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Transportation

Waymo Will Start Testing Robotaxis On Phoenix Highways (techcrunch.com) 30

Posted by BeauHD from the brace-yourselves dept.
In just a few weeks, Waymo will begin testing its driverless passenger vehicles on the highways in Phoenix, Arizona. The company will start by shuttling employees, and if all goes well, it will expand its operations to include regular customers. TechCrunch reports: Bringing its autonomous cars to the highway is just the latest in a series of big steps for Waymo, especially in the Phoenix area. In December, the company started offering curbside drop-off and pickup at the Phoenix airport. Just a few months before that, Waymo made its autonomous vehicles available in the Uber app.
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Waymo Will Start Testing Robotaxis On Phoenix Highways More

Waymo Will Start Testing Robotaxis On Phoenix Highways

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  • can you get an DUI in an robotaxi?

    • Public Intox and theft since a DUI means you are driving and have now stolen it. Ya drunk fuck!!

      • How does being drunk imply you stole something that otherwise wouldn't be considered stolen if you were sober. And honestly, isn't one of the greatest potential benefits of self driving cars is they can transport people otherwise unfit to drive themselves like the disabled, the intoxicated, and other unlicensed individuals?

        • Let me make this simple for you. If you are DRIVING a robotaxi then you stole it since it drives itself. If you are arrested for DUI which is DRIVING UNDER the INFLUENCE... you see where I am going with this?

        • you can get an DUI for just sleeping in an car with the keys on you as you are by law in some states that = Actual physical control.

          Now by the way some laws are having an app that has some control over the car is all that is needed to get to Actual physical control

          • I'm pretty sure you still have to be intoxicated to get a DUI. Just sleeping in a car doesn't mean you are intoxicated or violating the law.

  • ...you won't die in vein, just in lane 3.

    • To be fair it's really only going to be poor people that die. If you're well off your car has so many safety features that you're highly unlikely to even be injured all that much.

      Buddy of mine got a fairly high-end car as a hand-me-down from his well to parents and I remember him wrecking it and being shocked after seeing the state of the car and hearing about the details of the crash that the only thing lost in that crash was his lunch when he threw up on the airbag hit him.

      That's kind of the main

    • Vain. Traffic flows are called arteries.

      Anyway, I need some body work done so I guess its time for a road trip so a robotaxi can hit my vehicle.

    • The programmers better be sure to disable the turn signal as those are not used on Phoenix highways. Might confuse other drivers or lead to road rage otherwise.

  • I'm so glad! (Score:3)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Monday January 08, 2024 @07:56PM (#64142681)

    So glad that I don't live anywhere near Phoenix...

    • Oh please...

      I've been riding Waymos in San Francisco for a couple of years now with no issues aside from some fairly questionable routing choices and a couple of numbskull safety drivers who'd missed the news when the state ended its mask mandates, one of which actually refused to beleive the state's own COVID website on the topic. And between the hills and the crooked switchbacks and the rain and the fog and the narrow streets and the potholes and the traffic and the crazy people who unpredictably dart ou

      • Waymo drives on the freeway in SF.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          Waymo drives on the freeway in SF.

          There are freeways in SF?

          I thought they were just wider traffic jams.

        • No, they don't. Rather, if they do drive on the freeways they only started very recently. Every time I've ridden one, it's been surface streets only (That's actually one of my aforementioned complaints about Waymo's routing choices.). And as the other guy mentioned, for significant portions of the days, the freeways are just extra-wide traffic jams anyway... not exactly a challanging driving environment.

  • Or remotely driven? How often does it require human intervention? Cruise was every five miles or so.

  • And lacks ethics. They should feel bad. But, lacking any morals, they don't know good from bad.

    • What ethics are they violating?
      Do you think self driving cars are too dangerous for the road?
      Or do you think self driving cars are taking jobs away from humans and that makes them unethical?
      Or is there some other reason this is unethical? Just saying this idea "lacks ethics" without any context doesn't help make anyone believe its true.

      • Do you think self driving cars are too dangerous for the road?

        Dangerous and stupid. At least human drivers listen to firefighters. When your "self driving" taxis don't get out of the way and need to be remotely driven or have a driver physically come to the car to fix it, that's not even close to self-driving, that's a video game NPC being trusted with dangerous machinery.

        There's a reason automating transportation is hard, and it's all about eliminating the variables. Elevators were first, they're alread

  • Speed limits are merely a suggestion. You have to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic, usually 10-15mph over. Unless of course, there's a traffic jam where you slow down to a crawl. Still not as bad as driving on Dallas area highways.

    • "Speed limits are merely a suggestion."

      So, they never hand out speeding tickets in Phoenix?

      • Rarely. The freeways are mostly 65Mph. If you go 65mph you need to be in the far right lane, and you'll still get tailgated. Then the next lane is for the grandmas going 70 mph. Lane 3 is for 75-82, and the left lane you will get tailgated even going 82 or so pretty often.

        • "Rarely" sounds like they do enforce speeding at times.

          FYI: You can speed nearly everywhere most of the time without getting ticketed. Of course, there are limits to how much you can speed past the posted limit without seeing blue lights in the rear view mirror.

    • I'm not sure where you are going with this. Are you mad that AI cars won't break the law?
      (they sort of will; Google for example will let their cars drive slightly over the speed limit to keep up with flow of traffic under certain conditions)

  • and good public transit. a car based society still sucks.
  • In 10 years these will take away bunch of gig drivers

    • I'm pretty sure the consensus here is that gig driving is a scam that pays poorly and takes advantage of most drivers. And that was while those driver's incomes were being subsidized by the service. If those jobs are eliminated, I think most would agree that it would be a good thing.

      Its not like anyone can say gig driving is their heritage...

      "My great grand daddy was a gig drivers back in the depression. Then my grandpa was a gig driver in WWII delivering rations to soldiers in the Pacific. My dad delivered

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