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Uber Admits To Self-driving Car 'Problem' in Bike Lanes As Safety Concerns Mount (theguardian.com)
Uber has admitted that there is a "problem" with the way autonomous vehicles cross bike lanes, raising serious questions about the safety of cyclists days after the company announced it would openly defy California regulators over self-driving vehicles. From a report on The Guardian: An Uber spokeswoman said on Monday that engineers were working to fix a flaw in the programming that advocates feared could have deadly consequences for cyclists. Uber began piloting its self-driving vehicles in its home town of San Francisco last week, despite state officials' declaration that the ride-share company needed special permits to test its technology. On day one, numerous autonomous vehicles -- which have a driver in the front seat who can take control -- were caught running red lights and committing a range of traffic violations. Despite threats of legal action from the department of motor vehicles (DMV) and California's attorney general, Kamala Harris, Uber refused to back down on Friday, claiming its rejection of government authority was "an important issue of principle."
Uber isn't a ride share service! It is a unlicensed taxi service! It doesn't have the same rules and regulations that taxi companies have to abide by. That is why taxi service is so much better, cleaner and safer in the US. Right?
So I looked at the video in the article
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
1) It's a one-way street, and the crosswalk has SIX red lights. one over each lane, two at the sidewalk before and after the crosswalk. How did the sensors miss all those lights? Was it looking at tree and decided "Green? Keep going ..."
2) There is a pedestrian stepping into the crosswalk and the Uber drove past him. In Ga, all traffic must stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and I'm quite that sure Ca's law is even more strict.
3) The uber passes a car already stopped for the red light at the crosswalk. I don't know California law, but in Georgia it is also illegal to pass a car stopped for a pedestrian at a crosswalk. It's also common sense - you can't see if the car was stopped for a child/short person/wheelchair attempting to cross, so you should stop first and look second in that situation.
4) the light turned yellow at the 2 second mark in the video, and the Uber went though at 11 seconds, so it's not even close.
5) common sense that people have: If I'm coming to an intersection and other cars are stopping, I slow and look around; I know something is happening.
maybe the light changed while I was dozing, or maybe a passenger is going to open the door in front of me.
It appears that the Uber lacks this sort of situational awareness, but I don't know if the human was given an alert and ignored it in this case.
The only time autos can drive in the bike lane in California is when it drops from a class two bike lane to a class three shared lane bike route. Standard marking is that the white line separating the auto lane from the bike lane becomes dashed, the little "bike vector" symbol is typically painted on the shared lane, and cars can turn right.
The laws don't conflict, just the way that the transitions are done. (Arizona allows crossing the bike lane at dashed lines, but maintains a class two lane through the intersection as an example.)