Self-Driving Cars Are Being Attacked By Angry Californians (theguardian.com)

According to incident reports collected by the California department of motor vehicles, some Californians are purposely colliding with self-driving cars. The Guardian reports: On January 10, a pedestrian in San Francisco's Mission District ran across the street to confront a GM Cruise autonomous vehicle that was waiting for people to cross the road, according to an incident report filed by the car company. The pedestrian was "shouting," the report states, and "struck the left side of the Cruise AV's rear bumper and hatch with his entire body." No injuries occurred, but the car's left tail light was damaged. In a separate incident just a few blocks away on January 28, a taxi driver in San Francisco got out of his car, approached a GM Cruise autonomous vehicle and "slapped the front passenger window, causing a scratch." The police were not called in either case.

Comments

I wonder what good they think that will do?

[WilliamGeorge]

I wonder what good they think that will do? Its not going to offend the car, or cause it to retaliate. Its also not going to stop progress on this front.

Re:I wonder what good they think that will do?

[psmoot]

I wonder if they used buggy whips on the offending cars...

Bite your tongue! Buggies are beautiful and gentle animals. Be grateful we are past the dark and savage era when someone could whip an innocent enslaved buggy with impunity!

You sir are a cad!

It's just vandalism

[rsilvergun]

We encourage self expression but also shit all over a big portion of our population (economically speaking). The result is vandalism. They're not thinking in terms of stopping progress. They're just angry. Usually because they lack good economic prospects.

Countries like Japan deal with this by discouraging expression. They also have unusually high suicide rates. I suppose we could also not abandon a large chunk of our population to economic desolation, but, well, that costs money. And we're nothing if not cheapskates.

Re:It's just vandalism

[jwhyche]

Fucking hippies. This is why we can't have nice things. Like robot overlords.....

Re:It's just vandalism

[angel'o'sphere]

Countries like Japan deal with this by discouraging expression.
Expression of what?
Ever been in Japan? Guessed so ...

They also have unusually high suicide rates.
But not for the reasons you think.

In Japan unemployment is a shame.
In America it is a disgrace.
In Europe it is _normal_

Re:It's just vandalism

[crgrace]

Many, many people in SF lack good economic prospects. There are a lot of highly educated engineers and physicians, sure, but these aren't the folks that are attacking self-driving cars.

We have a large population of dead-end folks living day-to-day in Single-Occupancy Residences (essentially run down hotels), shelters, housing projects, and on the streets. They are largely unskilled and many of them are not mentally balanced.

We also have economically disadvantaged neighborhoods with large numbers of people who don't (or can't) graduate high-school. Where is there a place for them in the new economy?

If you ever visit San Francisco, what will strike you is the extreme mismatch between the upper-middle class and the poor. We have a lot of both and not as many blue-color traditionally middle-class folks. The working class mostly commutes.

Re: It's just vandalism

[Tom]

The last G20 happened in my home city, so don't think I have any sympathy for those looters and assholes whatsoever.

That said, there is more to it than just riot tourism. Politics in the west have shifted so far to the neo-liberal model that we are basically back to debating how many angels can dance on a pin-head instead of which religion is better or if religion at all is good. The entire economical debates in politics of the past decade are running in circles around a tiny area of the total field of discourse. Unless you are a strict neo-liberalist, your views on wealth distribution, social justice and fair economic systems are not only not represented in politics anymore, nobody is even close enough to them to be an acceptable compromise.

That leaves only the street. And yes, it is rarely the poor who protest, because they don't have the money or time to organize, travel somewhere to join a group or demonstration - they are busy surviving.

The G20 riots specifically were stupid, counter-productive and very, very predictable. So much so that I'm with the conspiracy theorists that the riots were not only expected but provoked (actions in the days before) and maybe even "helped along" by agent provocateurs. So that the many, many peaceful protests didn't get media attention. Things probably got quite a bit out of hand in a "the spirits that I called" manner, if you guys are familiar with German poetry.

So under the media image of Hamburg burning, there was a lot of effort to have an actual impact. It just didn't get much screen time.

Self driving is fine

[timere969]

They are not beating on it because it is self-driving. They are beating on it because it is a GM.

What we've got here is failure to communicate.

[swell]

This is simply a response to the failure to communicate. In CA as in many other places, it is customary for drivers and pedestrians to enjoy a lively communication. This typically involves vigorous hand, arm and facial body language as well as enthusiastic vocal invitations to do various things with various body parts.

In order to comply with this tradition, my wife and I would share this responsibility. Whichever was NOT driving the vehicle would yell at the assholes in other vehicles, and pedestrians who got out of the way, and apply the appropriate gestures. In this fashion, the driver was relieved of the duty and able to focus clearly on the next target down the road.

Self-driving cars are not yet sophisticated enough to participate in this essential communication, which causes understandable frustration.