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AI Transportation

Driverless Cars Face Hit-and-Run Collisions from Human Drivers (nbcnews.com) 58

Posted by EditorDavid from the fleeing-the-scene dept.
Around 4 in the morning one Tuesday night in San Francisco, an autonomously-driven Cruise vehicle stopped at a red light — and was rear-ended by a Honda. But then "the Honda driver reversed backward several feet, stopped and drove forward again, making contact with the Cruise vehicle a second time," reports NBC News. After damaging the car and injuring its two test drivers, according to a collision report the Honda then "left the scene without exchanging information."

It's just part of "a pattern bedeviling tech companies that are trying to make driverless cars a reality," reports NBC News, after reviewing collision reports from the California Department of Motor Vehicles: The reports, which were written by employees of the tech companies, describe 36 instances in 2022 in which a person driving a car or truck left the scene of a crash involving their vehicle and an autonomous vehicle. The problem has continued at a similar pace this year, with seven examples as of early March....

"My best guess is that the drivers think they can't be held liable," said Anderson Franco, a personal injury attorney in the city. "If you are operating your own vehicle and you crash into an autonomous vehicle, the correct thing to do is take photographs, call the police and have it documented," he said. But it's not always clear from the outside of a Cruise or other autonomous vehicle what to do if there's a problem. Cruise said in a statement to NBC News that it was in the process of making its phone number more prominently displayed on the outside of vehicles, so drivers in a crash know who to call....

The human drivers who have hit autonomous vehicles appear to be getting away with little accountability. Autonomous vehicles are usually equipped with a variety of external cameras that could record the license plate numbers of hit-and-run drivers but it's not clear how often the companies have gone down that road.... Cruise said in a statement that the hit-and-runs are usually minor. It said it works with San Francisco police "when necessary" and searches its videos for the license plate numbers of other cars "if needed." Cruise declined to comment on specific cases. Waymo said it has kept its options open about how to respond to hit-and-runs.
California's Department of Motor Vehicles pointed out that because of the limited data available, "it's unclear if the rate of hit-and-run incidents involving autonomous vehicles is higher or lower than the rate involving conventional vehicles."
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Driverless Cars Face Hit-and-Run Collisions from Human Drivers More

Driverless Cars Face Hit-and-Run Collisions from Human Drivers

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  • Cameras? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday April 02, 2023 @06:42AM (#63418630)

    Since SDCs have plenty of cameras, it should be easy to identify the hit-and-run car and likely even the driver.

    Since leaving the scene is a crime, the police should make an arrest, and the criminal should pay for all the damages.

    So what's the problem?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      I suspect the ones owning the driverless car fear bad publicity.

    • Re:Cameras? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Sunday April 02, 2023 @04:02PM (#63420216)

      So what's the problem?

      Maybe it's revealing how often hit-and-runs happen but because cameras aren't common, they go unreported? But because deiverless cars are equipped so many sensors and cameras, it's revealing just how often it happens and maybe how under-reported it is?

      As much as dashcams are, they aren't something most people have, especially ones that capture the rear of the vehicle.

      Of course, if this accident actually resulted in injuring the people inside, then that hit and run driver is in for a very bad day since the cameras would've gotten it all from multiple angles with medical claims as we all know that US health care isn't cheap.

      Heck, if self-driving cars become a thing and these super-sensor vehicles are everywhere, drivers tempted to do a hit and run might think twice because their act might have been caught by multiple vehicles in traffic even if the car they hit wasn't self-driving. So maybe in the end, it might be a plus for people actually driving properly and safely because their behavior might be caught on camera.

    • It depends on the footage. I've been in several hit and runs, and turned in my camera footage, and in a few cases, nobody was ever arrested. In a lot of the US, hit and run is a low priority, especially if nobody was injured. You likely will get a case number, then you file the claim as an uninsured motorist.

      Even if a camera identifies a suspect, there is still a jump from their picture to the person being picked up by the police, especially for non-felony crimes in urban areas.

    • The 'problem' is the army of lawyers and spin doctors the driverless car companies employ, whose job it is to think of the consequences

      -The human driver will claim the driverless car was at fault
      -The human driver will immediately go to the press
      -A wave of bad publicity will result, harming the hype machine
      -Any civil suit or criminal prosecution will be in uncharted territory. Discovery rules mean that the software, algorithms, camera footage, and human decisionmaking will all be subject to subpoena. If tr

  • New situation (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    My best guess is that if most people crash into a driverless car, they have no idea what to do. It's entirely new to them.

    Previously they would have swapped details with the driver and called their insurance.

    • Re:New situation (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday April 02, 2023 @07:16AM (#63418676)

      My best guess is that if most people crash into a driverless car, they have no idea what to do. It's entirely new to them.

      RTFS:

      1. The other car intentionally rammed the SDC. It wasn't an accident.

      2. There were test drivers in the SDC. So exchanging info would have been no problem.

      Since the test drivers were injured, leaving the scene was a felony.

      • You say intentionally, I read it as drunk driver.

        • Re: New situation (Score:4, Insightful)

          by LindleyF ( 9395567 ) on Sunday April 02, 2023 @10:18AM (#63419020)
          Ok. But that's worse. You see how that's worse, right?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Locutus ( 9039 )
            Those type of people do not see it that way. They can blame it on something or someone else and in this case they would blame the action on the alcohol.
            I'd not surprised to read about someone suing a sneaker maker because the shoe didn't move from the throttle to the brake pedal quick enough to prevent a crash.

            LoB
          • Fine, but it makes the fact that the victim was a self-driving car irrelevant, despite the story is trying to use the incident to say something about self-driving cars.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

              Yeah. I see this as "Self driving cars have cameras constantly rolling, so they record rare (but impactful) bullshit that meatbag drivers also have to deal with."

      • RTFS yourself. It started with one incident and then went careening off on a tangent.

    • Why wouldn't someone do exactly the same thing you'd do if you crash into a parked car? (I mean normal people, not the ones who write a note that reads "I'm writing this note to put under your windshield so that onlookers think I left my name and number")

  • Normal (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Sunday April 02, 2023 @07:27AM (#63418686)

    When ABS was introduced, people were rear-ended from cars without ABS when stopping at a red light.

    • It wasn't as good at keeping the tires at static friction and not slipping into dynamic friction. The old abs would still make it safer because they could still stop faster and turn better on sand/snow.

      Modern systems are going to stop the car much faster even on dry pavement. They can keep the tires right at the threshold right below dynamic.

    • I have on occasion run the red light because someone behind is following a wee too closely. As in, knowing that if I stop in time there's a high chance of being rammed from behind.

  • Let me guess, the other car was a 2017 kia sol, driven by a 13 year old. Sounds like a driving while in the Challenging Urban Environment promoted by the progressive state. Perhaps move some of that spending to the environment where self driving will be the killer app, Retirement communities of Florida and Arizona, between 11pm - 4 am you will only see the security guards on the street. Or move testing to a small town where the only other cars on the street at 2am are police and uber drivers.

    • Agreed. If this was a conservative state like Texas they'd never have rammed the driverless vehicle, they would have shot it full of holes instead!

  • I'm sure all these folks would. I don't see any parked cars (other than business trucks) with phone numbers on them. So that seems like a pretty poor excuse.

  • Why is the law unchanged? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zmollusc ( 763634 ) on Sunday April 02, 2023 @01:39PM (#63419752)

    Why wasn't the law changed before self driving cars were allowed onto the road? If the law says that after a collision, the drivers have to exchange details, why on earth is a self-driving car allowed on the roads without the capability of exchanging details with the other party after a collision?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suutar ( 1860506 )

      That's one of the things the test driver is for.

    • "Driverless" cars have a driver, they just don't actually have much input the majority of the time... ...As the article says people who hit and run, will do this regardless of the car they hit

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