Former Top Waymo Engineer Altered Code To Go on 'Forbidden Routes', Report Says (arstechnica.com)

In the early days of what ultimately became Waymo, Google's self-driving car division (known at the time as "Project Chauffeur"), there were "more than a dozen accidents, at least three of which were serious," according to a new article in The New Yorker . From a report: The magazine profiled Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer who was at the center of the Waymo v. Uber trade secrets lawsuit. According to the article, back in 2011, Levandowski also modified the autonomous software to take the prototype Priuses on "otherwise forbidden routes."

Citing an anonymous source, The New Yorker reports that Levandowski sat behind the wheel as the safety driver, along with Isaac Taylor, a Google executive. But while they were in the car, the Prius "accidentally boxed in another vehicle," a Camry.

As The New Yorker wrote: "A human driver could easily have handled the situation by slowing down and letting the Camry merge into traffic, but Google's software wasn't prepared for this scenario. The cars continued speeding down the freeway side by side. The Camry's driver jerked his car onto the right shoulder. Then, apparently trying to avoid a guard rail, he veered to the left; the Camry pinwheeled across the freeway and into the median. Levandowski, who was acting as the safety driver, swerved hard to avoid colliding with the Camry, causing Taylor to injure his spine so severely that he eventually required multiple surgeries." This was apparently just one of several accidents in Project Chauffeur's early days.

Comments

No collision and need surgery?

[Anonymous Coward]

No accident and swerving causes a spinal injury requiring multiple surgeries?

Either the article is missing something or someone is trying to get a payday.

Re: No collision and need surgery?

[Type44Q]

Correct for fully- loaded high-center vehicles; incorrect for everything else - unless you run up against a curb.

Re:No collision and need surgery?

[Richard_at_work]

Sneezing can permanently paralyse you, no car accident needed.

Re:No collision and need surgery?

[Fetko]

The Google engineer accidentally altered the code to physics. Strange stuff can happen when you screw with some of the constants governing friction and momentum.

Re:No collision and need surgery?

[GameboyRMH]

Typical 1%er not wearing a seatbelt, they're especially prone to doing it when they're being driven by someone else.

High-end go-karts with their incredible grip and half-height seats can actually crack a driver's ribs just from cornering forces though.

How Not To Write A Headline

[American AC in Paris]

These two yutzes cause a crash on the freeway and they don't even bother to stop and check if the other people are injured?

They don't even bother reporting the crash to the authorities, they just driiive on back to HQ and hush it up?

"Former Top Waymo Engineer Altered Code To Go On Forbidden Routes" is not the headline I would have chosen for this story, folks.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[chispito]

If you don' t know something, just make it up? Who said they didn't stop?...Do you have some cite for information that says they did not report this accident, one that you're keeping secret from the law enforcement authorities who would like to know about it?

I am not blaming you. The summary quotes the horrible Ars writeup, which itself butchers the New Yorker piece. In the New Yorker piece, it explicitly states about the incident

The Prius regained control and turned a corner on the freeway, leaving the Camry behind. Levandowski and Taylor didn’t know how badly damaged the Camry was. They didn’t go back to check on the other driver or to see if anyone else had been hurt. Neither they nor other Google executives made inquiries with the authorities. The police were not informed that a self-driving algorithm had contributed to the accident.

The quote from Ars doesn't even make it explicitly clear that the "forbidden route" was involved with the near miss which led to the Camry crashing. It should be noted, however, that the Camry driver was by all accounts at fault in that scenario. It sounds like the Camry thought he could be more aggressive and overtake the Prius, but the Prius (human or robot) has the right of way.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[Roger W Moore]

These two yutzes cause a crash on the freeway and they don't even bother to stop and check if the other people are injured?

Doesn't that actually depend on who has to give way when merging? In most countries, traffic merging has to give way to that on the main road. If this is true in California while the safer thing to do would have been to slow down and let the Camry in what was preventing the Camry from slowing down and merging in behind i.e. giving way to existing traffic as it merged?

While the software could have taken steps to avoid this behaviour that it not the same thing as saying that it caused the accident. If you leave your house door open and you get burgled you have not caused your house to be burgled nor have you done anything wrong you just failed to anticipate that your actions would encourage bad behaviour by others.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[jittles]

These two yutzes cause a crash on the freeway and they don't even bother to stop and check if the other people are injured?

They don't even bother reporting the crash to the authorities, they just driiive on back to HQ and hush it up?

"Former Top Waymo Engineer Altered Code To Go On Forbidden Routes" is not the headline I would have chosen for this story, folks.

They most definitely did NOT cause an accident. The driver who is merging needs to actually MERGE and not just assume that people are going to let him in. Typically if they have their indicator on, I will adjust my speed to help them merge but it sounds like the driver of the other vehicle did not try to speed up or slow down. That is their problem and not Google's. Too many people just putter on down the on-ramp not even acting like they're getting onto a freeway or interstate. Sure there are areas where drivers ought to give extra consideration to mergers. Connecticut, as an example, has notoriously short on-ramps that make proper merging difficult.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[msauve]

"These two yutzes cause a crash on the freeway"

You're not reading the same summary the rest of us are. They didn't cause any accident. It was the Camry which was merging onto the freeway. No doubt one of those assholes who merges - not by looking for a gap in traffic, positioning and adjusting speed - but by simply letting the white line on the outside of the merge lane "push" them into traffic, which they expect to make way for them. The Waymo car didn't do that, nor was it required to. The Camry continued to drive on the shoulder, and the Camry driver caused their own crash.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[MachineShedFred]

In the United States, and specifically in California, the traffic entering the highway yields to traffic already on the highway.

If there was no collision between the cars, then the Camry was at fault. They should have moderated their speed (read: slow down) and merged behind the Prius instead of trying to outrun it before the auxiliary lane went away. Bad, aggressive driving was responsible for this wreck.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[ShanghaiBill]

traffic merging has to give way to that on the main road. If this is true in California ...

It is. Making room for merging traffic is polite, but not a legal obligation. As described in TFA, the accident was the fault of the Camry's human driver.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[mysidia]

Well; they didn't exactly cause a crash on the freeway --- they clearly contributed to creating the setting by which events occured. By the sounds of it: the self-driving car was apparently very inconsiderate and didn't let a Camry merge on - a very bad move the safety driver should've intervened on, which resulted in a scenario arising the Camry driver had a duty to anticipate and respond to in a safe manner but was apparently unprepared for: causing an accident, and the Camry would have been 100% at fault if it collided with another vehicle on the freeway.

If you are merging, and the other vehicles on the other side of the merge are being rude and creating no opening:
you still have to ensure you are driving at such speed that you can safely stop shorter than the end of your merge lane and wait for a clearing in traffic, and stop if required.

So, well, the Google car swerved in response to the Camry's erratic actions and DID avoid their being involved in an accident with another vehicle,
and b/c the Google car didn't collide with anything, other than being witnesses and possible candidates to render aid,
there was no accident involving the Google car --- the Camry had a single car accident - crashing into the median that the driver of the Camry would have been responsible for (with being boxed in as a contributing factor).

There was that (non-collision) incident, because a passenger of the Google was injured by the swerving, but
this would not be considered a road accident, since the Google car did not turn over, leave the road, or collide with anything....

So i'm guessing these people probably had some rather lengthy discussions with insurance companies and internal incident reports about this,
But the media wouldn't be likely to cover it --- they want to talk about real accidents - sensational stuff, not near misses.

At least the "They put the car on the Forbidden Route" concept makes it sound like there's a story.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[Scoth]

I had to look it up to be sure, but I can't find anywhere saying that the merging vehicle has the ROW. Everywhere I've looked says that at least in the USA the car already on the highway has the right of way and merging vehicles must only proceed when safe.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[mrchew1982]

You're so fucking wrong that it's not funny. Before you kill somebody here is the relevant line from the CA DMV handbook: "Freeway traffic has the right-of-way." From: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/... Every state that I have lived in has been the same, some going so far as to post "YIELD" signs on the on-ramp.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[Gavagai80]

Yep, the traffic in the right lane has the right of way. In practical terms though, safety depends on the freeway traffic being courteous because it's very difficult (especially for under-powered cars) to accelerate back up to safe merging speed after coming to a stop while trying to merge.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[Type44Q]

The car on the right - the Camry has the right of way.

Please tell me you that you don't have a license. In any case, you're confusing standard intersections (where vehicles have to stop) with highways. The vehicle maintaining right of way' ...maintains right of way.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[Calydor]

Wrong for the area but not for all of the civilized world. In Denmark merging follows the zipper principle which basically means that merging into heavy traffic is possible because you take one car already on the road, one car on the on-ramp, one car on the road, one car on the on-ramp etc.

Having grown up with that I have a LOT of trouble getting used to driving in Germany where this does not seem to be the rule to follow.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[commodore64_love]

California needs to add "Yield" signs to the end of its ramps. Growing-up in the northeast I saw those signs everywhere, but in California? Almost never. Californians have no clue they are supposed to yield. They don't know the basic rules of the road.

- Another thing common in other states is "Left Lane Passing Only" but those signs don't seem to exist in Cali, so people just hang out in the left lane, even when not passing.

- And one more complaint: Where are the minimum speed signs? Many states have posted "40/70" or "45/75" for their minimum/maximum speeds. Not California where I was pulled-over by a Cop for doing 50.... too slow. Who knew that was illegal? It isn't posted (and it isn't illegal in any of the other 49 states).

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[commodore64_love]

> By the sounds of it: the self-driving car was apparently very inconsiderate and didn't let a Camry merge on - a very bad move

In my home state slowing down to allow a car to Merge will get you a ticket (very rare but I've seen it happen). THEIR LANE is the one that has the "Yield" sign so it is their job to do so, not the cars already in the main flow of traffic

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[DarkOx]

Which is why under powered cars and trucks should be regulated and banned from public roads. There should be minimum standards for both acceleration and breaking performance.

If it can't do 0-60 in 12secs or less it does not belong on a public road way; except as special use - eg agriculture or construction equipment and that should not be permitted on interstate highways.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[tsqr]

While the software could have taken steps to avoid this behaviour that it not the same thing as saying that it caused the accident.

FromTFA: Levandowski, rather than being cowed by the incident, later defended it as an invaluable source of data, an opportunity to learn how to avoid similar mistakes.

If the self-driving car wasn't at fault, why did Levandowski consider the incident something that should be avoided in the future?

I keep seeing the claim that self-driving cars don't have to be perfect; they only have to be better than human drivers. This is not a case of a self-driving car being better than your average human driver, because your average human driver would most likely slow down or change lanes if possible and let the a-hole in the Camry merge. Yeah, that's not required by law; many ethical acts aren't. As long as self-driving cars and human-driven cars mingle on the roads, the self-driving cars should err on the side of excessive caution rather than insisting on legal right-of-way. As my drivers' ed teacher told the class, "If you insist on being right, you may end up dead right."

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[tsqr]

In my home state slowing down to allow a car to Merge will get you a ticket

So if a self-driving car slows down to allow a car to merge, who gets the ticket? The non-driver? The software developer? The bureaucrat who decided it was a good idea to let self-driving cars onto public roads along with human drivers?

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[MobyDisk]

Here in the US, the "zipper principle" applies when two lanes are merging into one, but not when a car is merging onto the highway. Are you sure that, in Denmark, the zipper principle applies when merging onto a highway? That doesn't seem to apply since there should be many many car lengths of space between each car merging onto the highway, and there should not be a long line of cars require such a merge.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[sphealey]

It is amazing how much new infrastructure "needs" to be built and how many global and regional conventions and norms of practical driving that human beings "must" unlearn in order for high-tech 'autonomous' vehicles to work.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[sphealey]

- - - - - Well; they didn't exactly cause a crash on the freeway --- they clearly contributed to creating the setting by which events occured. By the sounds of it: the self-driving car was apparently very inconsiderate and didn't let a Camry merge on - a very bad move the safety driver should've intervened on, which resulted in a scenario arising the Camry driver had a duty to anticipate and respond to in a safe manner but was apparently unprepared for: causing an accident, and the Camry would have been 100% at fault if it collided with another vehicle on the freeway.

If you are merging, and the other vehicles on the other side of the merge are being rude and creating no opening:
you still have to ensure you are driving at such speed that you can safely stop shorter than the end of your merge lane and wait for a clearing in traffic, and stop if required. - - - - -

100% agree with the quote and your entire post. That said, five days a week I enter the motorway at an entrance where there are 4 lanes of traffic moving at 90 kph in the left lane and 15 kph in the right lane, joined by two merging lanes generally with traffic at 14 kph in the _left_ lane and 45 kph in the right, with an exit-only lane and another similar merge 3 km ahead. If everyone operated exactly according to the letter of the law we would bring the whole 5 km stretch to a crashing stop every day. People experienced in the region obey the norms and conventions of the metro area and that stretch of highway; those who are not observe and adapt in realtime. If 'autonomous' vehicles can't do this they the only way they could be used is if 100% of the vehicles on the road converted overnight - and even then I'm not sure how they would deal with my daily merge.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[MDMurphy]

while the safer thing to do would have been to slow down and let the Camry in what was preventing the Camry from slowing down and merging in behind i.e. giving way to existing traffic as it merged?

I've been screwed by the people who think slowing down to "let merging traffic in" is safer. I enter an onramp and adjust my speed to slip behind the person in the lane. What do they do? Slow down as well, hanging out in my blind spot as I run out of onramp. If you're on the road maintain your speed, don't speed up to cut someone off but don't slow down either. Then the person who's merging knows where you are and how fast you're going. If I see a slow vehicle merging onto the road and it seems we might be trying to share the same space I'll change lanes to the left, leaving them the lane to merge into. I do not alter my speed except to avoid an accident with an idiot who doesn't know how to enter a freeway.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[Gavagai80]

Ban all commerce (large trucks) and poor people. Right, that's practical.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[jrumney]

The advise to "merge like a zip" can be seen on freeways around here as well, but it is advisory, not law. The law is that the traffic on the on-ramp has the obligation to change their speed to make the merge safely in a gap between traffic, not the traffic already on the freeway. It sounds from the article that the Camry basically tried to merge with their cruise control on, and was that special kind of asshole who expects the world to adjust to them, that is all too common these days.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[ArylAkamov]

The amount of times I've almost gotten squished because of those people.
The fire doesn't burn hot enough for them.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[religionofpeas]

GP is arguing for signs for human drivers. The autonomous vehicles have access to maps with the information.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[religionofpeas]

As long as self-driving cars and human-driven cars mingle on the roads, the self-driving cars should err on the side of excessive caution rather than insisting on legal right-of-way.

Won't work. If the car is recognizable as self-driving, and it is known to be super cautious, people will stop yielding to it. It needs to be driving like a human, claiming its space, and forcing other cars to brake to avoid accidents.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[religionofpeas]

People cannot always move over to the left lane if there's no gap there, or if that lane is moving much faster. The cannot always keep their speed either, because there may not be a gap big enough on the lane you're trying to merge in. When they slow down, the gap in front of them gets bigger, and you can safely slip in there.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[religionofpeas]

In my home state slowing down to allow a car to Merge will get you a ticket

So the minimum speed on the freeway is the same as the maximum ? That's stupid.

THEIR LANE is the one that has the "Yield" sign

And what are they supposed to do when they run out of lane ? Just wait until nightfall ?

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[Calydor]

The alternative is speeding up to near freeway/motorway speed, realize no one is creating a gap large enough, slam on your brakes to come to a standstill (hoping everyone behind you does the same), then enter the freeway/motorway at no more than 20 mph and accelerating when there finally IS a gap. Laws of physics say you can't just go 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[dgatwood]

That's why every freeway wreck is bigger in Texas.

But seriously, Section 545.061 is usually interpreted to mean that on any road with four or more lanes, the existing traffic has the right of way, not the merging traffic. In fact, even vehicles in the left lane have more right to use the right lane than someone merging in from an exit lane — forget somebody in the right lane.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[thegarbz]

Motorway speeds, ... gap large enough to fit a car.

Some would consider trying to merge inbetween such horribly tailgating idiots "suicide".

Also why would you slam on your brakes? Highway onramps give you plenty of time to think and chose your position to merge. If this is a scenario that you would encounter then that highway onramp needs to be rebuilt as it is a safety hazard, and I say that as the owner of someone who happily merges onto the German autobahn frequently with a shittly little 1.2L engine.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[mjwx]

"These two yutzes cause a crash on the freeway"

You're not reading the same summary the rest of us are. [b]They didn't cause any accident. It was the Camry which was merging onto the freeway. No doubt one of those assholes who merges - not by looking for a gap in traffic[/b], positioning and adjusting speed - but by simply letting the white line on the outside of the merge lane "push" them into traffic, which they expect to make way for them. The Waymo car didn't do that, nor was it required to. The Camry continued to drive on the shoulder, and the Camry driver caused their own crash.

You clearly don't drive.

This shit is standard the world over, Australia, UK, California... You always get idiots that do not look and assume everyone else will look out for them. Phone uses, people putting on lipstick, people who are just plain arrogant and assume they always have right of way (and woe betide anyone who has the audacity to hit THEM). This is yet another sign that autonomous cars are not ready for general consumption, they're assuming that everything else will follow the rules and cannot adapt to any situation where the rules aren't being followed.

It doesn't matter who was in the wrong, a car crash will fuck up your day but good and if you're lucky, it'll only be the car that is damaged. I hate ignorant and arrogant drivers as much as anyone but I'll still try to avoid hitting them even if the situation would be 100% not my fault because "But I had right of way" makes for a really shitty tombstone.

The world does not follow rules, not simply people but weather, animals, plants and even computers cant be expect to be error free. You need to be able to took out for and even anticipate potential collisions when driving a 1.5t chunk of metal and plastic, autonomous cars can't and likely won't be able to for some time now.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[msauve]

"You clearly don't drive."

You clearly don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Whoosh. Most people, including myself, will try to accommodate those assholes. But that's not always possible, sometimes there's other traffic which prevents moving over. And it's dangerous for freeway traffic to make sudden speed changes when someone thinks they can merge into 70 MPH traffic when they're going 50. It's up to the merging traffic to, well, merge. That means more than just driving onto the freeway without any situational awareness.

And yes, the one without the right of way is the one at fault.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[HornWumpus]

You are right below someone with a 9.4 second 0-60 car. They clearly allow 'slow moving vehicles' on the interstate.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[ChrisMaple]

50 years ago, some entrances to the Merritt Parkway (SW Connecticut) were less than 100 feet. They've been improved over the years, but some of them are still too short.

Merging onto a crowded high speed highway requires more skill than any other common automotive maneuver. Some people just aren't up to the job.

Re: How Not To Write A Headline

[ChrisMaple]

There are some alternatives. If you own a vehicle that already appears to have been in several collisions, other drivers know you don't care and will do a lot to avoid you. If you drive a Rolls, others know you can afford a vicious lawyer and also will avoid you.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[tsqr]

As long as self-driving cars and human-driven cars mingle on the roads, the self-driving cars should err on the side of excessive caution rather than insisting on legal right-of-way.

Won't work. If the car is recognizable as self-driving, and it is known to be super cautious, people will stop yielding to it. It needs to be driving like a human, claiming its space, and forcing other cars to brake to avoid accidents.

Possibly. Of course, anyone violating another car''s right of way is violating the law and subject to being ticketed. I guess how effective that would be depends upon how zealous law enforcement is. Seems like an easy local revenue enhancement move to me.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[mysidia]

In my home state slowing down to allow a car to Merge will get you a ticket

    Don't slow down too much. Also, don't suddenly slow down by a great amount if there is a vehicle close behind.

The DMV rules from their manual say it best

* Merging Courtesy

When traveling in the right lane, courtesy dictates that you move over to allow a truck to merge. Be careful when pulling behind a truck which has just entered the
highway

* Merging
As you merge, make sure you are traveling the same speed as other traffic.
Do not stop before merging with interstate traffic unless it is absolutely necessary.
Interstate traffic has the right of way. You can’t always count on other drivers either
seeing you or moving over to give you space to enter.

When you merge into traffic, you need a gap of four seconds. That will give both you and the car
you merge in front of a two-second following distance. Don’t try to squeeze into a gap that is too
small. Leave yourself a big enough space cushion. Watch for vehicles around you. Use your
mirrors and turn signals. Turn your head to look quickly to the side before changing lanes.
It is a good idea to leave three seconds of space between you and the vehicle ahead. Make sure you
can stop safely if you must.

At some interstate entrances, there is a short acceleration lane. With heavy traffic you are more
likely to see cars stopped and waiting for large enough gaps in traffic. This situation is dangerous
because of the risk of rear-end collisions and the need for fast acceleration to enter traffic. To enter
traffic from a full stop, you will need about a full block to get up to the speed of the other vehicles
on the interstate highway.

Re:How Not To Write A Headline

[mysidia]

And what are they supposed to do when they run out of lane ? Just wait until nightfall ?

If you didn't get a merge opening at the speed of traffic before you nearly ran out of acceleration lane and had to stop, then you stop
and wait as long as necessary: until there is a large enough break in traffic to safely get on.

Because a marge is a YOU-YIELD and not a signaled situation, not a 4-way stop, not a situation where other vehicles eventually have
to let you through --- there is no guarantee that you won't have to wait hours to get a chance.

Most likely if the interstate is congested for some reason, eventually you will see traffic slow enough so that some courteous person will give you a chance.
And if it's not congested, then there should come a time within 10 or 20 minutes or so, when you see the super-wide enough gap to get in from a complete stop.

If for some odd reason, neither situation happens: then yeah, you might have to wait for nightfall, or you might have to wait for days.
Probably at some point between reaching nightfall but before days, you'll look for an open shoulder and potentially make an about face to reverse course to find the safest possible way to get out of this onramp and then to a gas station and plan a new route.

What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[Rick Schumann]

In the rush to market these so-called 'self driving cars', how many other 'incidents' have been swept under the rug, quietly settled out of court, or otherwise hushed up? We're talking about at least Google (and it's offspring) here, so 'ethics' don't particularly enter into the equation anymore. How may 'incidents' in recent days have been kept out of the headlines?

Re:What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[klingens]

I might sound callous to you but this has always been the case.
Explorers who sought India, how many expeditions died? How many of them found what they actually sought? How many flight pioneers died so now we can travel to a beach resort two times a year? How many people died so far in rockets? How many people died before we thought "Hey, seatbelts would be a swell idea!". Airbags too but seatbelts would have been a possible tech from 1900 onwards while an airbag is much harder to build.

New and possibly dangerous technology will always kill a number of people before it is made safe enough for the average user and commoditized. Driverless cars are even at the very beginning, so there will be many more deaths and injuries in the future I'd think before driverless cars will be common day usage.

Re: What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[MachineShedFred]

Especially when the accident was the result of some dipshit in a Camry that doesn't have a god damn clue about how to merge onto a highway.

Re:What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of horseshit. We don't NEED self driving cars. We NEED reforms of driver education, driver training, and driver testing. We NEED to re-test drivers more often, so we can remove incompetent drivers from the roads. They can fucking call Uber/Lyft/a family member/take a bus/walk for all I care. Making everyone else who is a safe and competent driver pay for it by having to put up with inadequate technology that cannot and never will be properly up to the task of driving a car is BULLSHIT. There will be MORE deaths because of these pieces of shit, deaths that could be AVOIDED by making the changes I recommend instead of trying to solve the problem with shitty technology that is clearly and objectively being rushed to market by greedy and immoral companies who don't give a shit about human lives and safety they only care about making billions of dollars selling pieces of shit on wheels 'driven' by a shitty excuse for AI that has ZERO CAPACITY TO ACTUALLY 'THINK' therefore CANNOT properly pilot a motor vehicle. Until we understand our own brains will NEVER be able to make machines that can do the same, and that is REQUIRED to pilot a motor vehicle SAFELY and COMPETENTLY under ALL circumstances. No amount of 'deep learning algorithm' bullshit or 'neural networks', or all the cameras, LIDAR, and other sensors, can even come CLOSE to being as adaptive and responsive as a PROPERLY TRAINED HUMAN BEING. Your DOG is smarter than a self-driving car and always will be. Get off it, stop sucking the SDC cock.

Re:What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[im_thatoneguy]

How may 'incidents' in recent days have been kept out of the headlines?

'Incidents' is the right word for this story. The Camry refused to properly yield and then crashed itself. That's just another Tuesday with humans driving. If anything it demonstrates the need to get that driver off the road and into an autonomous vehicle which doesn't emotionally refuse to submit to the right of way of someone other than themselves.

Re:What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[Kulahan]

Nah, we need autonomous driving.

There are a huge number of benefits once we finally cross the threshold of 100% autonomous drivers. There will be a day, far in the future, when a car crashes and causes a traffic jam and it makes national headlines. You'll see posts on reddit's successor about how kids these days don't understand the past horrors of having to be awake for a 35 minute commute to work BOTH WAYS. You can train people as much as you want - you'll never reach that level if you don't just get their hands off the wheel altogether.

There are way more benefits, but you get the idea.

People are too easily distracted to ever be trusted with a 4000 pound block of metal and flammable liquids capable of going over 100 mph easily.

Re: What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet people are infinitely more intelligent and able to handle edge cases than some differential equations. I also look forward to seeing how we'll be passing 100% with some interest. Perhaps cowbells will be involved.

Re:What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[Rick Schumann]

Only some humans suck at driving and I'm offended at the idea they'll try to force everyone to own one. Also I do not think they'll save any lives, I think they'll kill people and cause more accidents because they're garbage. I also think adoption will be pratically nil because not having any way to control the vehicle you're in will scare the living shit out of people especially when (not IF, but WHEN) it fucks up. An expensive pointless fad.

Re:What else is Google/Waymo/whoever hiding?

[HornWumpus]

The only stats that claimed it was better than humans were the ones that didn't include this accident.

How many other lies have they told?

The big one is comparing 'autodrive' to all human driving, when autodrive only works in the safest traffic modes, and that isn't nearly as safe as humans on divided highways.

An Exec. on board!

[Dorianny]

Someone gets nearly killed with an Exec. in the car and yet the project continued. Lives are just another "cost of doing business" I guess

Re:An Exec. on board!

[ShanghaiBill]

Someone gets nearly killed with an Exec. in the car and yet the project continued.

Meanwhile, human drivers kill 3000 people per day worldwide, over a million deaths annually.

Maybe you should be concerned about the million deaths, rather than the zero that Waymo has killed so far.

Re:An Exec. on board!

[Lije Baley]

Anthony was just wishing it had been those CMU guys that kicked over his motorcycle.

Re:An Exec. on board!

[Dorianny]

Meanwhile, human drivers kill 3000 people per day worldwide, over a million deaths annually.

Maybe you should be concerned about the million deaths, rather than the zero that Waymo has killed so far.

Comparing the fatalities of over a billion cars, most in parts of the world with abysmal road conditions and little traffic management to Waymo's fleet with its 'forbidden routes' would have sound like a great argument to the Execs. I'm sure "million's" are exactly what were in their minds or perhaps billions or even trillions

Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[Joe_Dragon]

Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime) and in some cases felony if the crash causes death, injury, or damage to attended property in excess of a certain dollar amount.

That is something that can't just hide under some EULA as it's not an civil case.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[twebb72]

Seriously, why are there not criminal charges pending? Perhaps they stopped and reported it. But had they done that, why did the PR at Waymo not cite the police report? Conversely, a police report would have been created for the victim in the case of a hit and run -- where is the investigation into the Camry? Shoddy journalism. Fairly one sided view of the incident

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[chispito]

Seriously, why are there not criminal charges pending? Perhaps they stopped and reported it. But had they done that, why did the PR at Waymo not cite the police report? Conversely, a police report would have been created for the victim in the case of a hit and run -- where is the investigation into the Camry? Shoddy journalism. Fairly one sided view of the incident

Read the New Yorker piece. They did not stop, report the incident, or check with authorities.

The Prius regained control and turned a corner on the freeway, leaving the Camry behind. Levandowski and Taylor didn’t know how badly damaged the Camry was. They didn’t go back to check on the other driver or to see if anyone else had been hurt. Neither they nor other Google executives made inquiries with the authorities. The police were not informed that a self-driving algorithm had contributed to the accident.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[chispito]

Actually, I take it back. The article does imply they reported it, via NOT mentioning that an AV was involved.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[jittles]

Seriously, why are there not criminal charges pending? Perhaps they stopped and reported it. But had they done that, why did the PR at Waymo not cite the police report? Conversely, a police report would have been created for the victim in the case of a hit and run -- where is the investigation into the Camry? Shoddy journalism. Fairly one sided view of the incident

If they were not involved in the accident they are not obligated to stop or report anything. Unless I misread the article, they were not in an accident. AN idiot who does not know how to merge was in a single car accident, unless I am mistaken.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[commodore64_love]

WHAT hit and run? There was NO hit (the Google car was never impacted). It reminds me of when I was cruising down the interstate, and the guy behind me was distracted (probably on his phone)...... he came up behind me very rapidly, suddenly saw my car with mere feet to spare, and turned hard to avoid me (eventually hitting the guard rail).

I thought "Should I stop?" and then remembered I'm in a flyover state where they own guns & quick to anger. So I kept going thinking "I didn't do anything wrong. I was in my lane, driving 65, never deviating from my course

"I can't help if the idiot CRASHED HIMSELF without any intervention by me." Same with the google car, which did not cause the Camry to crash.... the Camry driver crashed himself with reckless, uncontrolled swerving.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[Swave An deBwoner]

No, I think you had the correct interpretation before.

Neither they nor other Google executives made inquiries with the authorities.

"No inquiries with the authorities" certainly implies no report. I don't think it means that they reported it but weren't nice enough to ask whether they killed somebody.

The police were not informed that a self-driving algorithm had contributed to the accident.

I don't think this provides evidence that they reported it at all; it says only that they didn't report that it was the product of an AV. Combined with the requirements to report AV incidents, I take it that this means "no report".

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[sphealey]

- - - - - - WHAT hit and run? There was NO hit (the Google car was never impacted). - - - - -

Unless a video still exists we will never know exactly what happened, and as discussed above a driver that causes an accident by violating the norms and conventions of a maneuver and/or region can always fall back to the letter of the law to claim they weren't at fault.

With that said, your statement raises a bit of concern for the future in that if autonomous vehicles are good at anything it will be dancing around a potential point of impact, thus saving themselves from collision at the price of forcing other vehicles into unrecoverable situations. Unless these vehicles explicitly implement the Three Laws the result of putting 5% of them into the driving population may not be the accident reduction nirvana their proponents claim - a bit of unintended consequence may well intervene.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[Swave An deBwoner]

It would have been nice had you placed a call to 911 indicating that someone may have been injured, given the possibility and that you didn't check.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[sphealey]

Can't really agree, particularly when complex situations such as multiple speeds/multiple merges are involved.

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[DNS-and-BIND]

All of us appreciate your ugly, bigoted classist smear against ordinary Americans. Keep punching down. Speak truth to the powerless!

Re:Who Does the time for HIT and RUN (crime)

[sphealey]

You are conveniently leaving out "or by inaction allow human beings to come to harm".

Why not just add

[bobstreo]

some flashing lights and rotating blades to the front, and some Roman chariot-like scythes to the wheels. Would probably eliminate most pedestrian issues, one way or the other. /s

California Road Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Freeway traffic always has the right of way. It is the duty of the person merging onto the freeway to adjust their speed accordingly. This includes speeding up to prevent cutting people off.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/hdbk/merg_pass

Re: California Road Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Rules matter. I hate when the car I am going to merge behind slows down âoeto be nice and let me inâ. If you want to be nice, drive at a constant speed so I can figure out where to merge. Same when I am at a side road waiting to turn left onto a main road, and someone on the main road stops to turn left into the side road, and âoeis nice and waves at me to turn firstâ. I know someone who was badly hurt by following a wave like that. And it usually wastes time; if they followed the rules, and slowed and turned instead of stopping, we would both finish our turns faster. Rules matter.

Merging traffic yields

[SafeMode]

The idiot in the Camry failed to yield and caused their own accident.

In no way should the car in the lane they were trying to merge into slow down. That's not how it is supposed to work.

That just pisses everyone off behind them and leads to dangerous lane changes as people try and avoid the speed change.

This is right up there with idiots who get on highways at 40mph when traffic is doing 70+. This is fully the merger's fault

Re:Merging traffic yields

[froggyjojodaddy]

Not sure if this a Canada/Ontario thing, but there's a really frustrating experience that I see ALL the time.

I'm on the ramp, about to join the highway. I'm doing around 100km/h and 'tracking' the vehicle in the right hand lane in my peripheral vision. If they're going faster than me, I might let off the gas just enough so I can slip in behind them. If they're going slow than me (e.g. even though I'm doing highway speed on the ramp, I'm going to end up joining ahead of them), I'll speed up just enough to ensure when I do join, there's still around 3-4 car lengths between us - assuming they maintain their speed.

You know what happens Almost. Every. Single. Time?

Even though they were going slower, by the time I'm getting ready to merge, they've sped up. They were doing around 90 km/h leading up the end of the ramp for me, but now they're doing a good 100 or 110. OK, so I slow down and merge behind them. Guess what? After 10 seconds, they're back to doing 90! They sped up ONLY to make it harder for someone to merge.

I put it down to some weird obsession that no-one should be allowed to merge in front of them or they have this pathological desire to make life harder for someone to merge. And it's not just merging, I see drivers actively prevent someone from switching lanes into their line, even though there's plenty of room. They could be doing a constant 50 km/h but if they see someone ahead trying to change lanes into theirs, they'll speed up to make the maneuver impossible or extremely dangerous.

This is one of the reasons self driving cars can't come soon enough. Once they've got the technology to a point where it's safe, we'll all be better off without the bizarre tendencies of humans driving 2 ton hunks of metal at 120 km/h.

Re:Looking for more Native American DNA

[Topwiz]

Because her Native ancestor was 6-10 generations back and they couldn't say if that person was full or not. The average white american has more Native DNA than that. Anything more than 4 generations back is insignificant.

Re:Looking for more Native American DNA

[MachineShedFred]

Wildly off topic, but I guess I wonder why anyone gives a single shit about if she has native American blood somewhere in her ancestry or not. Does that all of a sudden make her policy stances more acceptable? Less?

The things that voters choose to care about...

If you worked for a very large corporation

[rsilvergun]

who doesn't want too much scrutiny on a new line of business that you probably invested in then yeah, you'd probably write the headline exactly like that.

See here for a much lengthier explanation of the phenomenon.

Driving is Social

[Howitzer86]

Recently I had a scenario in which a car was trying to merge on a four lane freeway. I was passing a semi when I noticed this car coming up the ramp ahead. It's doubtful to me that a computer would think to accelerate an additional 20 MPH to get out of the way of a semi that wants to get out of the way of a car. As far as it's sensors could probably tell, there wasn't any threat of a collision, just a turn signal from a vehicle that it's passing anyway. However, I was aware the ramp was short, the semi long, and that an accelerating car up ahead needed somewhere to go. Either it would need to slow down, which is dangerous, or I would need to get out of the way.

It wasn't even a close call. No individual was in any real danger so long as they remained aware of their surroundings. But I think of self driving cars in situations like that. I don't expect them to take an preemptive evasive action, especially ones that don't follow the rules (speeding, for example). They say you don't just drive for yourself, you drive for others. Anticipating what they want and what they're aware of can go a long way towards preventing a tragedy. You can for instance, determine when someone's about to change lanes even if they never use signal. Yet as far as AI is concerned, you and everyone else are billiard balls with a set vector. There's probably no thought made regarding intent.

Even if AI could one day handle that, there are other situations that are either uncommon or unique to a specific location in which a ride would benefit from a human touch. I know that during rush hour, while driving East on a specific street near my job, I need to be in the right lane because most people on the other one are going to be trying to turn left towards the restaurants and homes there. Traffic builds up during this time such that you will want to change lanes anyway. However, if you're not already in the right lane, someone else is. Thus, by being unfamiliar with the area, or unaware because you're a computer algorithm, you slow traffic for everyone else, you slow your own trip, and you increase the likelihood of causing a fender bender when you try to change into a moving lane from a complete stop.

Driving is social. We're like bees doing a dance. Engineers have a long way to go before they can emulate that dance. I doubt that they'll ever get it just right. Perfection isn't economically viable anyway. It'll be "good enough" when people aren't dying as much in yearly aggregates... just pay no mind to how easily avoidable those deaths will be.

Re:Driving is Social

[Howitzer86]

"could easily handle", "will have", "it'll have", "is going to have", "it will"

Let's talk about the now shall we? Traffic data is available today, but it's not precise enough to make decisions like the ones I gave examples of. It sees the semi because it's right next to it. If it sees the car on the ramp at all, it's registered as a small, dim cluster of points by lidar - *if* it has lidar. In any case, would you rely on it to notice that you need to move out of the way in the next 4 seconds to allow the semi to move over? I wouldn't. Maybe that's actually in there, I don't know. Considering the example in the summary, you can't fault me for doubting it. It knows the speed of cars captured in it's radar, but without mandating that every car contain a networked black box, it won't know the speed of anything else. Maybe it'll know about roadway obstructions, maybe it won't. Google seems good about knowing when a section of freeway is under construction, but what about everything else?

I'll grant you that it's within the realm of the possible, but right now, these self driving cars don't need to be on the road. In the future, don't count on your AI being perfect when the corporations that develop them are satisfied with a profit/loss informed "good enough." Think about it, these guys are perfectly fine cutting corners during testing. You don't really think it'll stop there do you?

Yeah, right!

[WoodstockJeff]

> As The New Yorker wrote: "A human driver could easily have handled the situation by slowing down and letting the Camry merge into traffic ..."

Rather funny to read anything that involves a "New Yorker" suggesting that human driver would exercise courtesy, let alone courtesy that wasn't required by law....

Eggs to that

[AndyKron]

You can't have cake unless you break a couple spines.

There's one caveat to that

[rsilvergun]

which is that in any state I've been you never have the right of way when it would cause an accident.

e.g. cops can and will still site you for dangerous and aggressive driving even if you had right of way. Most states will punish both drives in an accident because, well, most of the time it's a little from column a and b...

Human Driver Response

[CNTOAGN]

"A human driver could easily..." Bullshit. Human drivers are the worst. A drunk monkey could do better than most humans who are distracted by their pretty phones.

Re:Was this a case of bad Waymo code...

[ledow]

I am not defending anyone here but this is part of the problem.

When drivers drive "exactly as they should've done", alongside humans who don't, then it ends in such accidents.

As my dad always said, you can always argue about who's to blame, or who has right-of-way, but it's easiest to just not have the accident in the first place.

And let me highlight - the problem with automated cars is not that they "can't break the rules" like humans do. I'd much prefer we kept to the same rules than they learned to expect us to break them because that's just madness. The problem is that there are two totally incompatible ways of driving on the same road, and one of them is unable to change it's programming.

That means it has to be just as rude as us, or it will literally follow the rule of the road and "cause" accidents (the cause is really the other guy being a dick, but you know what public perception will be).

Self-driving cars need to be on their own road. And at that point, you might as well just build personal trains.

Re:Looking for more Native American DNA

[thegarbz]

The things that voters are told to care about...

FTFY.

What states?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I don't recall any of the three examples ever existing in any state (including the northeast). Except sometimes a two-lane (on each side) highway has that "left for passing only" sign. What states are you talking about.

Wait......

[Daralantan]

So the big problem here is that the car didn't yield to someone (who was supposed to yield) and that person drove like a maniac onto the shoulder then flew across the highway? I don't think driverless AI is there yet. But the failure here was the man that was trying to merge, not the AI not knowing to be kind and courteous to others on the road. (which really, how many people on the road are kind and courteous anyway? this sounds about like a regular situation to me)

Why spelling matters

[ChrisMaple]

breaking performance

There are already standards for breaking performance, they're known as crashworthiness.

If you mean "braking performance," then we also need education standards.