Slashdot Mirror
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?
#DeleteChrome
10.8 feet is one second away at 7 mph. Too damn close -- company deserves a ticket.
Yep. I read that as an admission of guilt too.
Seeing how insane cyclists tend to be, I'd be all for that. The most dangerous drivers on the road in the city are the bikers.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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 could make that same argument for a car. I just stupid to be a blind rule-following robot and stop at every red light when you are moving 5-10 mph and can plainly see no cross traffic.
The issue most of us have with cyclists is that there is a significant number of them that really want maximum penalties applied to cars, but don't want the rules to apply to them at all.
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.
Occasionally some engineering nerd will contest a ticket on the basis of data he collected himself, mainly by going out to the place where the ticket was issued and taking measurements, photos of lines of sight, etc. that he deems to be exculpatory.
But now every ticket written against self-driving cars will be contested by defense data and video collected at the time, by high;y [aid engineers working on that specific task. Small-town traffic traps are going to need better judges.
Cops probably enforce it ... but only when people walk while the wrong age, wrong color, wearing the wrong clothes, or at the wrong time of day. Most ticketing is an excuse to fish for other moral "crimes" like having a bag of weed in one's pocket. If cops were taken off traffic, vice, etc enforcement and required to concentrate on crimes that actually harmed others, the US would be a better place to live.
Also, if there's no sidewalk, walking the "wrong way" (facing traffic) is likely correct and safer.
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 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.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Cyclists in San Francisco regularly run four way stops, causing panic braking, and I had to swerve to avoid a trio riding the wrong way on a divided street (Dolores) on Thursday.
San Francisco cyclists regularly put the burden for their survival on other users of the road (pedestrians, drivers, other cyclists). There absolutely should be more ticketed cyclists in San Francisco, but it should not be driven by a revenue motive.
I say this as a cyclist, skater, pedestrian, and driver.
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.
It is only small towns that can ticket cars on a road passing through that make money off of tickets.
Police are not a revenue source for a city, it costs a lot of money to pay cops and run traffic courts. Giving out tickets is done to manage people's behavior. If self-driving cars learn to follow the rules and drive well, that will reduce the expense of law enforcement to the city.
Don't expect there to be less cops, though.
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.
How would they hire a new police force then?
That's only true at night, on a rural road, where there is no shoulder to walk on and you're exiting the roadway whenever a vehicle approaches.
In all other conditions you should walk with traffic in a normal way, behaving as traffic behaves.
That's incorrect.
Pedestrians walking in the roadway should walk facing traffic. Pedestrians can stop and change direction effectively instantly so it's to their benefit to see oncoming traffic. They have different motion characteristics than wheeled vehicles. The CDC page on pedestrian safety agrees with this.
Cyclists riding on the roadway should ride with traffic and follow traffic rules and behave as a part of normal traffic.
And if the car hit the cop?
That's easy: it'll be found days later, out in the impound yard... with two bullet holes through the primary ECU.
Suicide.