Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Self-Driving Uber Car Went the Wrong Way On a One-Way Street in Pittsburgh (qz.com)

Posted by msmash on from the that's-how-it-begins dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Uber driver Nathan Stachelek was pulled off to the side of the road when he saw the self-driving car turn the wrong way. It was the night of Sept. 26 and the car he had spotted, one of the autonomous Ford Fusions that Uber is testing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was heading through the city's Oakland neighborhood, just steps from the center of campus for the University of Pittsburgh. Stachelek watched the car turn off Bates Street and onto Atwood, a one-way road, going in the wrong direction. From a distance he couldn't tell whether the car was driving itself, or its human operator had made a mistake. Stachelek took out his phone in time to shoot a brief video of Uber's vehicle backing up and driving away, then uploaded it to Facebook. "Driverless car went down a one way the wrong way," he wrote. "Driver had to turn car around."

3 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. In all fairness by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In all fairness, I've done the same in Pittsburgh. Was visiting, not familiar with the city and you guys do love your one way roads. Luckily I figured it out pretty damn quick.

  2. Google maps in NY city does this by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This summer in Manhatten, between battery park and Grenich village, google maps told me to turn the wrong way on a one way street, a major road, that has always been one way. Apple maps on my wifes phone got it right. If google can mess up that spectacularly in the most well characterized city in the world this is not surprising.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  3. Car with funny looking thing on top goes wrong way by Theaetetus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From a distance he couldn't tell whether the car was driving itself, or its human operator had made a mistake. Stachelek took out his phone in time to shoot a brief video of Uber's vehicle backing up and driving away, then uploaded it to Facebook. "Driverless car went down a one way the wrong way," he wrote. "Driver had to turn car around."

    Well, was it driverless or did it have a driver? If it had a driver, was the driver in control? Which would make it just a funny looking car and a confused human operator?

    Verdict: meh.