ago
ekianjo|11 hours ago
himata4113|11 hours ago
hoppyhoppy2|11 hours ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
N_Lens|11 hours ago
4d4m|11 hours ago
bgun|11 hours ago
small_model|10 hours ago
zadikian|6 hours ago
bastawhiz|10 hours ago
dabinat|10 hours ago
Janicc|11 hours ago
small_model|10 hours ago
4d4m|9 hours ago
ikiris|11 hours ago
xvxvx|12 hours ago
afavour|11 hours ago
There are always going to be fuck ups at some level. The question is whether we’re moving from a world of more fuckups to fewer or not.
cj|11 hours ago
But whether or not reducing injuries at a statistical level outweighs the downside of autonomous vehicles causing accidents (even at lower rates) is a bit of a dilemma.
screye|11 hours ago
stbtrax|11 hours ago
dyauspitr|11 hours ago
orliesaurus|11 hours ago
AFAIK when a Waymo detects emergency vehicle lights and sirens, it is designed to pull over and stop, unlock its doors, and roll down its windows. Also: First responders can put the vehicle into a manual mode to move it if needed.
snickerbockers|11 hours ago
i believe they were.
>they could have rammed the Waymo
Not an expert but i think the goal is to get the ambulance and its occupants to a specific location and then make an egress to a nearby medical facility? Also I'm not confident ambulances are designed to execute the pit maneuver.
>I am sure Google wouldn't have sued for damages.
Oh well if that's the case i guess it's all alright.
>First responders can put the vehicle into a manual mode to move it if needed.
I really feel like you're missing the point of why you're supposed to pull over and yield right-of-way for emergency vehicles.