US Probes Reports Waymo Self-Driving Cars Illegally Passed School Buses 19 Times (reuters.com) 96
U.S. regulators are pressing Waymo for answers after Texas officials reported 19 instances of its self-driving cars illegally passing stopped school buses, including cases that occurred after Waymo claimed to have deployed a software fix. Longtime Slashdot reader BrendaEM shares the report from Reuters: In a November 20 letter posted by NHTSA, the Austin Independent School District said five incidents occurred in November after Waymo said it had made software updates to resolve the issue and asked the company to halt operations around schools during pick-up and drop-off times until it could ensure the vehicles would not violate the law. "We cannot allow Waymo to continue endangering our students while it attempts to implement a fix," a lawyer for the school district wrote, citing one incident involving a Waymo that was "recorded driving past a stopped school bus only moments after a student crossed in front of the vehicle, and while the student was still in the road."
The letter prompted NHTSA to ask Waymo on November 24 if it would comply with the request to cease self-driving operations during student pick-up and drop-off times, adding: "Was an appropriate software fix implemented or developed to mitigate this concern? And if so, does Waymo plan to file a recall for the fix?" The school district told Reuters on Thursday that Waymo refuses to halt operations around schools and said another incident involving a self-driving car and an actively loading school bus occurred on December 1, which "indicates that those programming changes did not resolve the issue or our concerns."
In a statement, Waymo did not answer why it had refused to halt operations around Austin schools or answer if it would issue a recall. "We're deeply invested in safe interaction with school buses. We swiftly implemented software updates to address this and will continue to rapidly improve," Waymo said. NHTSA said in a letter to Waymo on Wednesday that it was demanding answers to a series of questions by January 20 about incidents involving school buses and details of software updates to address safety concerns.
The letter prompted NHTSA to ask Waymo on November 24 if it would comply with the request to cease self-driving operations during student pick-up and drop-off times, adding: "Was an appropriate software fix implemented or developed to mitigate this concern? And if so, does Waymo plan to file a recall for the fix?" The school district told Reuters on Thursday that Waymo refuses to halt operations around schools and said another incident involving a self-driving car and an actively loading school bus occurred on December 1, which "indicates that those programming changes did not resolve the issue or our concerns."
In a statement, Waymo did not answer why it had refused to halt operations around Austin schools or answer if it would issue a recall. "We're deeply invested in safe interaction with school buses. We swiftly implemented software updates to address this and will continue to rapidly improve," Waymo said. NHTSA said in a letter to Waymo on Wednesday that it was demanding answers to a series of questions by January 20 about incidents involving school buses and details of software updates to address safety concerns.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
Some times there aren't any marked crossings for half a mile. Perhaps this could be seen as a school-bus routing problem, but saying "use the crossing" is only reasonable sometimes.
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That's the "routing problem" I mentioned.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
It turns out that if kids figure out they're being made to ride an extra half hour on the bus while it winds around its route and back the other way just so they don't have to cross the street, they'll start fibbing about the side they live on, or just getting off. And the driver won't always stop them.
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Some times there aren't any marked crossings for half a mile.
Maybe you should get this fixed rather than implementing a dangerous band aid that only partially protects a tiny minority of the population. What happens if someone doesn't go to school and wants to cross the road? Fuck them, let them die?
Designing roads which *break up* areas rather than *connecting* them is fundamentally dumb.
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Different groups of people designate street crossings and manage school buses. Ideally you're right, it should be fixed. Now get two different groups of people with different priorities to agree.
If you don't like the rule, manage it with school bus routing, but prepare to need twice as many route miles along lots of segments.
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What do school busses have to do with anything? Leave them out of the equation. The people who designate street crossings need to do their fucking job. That is all.
If you don't like the rule, manage it with school bus routing
Put up, shut up and work around it has never in the history of mankind lead to an ideal and efficient outcome. My point was YOU SHOULDN"T HAVE TO, and your acceptance of this is a major part of the problem with American society.
STOP, WAIT, PAUSE, or what? (Score:3)
I have read of people given tickets for passing stopped school buses with their red STOP signs swung out, who got the ticket dismissed by pointing out that normal STOP signs mean PAUSE then continue. I have no idea if the original stories were true or if that still works. STOP signs really mean wait until the intersection clears, and arguably the temporary intersection created by the school bus doesn't clear until the kiddies are across the street.
Re:STOP, WAIT, PAUSE, or what? (Score:4, Interesting)
School buses are supposed to flash a yellow set of lights before the red lights come on. I worked with someone who received a big fat ticket about passing a school bus. He showed on his dashcam that the bus was stopped, no lights, but as soon as he went past, the lights came on.
Ticket dismissed. However, it took him a ton of time from work to deal with that.
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I got a bogus red light ticket once, and that was what convinced me to get a dashcam. That judge just took the cops' word for everything, so even a dashcam might not have helped, but it couldn't have hurt.
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I got ticketed for this same thing in Austin. Passing a school bus, no lights. As I was passing, they put on the yellow flashing lights. The red lights were not flashing and the stop sign was not extended, which I could tell because the stop sign is at the front of the bus. Then I was written a ticket for passing a bus with red lights flashing. This was before dashcams, but I also got the fuck out of that shithole state before I had to go to court about it, and I'm never going back. (I also did a warrant se
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Re: Meanwhile (Score:2)
Now, with the deregulated ride share companies the price is so unpredictable and so often is unaffordable. You can't negotiate the price as it's take it or leave it and based off of not just supply and demand, but what the company thinks you as an individual might be willing to pay.
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The kids should cross the street at normal crossings
What is a "normal crossing'? Do you even know? There are long stretches of road that have no "normal" crossings. Moreover, most crossings that do exist anywhere are not really safe for a 5 year old to cross without holding someone's hand. They probably aren't really safe for an adult to cross without paying very close attention. You are and F*ing idiot.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Insightful)
The kids should cross the street at normal crossings like everyone else, not just anywhere a huge yellow beast stops and flips out a sign.
I'd say the safest place to cross would be in front of a huge, impossible to miss bus, with a flipped-out sign reading "STOP" and with flashing lights.
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The problem is that it's not intuitive that there's a special case traffic rule for that and I don't remember it ever being brought up in driver's ed or the written part of the test. How is someone who didn't ride a bus to school as a kid supposed to know to stop for them?
A few hundred dollar fine aught do it.
Take away the license for repeat offenders.
Take away the car if driving without a license.
This is an already solved problem in sensible countries.
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So what price should a corp be given when they offend? Waymo with 19 offenses if it were a person would likely be looking at 2-5 year licens
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Regardless of how esoteric or "special case" a rule you think it is, one ought to expect anyone that's developing au
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The problem is that it's not intuitive that there's a special case traffic rule for that and I don't remember it ever being brought up in driver's ed
There's no way your driver's ed class failed to mention that traffic is required to stop for school buses with their red lights flashing, and I think it's unlikely that your written test failed to include a question about school zone and school bus rules. Mine (Utah) certainly did.
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The problem is that it's not intuitive that there's a special case traffic rule for that and I don't remember it ever being brought up in driver's ed or the written part of the test.
I'm not sure where you took driver's ed, but when I did it, school bus safety was hammered into us. They made it a point that passing a stopped school bus with a sign deployed got you more points than any other traffic infraction that did not involve an injury or collision. In the US at least, you learn early on that you do not mess with school buses, not just for traffic infractions but even our much vaunted SUV's and massive pickup trucks will still lose badly in any collision with one.
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I'd say the safest place to cross would be in front of a huge, impossible to miss bus, with a flipped-out sign reading "STOP" and with flashing lights.
I'd say the safest place to cross would be from a place you're clearly visible, but you do you, rely on that sign that is only there for a brief second specifically for only a tiny subset of humanity.
The fact you consider this as "safe" is the problem with society. You've excepted a horrible band-aid for a dangerous situation covering a small minority rather than addressing the underlying cause: your road design is shit and dangerous that you yourself acknowledge you don't want kids to use. Why would you ma
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The fact you consider this as "safe" is the problem with society.
Well, yes: we live in a society in which 50-kg small humans coexist in spaces with 1000- and 2000- kilogram metal vehicles travelling at a hundred km/hour, and only the social rules keep them safe.
You've excepted a horrible band-aid for a dangerous situation covering a small minority
The entirety of our civilization's "safety" relies on our society and its rules. It's not a "small minority"-- it's all of it. Every time I drive I put myself in a situation in which I'm less than one second away from flaming death if I should make the wrong move.
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I'd say the safest place to cross would be in front of a huge, impossible to miss bus, with a flipped-out sign reading "STOP" and with flashing lights.
I have been hit by a vehicle while I was in the crosswalk with the light telling me that it was my turn. A giant yellow bus isn't much safer; motorists tend to do whatever they want whenever they want. There is not a lot of discipline there. Something is causing a majority of people to not have the time nor energy to deal in a disciplined manner with others. It is quite exhausting.
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Crosswalks are dangerous.
A particular danger at crosswalks is cars making turns. It's often hard to see pedestrians when other cars are blocking the view. (And bicycles are always something to watch for.)
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If that doesn't work, then I would get a few volunteer parents, give them baseball bats, and have them smash the headlights of any vehicle that passes the bus when the door is open. I suspect Waymo would *suddenly* find a software update that
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The kids should cross the street at normal crossings like everyone else
Most "normal crossings" are incredibly dangerous for pedestrians. Kids shouldn't have to risk their lives just to get to school.
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I guess neither humans or bots are trained well on that. It's pretty stupid anyway. The kids should cross the street at normal crossings like everyone else, not just anywhere a huge yellow beast stops and flips out a sign.
In rural areas, like where I live, there aren't any marked crossings, and there really isn't any reasonable place to put them. If you mark a crossing it would only ever be used by the one or two houses near it, and only by school children, because there's really no need for anyone to walk across the street otherwise. The school buses stop directly in front of each child's house. There aren't any locations where a bus could pick up multiple children without making them have to walk an unreasonable distanc
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Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
Now look at the ratio of human driven cars vs. Waymo cars.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I am slightly baffled whenever this "yeah but human drivers make mistakes too" or "human drivers make more/worse mistakes" whataboutism pops up on /.
To me, it's a diversion tactic to draw the attention away from the issue at hand. Which is, self-driving cars make mistakes they should not be making. They cause health and safety risks, they cause injuries, even deaths. Don't compare them to human drivers, compare them other tech. Why should self-driving cars get less stringent safety requirements than other tech? Because human drivers make mistakes too? Sorry, that's not going to fly. You should introduce tech that is safe by design or get off the road. Don't use the real world (the production environment) as your test bed. Other tech developers aren't doing so or even allowed to anyway. (Microsoft being the glaring exception.)
Can a self-driving car be made safe by design? In theory, yes - but the real-world cases make me wonder. This one, the dog case a day or two before, and a number of earlier ones. I have no doubt that self-driving cars can perform excellently and even surpass most human drivers in many cases. In well-defined, by-the-book cases. The problems arise when things don't go by the book. In the real world, they seldom do. It's an open world out there and not everybody is playing by the book. Not to mention unexpected accidents, bridge collapses, natural disasters, and so on, which in turn make others around you react in unpredictable ways. Heck, people and other living things are unpredictable by their nature. It is really impossible to list every imaginable situation and tell the AI how to react in that particular situation. It is an endless list of possible scenarios and outcomes.
To react correctly in unexpected situations, you need to read the whole situation and react quickly. Humans do this instinctively - they may not always make the right call but at least their capability to analyze unexpected situations still far exceeds an AI trained on a closed set of rules and scenarios.
I am not sure the current maturity levels of AI can used to handle such unusual situations. What we read in the news doesn't suggest so.
An AGI might be needed, and that is not on today's menu.
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In another article I had a conversation about what 'intent' means. They were trying to defend self driving companies and sent me the legal definition of intent (to injure). As it turns out, a self driving company that releases 80% tested driving code and not knowing entirely what it will do in real situation completely falls under the definition of intent of someone is injured.
Hmm, what does that say about Tesla's FSD software that is known not to be complete? I guess it's OK for now since they define it as Level 2 and it is always the driver's fault for not monitoring it if there is an accident, but the "intent" thing is interesting for the future.
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Which is, self-driving cars make mistakes they should not be making.
Precisely zero people have claimed that self-driving cars are incapable of making mistakes. Their power and benefit is in their ability fix fleet-wide problems that can't be addressed even individually with humans. Anyone who has ever claimed these cars would be perfect (especially in their infancy right now) is delusional.
Maybe your post will be relevant in 2035, but not now.
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And that is actually the problem with this "story": Self-driving cars are held to a much higher standard. That is neither rational nor useful.
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It's very rational. Humans are accountable, self-driving cars aren't. Also, humans can adapt to unusual situations, self-driving cars cannot.
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Nonsense. But you nicely show the stupidity of the average person here.
First, obviously a self-driving car comes with accountability. It just sits in a different place. And second, most humans cannot adapt to unusual situations either.
The bottom line is that self-driving cars already kill less people per distance driven than regular cars or are close to it. But I guess people like you are fine with people dying just so long you have not adjust to anything new.
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It doesn't need to be perfect, just better (Score:2)
Human drivers are impaired, impatient or distracted. Self-driving doesn't suffer any of this. And it is getting better with every new version [x.com].
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fines (Score:2, Insightful)
A human would be subject to fines for this. But if you are a giant corporation with no person in your vehicle well you get a pass to make it better, as many times as it takes. Fuck that, the robot owner is liable and needs to pay fines just like humans do (and also improve the robot). Carrots and sticks.
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They did pay the fines. https://insideevs.com/news/754... [insideevs.com]
By the way, humans in SF and other major cities pay lots of parking tickets all the time, it's a money-making scam of every city.
Re:fines (Score:4, Insightful)
Failure to yield for a school bus is a moving violation that will put points on your license. In my state 3 moving violations in 18 months will get your license suspended. This is much more serious than a parking ticket and is not a money making scheme. It's a don't flatten school children scheme.
Re: fines (Score:2)
Obviously, I was talking about parking fines. In fact I said parking fines.
Re: fines (Score:1)
Obviously, I was talking about parking fines. In fact I said parking fines..
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on your license
Whose licence? Corporations don't have the same ones as they are governed under a different framework. That's a fundamentally legal problem.
It's a don't flatten school children scheme.
Maybe a better idea would be to not make school children cross a road, design roads that can be crossed safely without a silly bus specific rule. After all who gives a fuck about school children, at the risk of sounding selfish, what about me? Fuck me because I don't go to school right?
America implemented a stupid band-aid that covers a tiny minority of the population t
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Whose licence? Corporations don't have the same ones as they are governed under a different framework. That's a fundamentally legal problem.
Same as for a human, revoke their AI's right to operate vehicles autonomously for 6 months and make them go to "driving" school. I.e. pay for an outside audit of their code. Don't let the operate again until they can prove to an independent entity that they've fixed the bug in a deterministic manner.
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RTFA, not in this case. Waymo didn't pay fines for real safety violations around school busses in Austin.
Don't forget this part:
"In a statement, Waymo did not answer why it had refused to halt operations around Austin schools or answer if it would issue a recall. "We’re deeply invested in safe interaction with school buses. We swiftly implemented software updates to address this and will continue to rapidly improve," Waymo said."
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Well, why weren't they issued a ticket? I'm not sure how the "points on license" thing will work. The way it's being handled now may be OK .. they need to show that it won't happen again easily and also a multi-tier safety system such that the car as a rule would always overtake stopped-in-lane vehicles slowly such that it can rapidly brake in time to avoid an accident (that's in case it for some reason didn't recognize the schoolbus vs. other vehicle specifically).
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But if you are a giant corporation
Let me stop you right there. The question is not one of corporation or not, the question is one of legalese, specifically...
Fuck that, the robot owner is liable
Actually no they aren't. That's the problem. The way the laws are written don't account for this. Maybe we should get that addressed fundamentally. Additionally the fines need to be adjusted to suit the scenario. It doesn't help anyone if Waymo can pay the fines from the admin's petty cash budget.
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I've never seen a human pass a school bus, and I see school buses daily.
I've never seen one run a red light, but I know someone who was hospitalised when it happened to them. This stuff happens all the time. Pretending that humans don't is the same side of silly bias you apply to villainising Waymo.
Yeah Waymos aren't perfect, but what they are is programmatically consistent. It's like people who don't know the law about not doing U-turns at a red light (illegal in my city but you see people do it all the time out of ignorance).
There's a difference between a mistake and ignoranc
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As to ignorance of the law, you may want to check that. Many on this forum and others have complained they
Re:fines (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh and that goes just as much for Tesla who should probably be facing multiple fines and restrictions just for how their cars try to drop people off, much less their other failures that should probably take them off the road... and would if it was a human driver.
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I'm good with not only fining them, but telling them it will impact their ability to run the vehicles.
Since they are a corp, I'd say each fine should be 10x what you give to a person. When a passed school bus with lights is documented, the police need to pull an empty Waymo over and then impound it, with the release fee being 10x what it would be normally. Perhaps that will get their attention.
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That would get attention faster than any fine.
self driving lawyers (Score:2)
You can't have a product or service without some lawyer having to make money off it too.
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At least lawyers aren't just "picking on" self-driving cars, they sue plenty of human drivers too.
Suspend their operating license (Score:4, Insightful)
If I drove through a school bus unloading zone like that 21 times my drivers license would be suspended, probably for a very long time.
Why isn't Waymo's license suspended for the same period mine would be?
Actually, after 21 infractions it would probably be permanently cancelled.
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The right people got greased with cash so the laws are squishy.
Errr no. Fundamentally the laws were written at a time when this idea was a fantasy. No laws needed to be changed, no hands needed to be greased. It just simply wasn't a case of these laws applying back decades ago when they were written.
No nefarious conspiwacy needed.
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Why isn't Waymo's license suspended for the same period mine would be?
Because the laws don't govern their suspension the same way? Fundamentally there is no license to suspend. It's a different regulatory framework.
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Obligatory thought bubble (Score:4, Funny)
Texas officials reported 19 instances of its self-driving cars illegally passing stopped school buses,
Oh, its Waymo times than that!
Such a strange system (Score:3)
I can see how this system evolved in an US specific environment, but I wonder if it wouldn't have been safer to design schoolbusses with exits on both sides and just let the kids out on the right side of the road? For proper bus stops you can just put a zebra crossing sufficiently behind the stop to make it safe.
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I can see how this system evolved in an US specific environment, but I wonder if it wouldn't have been safer to design schoolbusses with exits on both sides and just let the kids out on the right side of the road? For proper bus stops you can just put a zebra crossing sufficiently behind the stop to make it safe.
In general, bus stops are designed for the students to exit on the non-street side. The issue is kids who have to cross the street to get home since a stop serves multiple homes on both sides of a street. Retracing the route would double the bus transit time for some kids, who likely just get off the bus at the first stop and not theirs if the bus retraced the route so they could get off on their side of the street.
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If the bus had exits on both sides it could just cross the road to park on the other side and immediately open the other doors, no need to turn around.
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And have the bus pointer the wrong way? I think worse, now you have a bus full of kids structured for a head on crash with oncoming traffic.
I doubt any bus driver would want to cross to the other side, it would be a challenge, even if cars cooperated. You'd have a line of blocked cars that would need to be let by, while holding up traffic behind you. If the driver doesn't have on red flashers when they start to move, a car could potentially legally pass them and the bus pull out into them. Then if the stop is near a corner, the driver may not see an oncoming car, setting up your scenario; or I've seen stops on a street with a 45 MPH limit, tr
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but I wonder if it wouldn't have been safer to design schoolbusses with exits on both sides and just let the kids out on the right side of the road?
That is not how it works. That is not how any of this works. Roads are inherently two way roads. Busses will generally go one direction only on any particular road. The implication being that some kids absolutely WILL have to cross the road.
The question is: How do we achieve that safely? Doors on both sides of the bus will not help here.
The simplest solution (Score:1)
Means test entry into public (government run) schools. Only indigents may enroll. Then, eliminate school buses.
the law? (Score:2)
What exactly is the law? Can you pass if only yellow lights are on? Can you pass going the other way? Can you pass going the other way if there is a double solid line? What about a double double solid line? What about a suicide turning lane? What if the bus's stop sign comes out, but the lights never flash, or vice versa? What if the school bus is stopped but is not issuing any warnings? These things probably vary from state to state, too.
These cars are a massive safety issue. (Score:1)
We have a massive fleet of these self-driving cars in my city. They are also stopping in dumb places and blocking traffic. Multiple times I've seen them sitting (waiting for a pickup?) just blocking an entire half mile of cars backed up blowing horns. Even today on my way to work, one stopped right in the middle of the street and wouldn't move, causing everyone else to drive into oncoming traffic to go around. They are not perfect drivers, far from it. They stop and start and seem to change their minds. The
Waymo Learns: Don't F--- with School Buses (Score:2)