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California Police Ticket A Self-Driving Car (cbslocal.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Ichijo writes: A self-driving car was slapped with a ticket after police said it got too close to a pedestrian on a San Francisco street.
The self-driving car owned by San Francisco-based Cruise was pulled over for not yielding to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Cruise says its data shows the person was far away enough from the vehicle and the car did nothing wrong.... According to data collected by Cruise, the pedestrian was 10.8 feet away from the car when, while the car was in self-driving mode, it began to continue down Harrison at 14th St."
The person in the crosswalk was not injured.
The self-driving car owned by San Francisco-based Cruise was pulled over for not yielding to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Cruise says its data shows the person was far away enough from the vehicle and the car did nothing wrong.... According to data collected by Cruise, the pedestrian was 10.8 feet away from the car when, while the car was in self-driving mode, it began to continue down Harrison at 14th St."
The person in the crosswalk was not injured.
Specifically: How does a cop pull over a self-driving car? I mean, exactly how does that happen logistically?
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This will be the main unintended consequence of self-driving cars. Tickets to pedestrians and cyclists will go through the roof to make up for lost revenue.
According to data collected by Cruise, the pedestrian was 10.8 feet away from the car...
Yeah okay, but if their foot was in the crosswalk it doesn't matter if you were one foot or 20. Just because a lot of people skate by unnoticed doesn't make it legal. I'm sure the prosecutor is grateful for the data though.
I wonder if they use an AI to come up with their excuses.
No need. Bullshit excuses are as old as time itself.
Beware of the Leopard.
I like my 6-speed. It's a catharsis, like a mechanical anti-depressant.
Well, the people in charge of the police better start thinking about the future. With self-driving cars, they might lose an important stream of revenue. Because lots of stuff in traffic is a question of opinion, I bet a cop can simply observe you and hand you a ticket for what you consider decent driving.
However with self-driving cars, the companies behind them will probably not stand for such random punishments. I mean, look at how fast Tesla comes with a statement whenever there was an accident with a model S or X.
It might actually mean more meaningful works for law enforcement officers as well. I can't imagine it's fun for them, handing out tickets.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Computers can't make mistakes, this is unpossible. Plus Uber's crash video wasn't purposefully darkened to make them look better. Case closed.
'nuff said.
And if the car hit the cop?
Good times ahead for Cruise.
10.8 feet is one second away at 7 mph. Too damn close -- company deserves a ticket.
The difference is that electronics, which undergo calibration/certification, are being used as the _defense_ here by the driver/company, whereas normally they're used as the offense by the state.
That would be enough to disturb my crossing the street. If I have the right away and a car drives right in front of me, Iâ(TM)d have to stop to make sure another vehicle didnâ(TM)t decide to follow right behind.
Cruise says its data shows the person was far away enough from the vehicle and the car did nothing wrong....
Sounds like Cruise is finding out the imbalance of power that human motorists have to deal with apply to their cars, too. Doesn't really matter what happened, if the cop says you were doing something you're gonna get ticketed. And the courts will take his word above yours.
here, a car must stop and wait for the pedestrian to make it all the way across the street (or to a median dividing lanes of traffic) before proceeding. being "far enough away" or clear of the car's own lane is not enough. so, sounds like may be a nit-picking cop, but still a valid ticket nonetheless.
self driving cars in gatlinburg, tennessee (or other jurisdictions where jaywalking, basically, is legal -- encouraged, even -- and cars must stop for them, no exceptions.. except active first responders), will be interesting, to say the least.
a self driving car will probably have GB of data and video to prove it's innocence (unless it's an Uber killbot)
On the other hand, if I had a self driving car, you could bet there would be some additional programming that kicks in when needed called "High Speed Chase" if a cop tries to pull me over.
They have to write a certain amount of ticks per month so they double-down at the end of the month.
A self-driving car is a low-hanging fruit because there is nobody in there to argue with them.
Expect many more of these tickets.
The company in this case is making up a rule about the distance from the pedestrian being critical (and asking us to trust it's assessment that the ped was 10 feet away). The actually rules have nothing to do with distance:
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/...
Can't their AI tell when someone is making eye-contact? Japanese photo-booths have been able to find human eyes for years now.
I have got a ticket when pedestrian was waiting on a center divider and I was on the right lane with one lane in between and it was not an intersection or pedestrian crossing area. I had nothing to prove my innocence. That is the only traffic ticket I have in my more than 25 years of driving.
The difference is that you were lying (as always) but video and lidar will prove the cop wrong.
Why does Uber's video need to be purposefully darkened? That requires them to buy good quality dashcams in the first place, when it is cheaper to buy a crap one with poor dynamic range to start with.
A bullshit made-up story is quite a bit different than several sensors and cameras actively recording the event and presented as evidence in a case.
A bullshit made-up story is quite a bit different than several sensors and cameras actively recording the event and presented as evidence in a case.
How is it evidence, really? What guarantee can the company give that the data it might provide hasn’t been tampered with? Did they work right with law enforcement or some legal entity ahead of time to make sure all data collection follows legal rules pertaining to evidence?
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People have gotten off on tickets with dashcam footage. I bet the car in question has that and more
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I think Cruise is a menace that drives like a lost drunk senior citizen, but they may not be at fault in this case. The rules governing crosswalks in California are *mostly* clear, though the responsibility to yield to pedestrians does not make clear whether yielding requires mere allowance for unimpeded progress or full affordance of the crosswalk to the pedestrian when the crosswalk is lawfully occupied.
Any California traffic attorneys want to chime in?
A sworn affidavit and someone familiar with the system testifying that it is a record kept in the normal course of business.
Rules of evidence can be complex, but this is not one of those cases.
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Pedestrians in San Francisco often enter crosswalks without looking or allowing queued traffic to proceed. Pedestrians do have the right of way while in the crosswalk, irrespective of distance from a vehicle, but there's a pretty blatant disregard for social contracts. If a car (read: the people in the car) have been waiting for some time, pause and allow them through. Streets would be much safer overall if everyone stopped to consider the other actors in any interaction.
We've seen what kind of dashcam footage self-driving car companies use. The kind that is doctored to try to show no culpability on the part of their vehicle.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The same way the cop saying he saw something is considered "evidence". What guarantee can the cop give that his testimony isn't a complete lie for whatever purpose he might do so (prejudice, bored, envy, revenue, shorting stock)?
It's "presented as evidence" and the judge (or jury) decides based on the evidence what he believes really happened. The prosecution will also get a chance to argue that the data may have been altered, shot with some weird lenses that distort perspective, etc if they so choose, and if the company (or driver) is found to have falsified/perjured themselves then they look at real jail time and real fines rather than the $35 ticket they are charged with.
That's far enough. The cop was just in ticket-writing mode, and didn't want to seem like a moron when presented with an AI. And somehow managed to look like more of a moron.... go figure.
So, how does giving a ticket to a car with no driver make sense?
If the damn thing was a public nusance, breaking laws, or a danger to society why was it not impounded? Since there is no HUMAN ownership, or human presence in the whole situation, how can the ticket apply? Since you ticket the human owner, and not the vehicle, how the fuck can you actualy think this applies? I think the PIG shoudl be put on suspension for fraudlent/ biased behavior.
Fraudlent because to ge this tossed out on face value, one has to employ a lawyer, go to court, pay court costs, pay for the priv. to travel there, parking, food, etc.. All because some dumbass pig sees a crooked path to revenue. On the other hand, everything is SF is fucked any way.. Whom ever heard of a place where they frown on Family and the Family life because it gets in the way of progress( as they perceive it)
It's like the only place i know where they endorse adults eating their young to survive and pay someone else for the priv to suffer.. I wonder what nationality the cop was?
How do you think the world works?
What the fuck, Thats somethng I would expect from msmash..
quit playing with your dork..
So, how does giving a ticket to a car with no driver make sense?
If the damn thing was a public nusance, breaking laws, or a danger to society why was it not impounded? Since there is no HUMAN ownership, or human presence in the whole situation, how can the ticket apply? Since you ticket the human owner, and not the vehicle, how the fuck can you actualy think this applies? I think the PIG shoudl be put on suspension for fraudlent/ biased behavior.
Fraudlent because to ge this tossed out on face value, one has to employ a lawyer, go to court, pay court costs, pay for the priv. to travel there, parking, food, etc.. All because some dumbass pig sees a crooked path to revenue. On the other hand, everything is SF is fucked any way.. Whom ever heard of a place where they frown on Family and the Family life because it gets in the way of progress( as they perceive it)
It's like the only place i know where they endorse adults eating their young to survive and pay someone else for the priv to suffer..
To the people typing stuff like this:
"So, your expert testimony is that a corporation would totally never lie when their business is involved?"
I'm always curious if you're able to keep a straight face while doing so. Do you truly believe that you've just asked THE question that no one who has come before you has ever thought you ask? Is it actually possible that some sort of divine enigma has granted you with mysterious powers of discernment that society could use to usher in a new era if we just stopped and listened? I think you fit the clinical definition of a megalomaniac if you believe that. What's likely happening is that you just don't know what it is that you don't know. You're probably just too inexperienced to be able to effectively deal with the intricacies of the systems you're commenting on, and too stupid to realize that what you're saying doesn't even apply. Rome wasn't built in a day, and society didn't get to where it was by accident. The world is filled with plenty of people that have advanced degrees and specialized knowledge in their respective domains. Instead of thinking that you're smarter than everyone else, might I suggest you get out there and do the hard work yourself if you really want to sound like anything other than an ignoramus on the topic you want to talk about. At the very least, you could start by asking why things are they way they are in these situations...instead of assuming you know better.
"So, your expert testimony is that a corporation would totally never lie when their business is involved?"
Do you have any idea what gives legal weight to a thing as evidence under the law? Obviously, you don't. I'm sure you're one of those armchair attorneys who thinks "circumstantial evidence" doesn't qualify as evidence in a court of law. Look up the McVeigh trial, because you're a moron.
I'm not even sure where to buy such a crappy dash cam. Maybe from 1998, used, with some philly cheddar grease spread on the lens.
Do you live in Gotham city? Contrary to Hollywood belief, most cops are NOT on the take or against you and see these things every day and are trained to make this determination. It's part of their job.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
And there's the usual method of telling if a cop is lying.
How? His lips are moving.
They're trained liars. This time, there's going to be a mountain of video and data evidence proving the cop a liar. It'll be interesting to see if he gets away with it, or gets the perjury conviction he'll so richly deserve.
Don't pretend that Uber or Waymo or Cruise or Tesla have the same level of "dashcam footage". Waymo has spent a lot of developer time considering clear user interfaces to express all the objects its tracking and all the different ways its doing the tracking because Waymo's vision is about making self driving cars that are safer than human drivers. [cool 360 marketing video I found] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8R148hFxPw
I expect that we'll see a Waymo car make a mistake at some point and get pulled over, and there will be a post-mortem on the incident. Waymo is the game to beat here. It will be cool if / when I can order one in silicon valley to pick up my kids.
By most cops, you mean, "more than half" which leaves a lot of wiggle room for the existence of corrupt or just power-tripping cops.
In a world where "swatting" is considered solely the responsibility of the asshole submitting a false police report, even if the police didn't even go to the "right" address, even if there is a death resulting, and even if the party killed by the cops was not threatening, you might conclude that there are a few power-trippers.
Holy fuck, try being a cop sometime. That's all I have to say.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If I tried, I'd probably let go 75% of the people whom I encountered out of pity. Why should the taxpayers pay to cage someone caught with a bag of politically incorrect substance, or people who can't afford it be fined for mistakes short of recklessness, or people be arrested for what they do in the bedroom between consenting adults? I suspect the moral compass of many cops, because they volunteered to enforce a bunch of laws that are either designed for random taxation, or to enforce religious superstitions against pleasure.
Great. I'll swear in court I wasn't going 90 in a 30. It's just as likely to be the truth. I'll even write it down and you can give it a fancy name like affidavit.
Not buying it? You shouldn't be buying the company's either. They actually have greater incentive to lie, and lower risk if caught.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
So what? Does that mean that 0 of them are?
Nope, but I have PERSONALLY been affected by a lying police officer, so I know it happens. It wasn't a misunderstanding, he wasn't stating something he actually thought was correct, he just did it because he was in a position of "power", and there wasn't much I could do about it but take it to a judge who would immediately side with him anyways. And he told me as such. Sucks, and I'm out a couple hundred dollars, and a day going to court.
That said, I find most cops are nice and honest, and I still value the services that they provide, but assuming that just because a cop says something doesn't make it irrefutably true, unfortunately. Wish it was.
How do you think proof works?
Potential liar: "I totally didn't lie."
Scientist: "Are you sure?"
Potential liar: "Of course! Here, I said so on this paper signed by
someone else that claims I said I didn't lie."
Scientist: "Oh okay. What you said must be fact."
I hope the city throws this out with the evidence presented by the owner of the self-driving car.
Self-driving cars can simply be programmed to follow all rules of the road. If a pedestrian breaks the rules (jay-walking or not crossing at a designated cross walk), then that's on the pedestrian, not on the car.
Also, if the ticket does stick, then an update can be released to all of the self-driving cars over the air with the new rules, and the city can't collect traffic fines. Eventually, the city would either have to relent that self-driving cars will reduce revenue or that they'll continue to make up new violations to the point that cars would be completely illegal as you couldn't go anywhere without a ticket being issued.
Lying to a judge? That's a cunt move. I fucking hate it when liars aren't fucking held to the standard expected in court. Perjury should be enforced more often.
There's also the question of what the actual law is. Here, the law is that traffic has to stay stopped as long as a pedestrian is in a crosswalk. Lots of people start moving once the pedestrian is out of their lane, which is strictly illegal here, perhaps the self driving car did similar? In which case the dash cam will show the car being in the wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Yeah, one of you has a financial motive to lie. And the other is a normal driver. And if you don't like your 60 over ticket you can have obstruction and assaulting an officer too.
I'm kind of a fan of the city of Houston's trick. They'll remove traffic signs for a week, write tickets all day enforcing them then put them back up. I located three different places around downtown they rotated between. Also, dashcams pay for themselves. Make sure yours can upload via wifi and a cell phone app. Make sure to keep your mouth shut about the dashcam and cover lights on it though or you may be assaulted.
How would they hire a new police force then?
You realize that all testimony involves an estimate of truthfulness, right? And having a bunch of actual data that someone else can confirm is unlikely to be have been tampered with is miles beyond he-said-she-said.
If so, then the ticket is totally valid.
Just because someone's in a crosswalk doesn't automagically turn it into a no enter zone for automobiles. A car that forces a pedestrian to alter their speed or direction can be ticketed. It can also be ticketed for cutting it too close. Similar to making a left turn and yielding to oncoming traffic.
We've seen what kind of dashcam footage self-driving car companies use. The kind that is doctored to try to show no culpability on the part of their vehicle.
Which they can use in the court of public opinion. If they're trying to fight a ticket or manslaughter charge in an actual court they'd better hand over the complete raw, unedited camera and sensor data for analysis. And that's the question here, they say the car did nothing wrong so are they going to challenge the ticket in court? My guess is they won't do it, they'll just pay off the driver who got the ticket and chalk it up as development costs. But it would have been interesting to see...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In other news, tickets being issued to lamp posts for standing still too close to pedestrians. In America.
Despite what you think the criminal system works a bit differently than the anecdote of a single witness and it is quite easy to prove those witness statements legally doubtful.
Police tickets get thrown out all the time all over the world for this reason, sometimes they even get thrown out when they present their own evidence when it could be considered legally doubtful.
Cops are human beings, with mostly the same virtues and weaknesses. They are granted power, which in some people instills a great sense of responsibility but which other people sometimes abuse for personal profit or out of cruelty.
For that reasons we have checks on cops behaviour, just like we have checks on most people who wield official power. In a "my word vs the cop's" situation it is difficult and indeed, the judge generally sides with the cop, and your single complaint will not get him/her fired. However, if a single cop gets too many complaints it will count against them; and if you have real evidence of a cop purposefully lying it can have real repercussions for him/her, depending on a lot of factors.
Granting power vs checking it is a real dilemma. If we ask judges and the cop's bosses to distrust cops by default, it will be very difficult to find and retain cops and to let them do their job, leading to much less effective policing and less security. If we go too far to the trust-by-default side, you get corruption and public distrust. However "we" chose to set the balance, there will be mistakes made in both directions. And yes, it sucks to be you if you are one of these mistakes...
It seems possible to me that this incident could be used in a future argument for automated traffic enforcement. I'm not advocating the idea, but it does serve to demonstrate another place where electronic observation may trump human observation.
Self driving cars will eliminate accidents because humans aren't good drivers. All these accidents and that dead woman are simply fake news designed to impede the glorious future of perfectly safe transportation, by elimination of the human from the process.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Except in regard to selfdriving cars, there are actually camera images and sensor data. So if the company really feels the car didn't do anything wrong, then it shouldn't be hard to prove it actually didn't do anything wrong.
Business records kept in the regular course of business are evidence once verified as a normal business record.
You can complain about it, but it's part of the rules of evidence.
As for you, if you had a dash cam even, I'd absolutely buy it over people's perception.
At this point you're not swearing to recollection, but instead to the fact that you aren't faking footage. One is clearly more credible than the other.
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Always drive this color, and not a black or brown one.
I just checked the transportation code for CA and TX because they are the biggest states. They both require pedestrians to walk facing traffic on roadways without sidewalks. I'm not sire if I'm feeding a troll or not but for anyone's information its VA code 21956.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Local ordinance is that a vehicle must stop if the pedestrian is in the crosswalk -- no matter what the distance. We have a few 3-lane streets where it's entirely possible for the distance to be 10.8 feet, or even more. And the vehicle would be in violation for entering the crosswalk.
The second the AI knows the cops are out of range, however ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
ALL the flaws in this so-called 'technology' need to be uncovered. Maximum scrutiny. If it can't adhere flawlessly to human standards of performance then it doesn't belong on public roads.
Cops are, basically, NEVER charged with perjury, even when caught in blatant lies.
Because the DA would have to retry a shitload of cases if he charged the cop with perjury, every case that cop had previously testified in.
The nations defense attorneys should start collecting transcripts of cops lying. But the court reporters own the copyright on transcripts, so they can't be posted in reach of US laws. Funny how that works out.
Defense attorneys should collect these transcripts on an overseas server. Testiliars should be forced to get honest jobs.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Was it doctored or just bad?
I missed the articles about it actually being doctored.
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"I find most cops are nice and honest, and I still value the services that they provide"
The fact that they _tolerate_ the bad cops in their midst is the problem.
Those who enforce the law must be held to a higher standard than the general public, not given a free pass and some handwaving when they do things that would result in anyone else being jailed.
"They are granted power, which in some people instills a great sense of responsibility but which other people sometimes abuse for personal profit or out of cruelty."
Power corrupts. Power also attracts the corruptible and those who wish to wield it for power's sake.
One of the primary functions of police training in most parts of the world is to _weed out_ those who are unsuited to the job. In my original country we had a police force and a traffic force - with the latter being made up mostly of rejects from the police college.
It showed in spades - the police tended to be reasonable, level-headed individuals whilst the traffic officers frequently acted like jackbooted thugs. One day the government decided to merge the two departments _without_ retraining the traffic officers. 15 years later there was a major problem with abuse of power in the police, mostly from ex-traffic enforcement, but this was spreading amongst newer recruits too.
If someone failed (or dropped out of) police college for anything other than physical reasons you should be looking very carefully at their profile if they're looking to work in security or related jobs. They failed for a reason and it may not be obvious up front.
This problem is showing up in the UK heavily with their increasing use of volunteers as "PSCO"s - these are untrained, unsworn officers (aka plastic policemen) who are not given the full barrage of tests that normal police are given and there have been a large number of cases of abuse and corruption involving them. It's even been found in a few cases that organised crime rings have sent in members to work as PSCOs in order to gain access to intelligence, etc.
Doctored or not, that footage showed more than enough for a criminal prosecution in most countries.
It shows the systems Uber had installed did not react or slow down for a pedestrian crossing a multilane road with several seconds' notice, that Uber had interfered with the car's built-in anti-collision system (which would had stopped before she was hit) and that the safety supervisor was not doing her job.
The factor of the "right of way" of vehicles over pedestrians or not doesn't enter into it. It is only the USA which has such laws on ordinary roads. Other countries have them in very well defined areas with restricted access, such as motorways - and even there, failing to see/avoid a pedestrian with several seconds notice is careless driving causing death or injury.
Failing to yield right of way is a minor traffic infringement, not a death sentence. The antics of USA drivers deliberately driving _at_ pedestrians on the road would be classified as somewhere between reckless endangerment, aggravated threats with a deadly weapon and attempted murder in many countries, depending on the jurisdiction.