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Fully Driverless Waymo Taxis Are Due Out This Year, Alarming Critics (arstechnica.com)
Alphabet's Waymo is launching a driverless taxi service in Phoenix in the next three months -- and it's open to the public. But due to the limited regulations surrounding self-driving cars, many critics argue that more regulations are needed to ensure the safety of these vehicles before they roll out for public and commercial use. Ars Technica reports: If a company wants to sell a new airplane or medical device, it must undergo an extensive process to prove to federal regulators that it's safe. Currently, there's no comparable requirement for self-driving cars. Federal and state laws allow Waymo to introduce fully self-driving cars onto public streets in Arizona without any formal approval process. That's not an oversight. It represents a bipartisan consensus in Washington that strict regulation of self-driving cars would do more harm than good.
Mary "Missy" Cummings, an engineering professor at Duke, agrees. "I don't think there should be any driverless cars on the road," she tells Ars. "I think it's unconscionable that no one is stipulating that testing needs to be done before they're put on the road." But so far these advocates' demands have fallen on deaf ears. Partly that's because federal regulators don't want to slow the introduction of a technology that could save a lot of lives in the long run. Partly it's because they believe that liability concerns give companies a strong enough incentive to behave responsibly. And partly it's because no one is sure how to regulate self-driving cars effectively. When it comes to driverless cars, "there's no consensus on what it means to be safe or how we go about proving that," says Bryant Walker Smith, a legal scholar at the University of South Carolina.
Mary "Missy" Cummings, an engineering professor at Duke, agrees. "I don't think there should be any driverless cars on the road," she tells Ars. "I think it's unconscionable that no one is stipulating that testing needs to be done before they're put on the road." But so far these advocates' demands have fallen on deaf ears. Partly that's because federal regulators don't want to slow the introduction of a technology that could save a lot of lives in the long run. Partly it's because they believe that liability concerns give companies a strong enough incentive to behave responsibly. And partly it's because no one is sure how to regulate self-driving cars effectively. When it comes to driverless cars, "there's no consensus on what it means to be safe or how we go about proving that," says Bryant Walker Smith, a legal scholar at the University of South Carolina.
"Currently, there's no comparable requirement for self-driving cars."
Human drivers cause 6,5 million accidents per year, killing tens of thousands of people and injuring several millions.
This can only be better.
Mary "Missy" Cummings, an engineering professor at Duke, agrees. "I don't think there should be any driverless cars on the road," she tells Ars. "I think it's unconscionable that no one is stipulating that testing needs to be done before they're put on the road."
What does she assume this whole time self driving cars have just been something in people's heads? Every company who's in on this technology brags about their logged road time... Glad she ain't my prof.
I tend to rant.
Fine for a family car with self-drive (or even Tesla's driver assistance) functionality, but we're specifically talking about self-driving taxis here. What is the humans in the taxi are using it because they are not able (legally and/or physically) to drive, and that's why they are taking the taxi in the first place? It's going to be kind of limiting for a taxi if it can only accept passengers that are able to drive it as well, especially on a Friday or Saturday night, are they also going to have to require the designated driver to scan their driver's license and to breathe into a breathalyzer before setting off?
I guess there would be slightly less chance of the floor getting covered in vomit though, so there is that.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I wouldn't trust those cars one bit until they have been shown to be able to handle freak situations in a reasonable way.
That statement should apply to both self-driving and human cars: No human-driven cars should be allowed on the road until humans have been shown to handle freak situations in a reasonable way. Sadly, this is provably not the case.
It is inevitable that they pass laws allowing machines to kill x number of people. It can be no other way. And that will be a major devaluing of human life.
The question is, will it be more or less devaluing than the currently allowed rate of 40K+ people a year killed by human-driven cars in the US?
Well, Waymo certainly has the best PR.
They also only have 9 million miles on the road, most of that effectively in a "sandbox". In the US, there's one fatality every 86 million miles. So the fact that Waymo hasn't killed anyone yet is hardly indicative of anything.
Leaving it to corporations to regulate themselves due to fears of liability has created one disaster after the next. And come on, let's not act like we can't all figure out how autonomous vehicles could be tested. Give a small fleet of them to the NHTSA and have the NHTSA spend a few weeks subjecting them to one unanticipated event after the next in an (easily reconfigurable) mock town, without a given "script" that the manufacturer could use as a cheat sheet.
Too onerous of a testing cost? At least give them a one day serial battery of scenario tests. I mean, come on. We're talking about peoples' lives here. It's bad enough that Level 2 systems don't have to do this. But Level 5? Ugh.
"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
That's bull, because if a human driver kills a human, then that human has made a mistake. If an automated car kills a human, THEY ALL make the mistake.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
... Their idea: "Just ride bikes. If you live too far out, move in closer." ...The snotty, "just ride bikes" suggestion sounds great, but in reality, it is pompous. There are many elderly people or people in wheelchairs that can't go and buy an Orbea Orca and magically be on their way.
In reality, I could ride my bike to the grocery store if just picking up a few items. I can't ride my bike to work, it would take too long (and I can't afford to move closer to work)... but there are a few other locations within a few dozen miles that I could probably use my bike for... but I won't.
Two reasons:
1) It's friggin' hot in the South 6 months out of the year... I'd arrive everywhere stinking awful. Not to mention, can you imagine all the dehydration deaths if many people did this?
2) It's not safe. I see more "white bicycle memorials" marking where cyclists are killed than I see actual bicycles on the road around here. People don't drive safely around cyclists here and there are no bike lanes. I know this would change as people got more experience around cyclists and such... but I wouldn't want to be cycling until it is the norm.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch