How America's Transportation Department Blocked a Self-Driving Truck Company (reason.com) 90
Reason.com explores the fortunes of Aurora Innovation, the first company to put heavy-duty commercial self-driving trucks on public roads (and hopes to expand routes to El Paso, Texas, and Phoenix by the end of the year):
An obscure federal rule is slowing the self-driving revolution. When trucks break down, operators are required to place reflective warning cones and road flares around the truck to warn other motorists. The regulations areexacting: Within 10 minutes of stopping, three warning signals must be set in specific locations around the truck. Auroraaskedthe federal Department of Transportation (DOT) to allow warning beacons to be fixed to the truck itself — and activated when a truck becomes disabled. The warning beacons would face both forward and backward, would be more visibleâthan cones (particularly at night), and wouldn't burn out like road flares. Drivers of nonautonomous vehicles could also benefit from that rule change, as they would no longer have to walk into traffic to place the required safety signals.
In December 2024, however, the Transportation Department denied Aurora's request for an exemption to the existing rules, even though regulatorsadmittedin theFederal Registerthat no evidence indicated the truck-mounted beacons would be less safe. Such a study is now underway, but it's unclear how long it will take to draw any conclusions.
The article notes that Aurora has now filed a lawsuit in federal court that seeks to overturn the Transportation Department's denial...
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
In December 2024, however, the Transportation Department denied Aurora's request for an exemption to the existing rules, even though regulatorsadmittedin theFederal Registerthat no evidence indicated the truck-mounted beacons would be less safe. Such a study is now underway, but it's unclear how long it will take to draw any conclusions.
The article notes that Aurora has now filed a lawsuit in federal court that seeks to overturn the Transportation Department's denial...
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
drone (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's a good idea, why couldn't they think of it? I was immediately thinking deploying wheeled remote control cones but drones are a cheaper and better idea. There are many solutions to this, you have to wonder about why Aurora didn't offer them up
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Yeah but instead of making the drones drop safety triangles, you have them be the triangles. Carry four so that you have a spare. Ideally you also make them able to pick up one which has failed while sitting. Drones are cheap.
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Uh, I am sure they can work it out. What do you think they'll hand the project to an intern? Besides there are non-flying solutions like an RC cone. If they can work out how to drive a truck autonomously on the highway I am sure they can figure out how to safely place a few cones on the road in the correct locations.
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How would these drones work in inclement weather, or worse in a gale or wind storm. A driver is adaptable to the worst of situations, I’m not so sure about lightweight, drones.
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A small wheeled bot to pull two strings of LEDs in a triangle behind the truck with the bot at the tip?
Re:drone (Score:5, Informative)
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Alternatively, have the required beacons be mounted on little robots (ala Roomba’s) which the truck would dispatch and would place themselves appropriately. In inclement weather I’d expect this to potentially work better than a flying drone (no, it would NOT actually be a Roomba; bigger treads for snow and such).
These would be useful for human piloted rigs as well. Walking around in traffic is hazardous. The larger volume would help drive prices down, whether or not Aurora ended up winning the a
wheeled drop (Score:2)
no need for an arial drone.
Whether automatically or by remote operator, drop a wheeled motor with the cones at the specified length on a chain.
Either make it able to collect them, or just have a retractor motor to pul it all back in.
next to controlling the truck itself, this is a trivial task.
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4 drones that have attached lights and are programmed to land at the appropriate points and light up.
Around the truck? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is "around the truck" really accurate in the US or are they being intentionally misleading? Truck drivers need to put a triangle 300 bloody feet behind truck on the highway here, that's not "around".
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People aren't paying attention even in daylight and can hit a huge truck anyway. So it doesn't matter what you do - there will always be a better id1ot.
Re: Around the truck? (Score:1)
Truck drivers need to put a triangle 300 bloody feet behind truck on the highway here
Well the goal is to
Re: Around the truck? (Score:4, Informative)
The goal is to have as little blood as possible.
The rule is 100 to 500 feet depending on the situation. Type of road, curves, that sort of thing.
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Not sure how you get to "300 bloody feet". That bit where it says the rules are "exacting" in TFS, is a link to the actual rules. It's 100feet. That's pretty damn close to a truck. In fact that's just a couple of meters longer than b-double truck.
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Not sure how you get to "300 bloody feet". That bit where it says the rules are "exacting" in TFS, is a link to the actual rules. It's 100feet. That's pretty damn close to a truck.
You should read the whole section that you referenced. For example there's this
(iv) Hills, curves, and obstructions. If a commercial motor vehicle is stopped within 500 feet of a curve, crest of a hill, or other obstruction to view, the driver shall place the warning signal required by paragraph (b)(1) of this section in the direction of the obstruction to view a distance of 100 feet to 500 feet from the stopped commercial motor vehicle so as to afford ample warning to other users of the highway.Hills, curves, and obstructions. If a commercial motor vehicle is stopped within 500 feet of a curve, crest of a hill, or other obstruction to view, the driver shall place the warning signal required by paragraph (b)(1) of this section in the direction of the obstruction to view a distance of 100 feet to 500 feet from the stopped commercial motor vehicle so as to afford ample warning to other users of the highway.
Getting a truck-mounted light to shine around a curve 500 feet away is tricky. Drone-dropped (and retrieved!) flares also tricky.
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I did read the whole section. One thing America is infamously known for is it's long straight roads, your claim that truckers need to trek 300 feet is ignorant or dishonest. Most don't.
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You deliberately left out a significant requirement and corrected another person on that basis? Because you think *all* roads in America are straight and there can't be a need for a regulation around curves? And then you accuse me of being ignorant or dishonest for pointing out the actual text, because you believe a lot of truckers also ignore the written requirement which is part of the CDL training?
Someone mod this guy down pls.
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It doesn't matter where they are stopped, within 10 minutes of a stop that lasts that long they must be placed [dot.gov] 10 feet aft, (assuming you're on the right side as you're facing) 100 feet aft, and 100 feet afore. That means they're walking 10 feet aft and placing one, 90 more feet aft and placing another, 200 feet forwards so they're placing one 100 feet ahead, and then 100 feet back to their rig. I am admittedly not great at math, but this seems to me to add up to 300 feet, unless you've got two humans in th
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I believe the federal regulation in the US is 100 feet. Not clear what states may required beyond that.
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I agree it should be doable via drones, though perhaps would be a good idea to have a manual review process of the locati
There are many reason why big-rigs need... (Score:2, Insightful)
There are many reasons why big-rigs need alert and attentive drivers at the controls at all times - the ability to respond to organic situations that require intelligent cone-placement is but one.
How many of these MBA's and marketing morons have been to driving school??
Re:There are many reason why big-rigs need... (Score:5, Insightful)
How good are humans at those "organic" responses? 4000 fatal large truck accidents annually by human truck drivers in the US are not enough for you? You know, like this just yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Humans are by fare the best automobile operators on the planet. Computers do not come close. That's fact. If you took the very best autonomous vehicle system existing right now and a trucker with 10 years of experience and no violations, the trucker would be more capable at negotiating more complex situations and at less cost.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that a couple autonomous trucks running on a couple EXTREMELY measured routes are either cheap or consistent in their operation.
We'll eventually hav
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Well, large trucks have 1.3-1.4 accidents per 100 million vehicle miles, vs 1.5-1.6 for passenger cars, so... better than everything else on the road?
Also, maybe if we are a little better at stopping illegal and illiterate drivers that might improve even more.
Re:There are many reason why big-rigs need... (Score:4, Insightful)
How good are humans at those "organic" responses? 4000 fatal large truck accidents annually by human truck drivers in the US are not enough for you? You know, like this just yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
On the surface that's an excellent question with excellent statistical support.
A quick search says that the average long-haul trucker drives about 100,000 miles per year. And the average near-haul trucker drivers about 65,000 miles per year. I found a statistic of 3.5 million truckers in the US, which seems plausible. I have no breakdown over how many are of each type, but if we look at the low-end, that's 227,500,000,000 miles per year. Or... 56,875,000 miles per fatality.
Another stat I found was that just under 10% of road fatalities involve big trucks. Considering that car traffic is going to tend to be closer to home and at lower speeds, honestly that doesn't seem unreasonable.
Truck collisions are spectacular and the carnage is too. But I don't think the results are out of proportion to the distance driven. All in all I think truck drivers appear to be quite good at what they do and it's the sheer volume that makes for the shocking absolute number you have provided.
Will self-driving vehicles ever be universally better at driving than humans? Hopefully, yes. Are they now? No, not universally. Will getting there cause more carnage while we have a mixture of machines and men driving? I strongly suspect so.
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Will getting there cause more carnage while we have a mixture of machines and men driving? I strongly suspect so.
What makes you suspect that we'll have increased carnage getting to a self-driving world? What evidence? We have very strong evidence that contradicts that .. you can see the detailed stats for Waymo on this page: https://waymo.com/safety/impac... [waymo.com] Tesla also has some of its own stats, you can google it.
I only know of one fatal self-driving car related accident, and that was back in 2016 when Uber thought it could save money by reducing the number of cameras its vehicle had, and the safety driver was watchi
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Will getting there cause more carnage while we have a mixture of machines and men driving? I strongly suspect so.
What makes you suspect that we'll have increased carnage getting to a self-driving world? What evidence? We have very strong evidence that contradicts that .. you can see the detailed stats for Waymo on this page: https://waymo.com/safety/impac... [waymo.com] Tesla also has some of its own stats, you can google it.
I only know of one fatal self-driving car related accident, and that was back in 2016 when Uber thought it could save money by reducing the number of cameras its vehicle had, and the safety driver was watching Netflix instead of monitoring the driving. (Note: there have been a few Tesla autopilot (not FSD) related crashes). Autopilot is like glorified cruise control it was never intended as self-driving, you're supposed to pay full attention. I guess Tesla misnamed it.
We have had Waymo driving autonomously with no human intervention in multiple US cities without fatal self-driving caused accidents. So far, in 30 million miles of total driving (all Waymos have the same brain/sensors), there was only one serious accident a year or two ago that involved a Waymo (a woman was hit by a human driven car and thrown on the Waymo). Unlike humans the Waymo learned from that (even though it wasn't its fault the way it handled it could have been better).
I hear you and I am aware of that. But that's best-case-scenario, in-city at low speeds where reaction to and interpretation of challenges has relatively a lot of time. Long-haul driving is a different beast. Sure, you're supposed to leave three seconds between vehicles but "accidents" are when that doesn't happen. Big trucks need (much) more time to react to anything because of their mass.
Waymo and its ilk tend to fail safe, and that's a good thing. But that may actually make things worse on a highw
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How good are humans at those "organic" responses? 4000 fatal large truck accidents annually by human truck drivers in the US are not enough for you? You know, like this just yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I don't know if they need humans, but I'll wager most don't work as advertised.
When you learn to fly a plane with an autopilot, even one with autoland / Homesafe, the first thing you are taught is how to lobotomize it for safety reasons.
Are self-driving trucks better than humans? Possibly but we have no data. Keep in mind however that's 4000 accidents a year while traveling just shy of 200 BILLION miles.
195.76 billion miles traveled by combination trucks in 2023.
https://www.trucking.org/econo.. [trucking.org]
Re: There are many reason why big-rigs need... (Score:2)
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Geez, dude; quit you're ahead.
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the ability to respond to organic situations that require intelligent cone-placement is but one.
Citation Needed. To be clear it sounds like what you're saying is right, but the reality is we don't make decisions like this based on the feels which is precisely why a detailed study has been commissioned.
Add to that - most responses to break down are low-IQ even from supposedly smart people I would wager very few responses to such situations are resolved organically rather than "God fucking dammit now I need to place this thing 100ft behind me due to regulations, grrrrrr."
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How many of the actual drivers themselves have been to driving school?
You know there's an ongoing joke about Swift drivers right? Because Swift, alongside all the other huge truck transportation companies are basically hiring drivers with fre
Do a study FIRST. (Score:2)
even though regulatorsadmittedin theFederal Registerthat no evidence indicated the truck-mounted beacons would be less safe. Such a study is now underway, but it's unclear how long it will take to draw any conclusions.
The company wants the regulations changed? Fine as soon as THEY provide evidence that the proposed change is NOT less safe. At this point according to the article there has been no study to indicate how safe their proposed changes are compared to existing regulations. So why should the change be made?
Re:Do a study FIRST. (Score:4, Informative)
1) There has been no study that the current rule does anything. They just made it up. For all we know, the current rule CAUSES more accidents than it prevents. This is not medically tested science, but just someone that said '4 paces', and then later clarified that to mean 3 meters/10 ft.
2) The current rule allows for the use of road flares as warning devices, that last... 30 minutes. When they go out, no additional warning devices are required. Yeah, this is not the safest or well thought or tested rule. Just some thing a random guy wrote.
3) The company already did a study and 'proved' that it is safer. . That is how they 'know' the lights are more visible than cones. That study was a simple one of try and see, rather than a good one, but so what.
4) The problem is not the 'warning devices', the government is fine with the lights on the car. Instead the issue is the multiple lines about placement, requiring them not to be a certain distance from the vehicle. Which again, the original rule used PACES as the measurement.
I am not saying a study should not be made. I am saying that a reasonable agency could have looked at the rule, said 'this is just some crap a guy made up with no science', and given a limited testing exemption of some kind for say 100 trucks.
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I am saying that a reasonable agency could have looked at the rule, said 'this is just some crap a guy made up with no science', and given a limited testing exemption of some kind for say 100 trucks.
Common sense has no place in government. Does not even matter who is in charge. It's like a natural law.
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Common sense has no place in government. Does not even matter who is in charge. It's like a natural law.
The fact that their minimum standard allow flares that burn out is probably because they are a readily available and reliable option.
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The reason for the rules seems like common sense to me. There is a certain distance needed to stop or change lanes when driving at highway distance. If the truck breaks down just over a hill, cars won't see it early enough unless the warning signals are put further back where they can be seen coming up the hill.
I seriously doubt that these rules were just shit someone made up. The NHTSA has so many studies regarding road regulations and guidance. They might be outdated for modern technology, and might be wo
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> There has been no study that the current rule does anything. They just made it up. For all we know, the current rule CAUSES more accidents than it prevents. This is not medically tested science, but just someone that said '4 paces', and then later clarified that to mean 3 meters/10 ft.
Then why does the rule exist? You think someone just came up with an arbitrary rule for no reason?
Reminder: virtually all safety regulations are WRITTEN IN BLOOD. Ignore them, and you'll die in the comfort of your own pla
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1) This is stupid.
Are we supposed to run some study to figure out that a stopped truck with warning lights around it is safer than one without? Let me rephrase. Are _you_ willing to shoulder the cost of the victims of the negative case? No? Of course not.
What about the criminal cost? You just did demand that some people should die either way to prove one, right? You're okay with going to jail for demanding that some people die to prove your point, of course! No? Of course not.
Are _you_ going to run the test
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There is a general problem with regulation which is that it tends to restrict innovation, or at least the speed of it. It's something we'd benefit from minimising but it's incredibly naive to just claim th
Requirements (Score:2)
Was a study done showing putting out cones and road flares is effective at alerting motorists that there is a disabled truck?
I honestly don't know if there was or not. However, if there wasn't (and a fair number of regulations aren't based on studies, nor are particularly well thought-out) why would a study need to be done to modify an existing regulation?
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Once you've added safety rules based on observations of previous accidents it makes sense t
Not "blocking", requiring the rules to be followed (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not "blocking" anything. There are existing rules and they are requiring those rules to be followed.
Petitioner wants the existing rules to be ignored and is requesting an exemption because, reasons.
The reasons maybe perfectly reasonable. I might even agree with them. And it is entirely possible this is a case of "the rules" not keeping pace with technology. But it is not fair to say that the petitioner is being "blocked". That implies that someone singling out of their way to screw the petitioner. Not the case here. Petitioner is simply being held to the rules that already existed before petitioner came along.
Re:Not "blocking", requiring the rules to be follo (Score:5, Insightful)
If the rule was created in order to stop the petitioner from doing business, then it's blocking. I don't think that's the case here. It's just that the petitioner has a business model that was not anticipated when the rule was created.
I predict the rule can and will be changed. But for now ... well, it's a rule.
They shouldn't be requesting an exception (Score:5, Insightful)
the Transportation Department denied Aurora's request for an exemption to the existing rules
They should request a change in the rules, not an exception for themselves. And that does require process, evidence, and time, for good reason. If that wasn't in your business plan, sorry.
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They should request a change in the rules, not an exception for themselves. And that does require process, evidence, and time, for good reason. If that wasn't in your business plan, sorry.
Why? I mean really why would they do anything other than they have done. They took the obvious path of least resistance and the rule is now being reviewed. Why would anyone start with the longest and most complicated process rather than the simplest and potentially fastest?
Is this like the Americans putting the day of the month after the month, as in not knowing that the logical approach to everything is to go from smallest to biggest?
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Do you write 1 million as 000,000,1 too? Try most significant to least significant: Y-M-D.
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Do you write 1 million as 000,000,1 too?
That's a cool idea, I'm going to try it from now on. I have to go now though, I have a meeting at 00:11.
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Do you write 1 million as 000,000,1 too? Try most significant to least significant: Y-M-D.
Way to go showing the lack of understanding of how sorting vs significance works.
Already resolved (Score:2)
Recently, the DoT reversed their position and the external lighting solution was approved.
As to the other proposed solutions I see here, such as drones or wheeled bots, let us all remember that easier solutions should always be preferred.
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The company did provide evidence to the safety of the proposed solution and the original request was denied in the last days of the previous presidential administration. Recently, the DoT reversed their position and the external lighting solution was approved. As to the other proposed solutions I see here, such as drones or wheeled bots, let us all remember that easier solutions should always be preferred.
The decision denying the exemption including reasoning can be found here [regulations.gov]. I'm not aware of other decisions but maybe they are filed in a separate docket?
Anyway, the regulators did argue that the evidence presented was unsatisfactory. The request was for a broad exemption but there are scenarios where the proposed solution was considered not at the same level of safety, e.g. when line-of-sight to the truck was impeded by road geometry or elevation.
As example, quoting the document linked above in regards of c
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Unlikely to be worse at truck driving ... (Score:3)
Mindless enforcement of.. (Score:2)
..silly rules kills innovation
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Mindless permissiveness kills people.
Obviously (Score:2)
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With some actual common sense being displayed for once. The US is a country where the overwhelming majority of centerline miles of road are not paved. And where they are paved, they're typically not marked or maintained too well because that'd get in the way of highway megaprojects to add freeway lanes that don't actually move more people or add functional capacity.
How do you get to overwhelming majority are not paved? Even if you add in BLM and Forest Service access and estimates of private roads I can't get to majority much less overwhelming.
https://www.bts.gov/content/pu... [bts.gov]
In the latest year, 2020, paved was 2.84 million and unpaved was 1.32 million Shows the US flipped from majority unpaved back in the late 70s.
https://highways.dot.gov/safet... [dot.gov]
65% paved and 35% unpaved
Google AI summary
2.75 million paved and 1.36 million unpaved
Grok
2.94 million paved and 1.36 mil
Poor application is why the rejection of exemption (Score:2)
If you just read the attached PDF from the link [regulations.gov], you will see why it was rejected, with one of their first claim of exemption from the rules: 'The Applicants have considered a number of mechanisms to try to comply with 49 CFR 392.22(b), including automated deployment of traditional warning devices. We have found that there is no practical, effective, or reliable way to do this for the foreseeable future.'
These companies specialized in automated self driving vehicles and they can't come up with an effective
Poco dinero (Score:2)
Auto-matic lights (Score:3)
The automatic lights would be automatically turned on automatically by the truck's computer control system in the event of the computer control system failing.
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The most likely situation is that the computer is fully working, but can't move the truck. Either there's something wrong mechanically (engine failure, flat tyre) or the computer can't "see" clearly enough to move safely. Even if the computer has failed, "turn on all the lights if the computer fails" is a fairly simple thing to do - a watchdog timer holding off a relay that connects the lights to the battery (bypassing any electronic control). You can even deal with an electrical system failure by putting a
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I don't think "most likely" is a suitable basis for safety rules. OTOH, one also shouldn't demand certainty, as that's not going to be possible. Say a solution that would work in over 97% of the cases...perhaps even a bit more conservative.
OTOH, nothing will protect you against an ID10T error.
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Yes, and I listed several fall-backs.
Computer is working but truck immobilised - computer commands beacons on
Computer breaks - watchdog trips, bypasses computer and turns beacons on
Electrical supply fails - local battery turns beacon on
It's not perfect - for example the computer could get into a livelock and keep resetting the watchdog but not triggering the beacons itself. But then neither is the current system - having the driver place flares or beacons assumes that the driver is able to get out of the ca
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The current system has well known and expectable failure modes. This, unfortunately, cannot be true of any replacement system.
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These breakdown warnings are meant for when the less likely things happen, for example when the truck is dead, maybe its battery died because the alternator failed. What will power those warning lights then? Cones don't require batteries.
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Fuck reason.com (Score:2)
Trash
Existing solution . . . (Score:2)
Robotic traffic cones.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Just add a passenger (Score:2)
It's got to be cheaper to pay some schlub who needs work to sit in a cab and doomscroll all day in case the truck breaks down than to pay someone who took the time and effort to get a CDL.
Alt title (Score:2)
\o/ (Score:1)
Surely if they can figure out how to make a truck drive itself, this should be easy:
* https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Not only America and trucks (Score:3)
In most EU countries and many, many others, in case your car/truck/anything breaks down, a warning/breakdown triangle“ has to be placed 50 or 100 Meters before the car.
Why is it a problem to require a study? (Score:2)
Doing studies, is part of the process of changing regulations. This seems fine to me. Follow the process. There's no need for an exception to the process just because "self-driving".
El Paso to Phoenix works for me (Score:2)
Autonomous vehicles have a tiny number of miles (Score:1)
All autonomous vehicles across the entirety of the last 10 years have only driven about 200,000,000 miles- six orders of magnitude less. That is the equivalent of driving from your house to the corner store and saying youâ(TM)re as good a driver as someone who has crossed the United States 12 times.
If you simply look at the raw probability of ha