Transportation Secretary: Google Self-Driving Car Crash No Big Deal

[Gorrath]

My carrer of the future is being the co-pilot of a self driving truck. I'll post up, drink tea and play my DSX-Treme or whatever the new gadget is while watching porn on my VR headset and live chatting with my wife in full holographic 4D!

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I just assumed that car companies would start to become car insurers at this point. Or they would get bulk insurance and charge consumers for it at a much lower rate than we can currently get since both the car is safer and the insurance was negotiated in large numbers.

Not sure why people think this would be such a big hurdle? Just different.

When I worked at an American car insurance company a few years ago the main CEOs of the big insurance companies were taken to a big meeting by Google (and a few other software and car companies) and basically told to sort out the insurance intricacies amongst themselves and have it all ready to accept people by 2018, because that was the date they expected to roll off the first civilian models, so Google was hoping the insurance companies would do what they do best and thrash out all the puzzling details of insurance so the Search Engine company could be left to do what it does best... which is designing self driving cars, apparently.

 

[Qizx]

Google Car - Because giving a power mad corporation any measure of control over where, and if, you're driving is a great idea.

These are the same guys who want you to wear spyglasses that record everything for them, and of course greatly influence what you will and won't notice about your surroundings. I feel conflicted enough about putting myself on their grid by using their search engine, and now they want people to be mere passengers in their traffic flow?

Safe or not, I'm too old to get hyped over their brand of Dystopia.

Citation needed.

Seriously though they are a company like any other, not angels. But you're describing them as literally trying to take over the world... Which they might be.

 

[9tailedflame]

I think it's unreasonable to condemn the cars for one crash, it's not like people don't get into car crashes all the time for similar reasons.

I'll condemn the cars because it hands over control of your car from you to a government and/or corporation, or at least leaves the option to do so way wide open, and fuck that.

 

[Dyspayr]

So, just to be clear... The car was to the far right in a single (wide) lane in order to make a turn. It encountered an obstacle* and when attempting to go around it, the bus - while attempting to overtake in the same lane - made contact and its the cars fault?

Last I checked a vehicle has right of way to the entire lane it occupies, and while moving over when slowing down for a turn is nice, it does not forfeit it's right to return to the center of the lane once immediately adjacent vehicles have passed. It's not just that it was assumed the bus would yield, the bus should have yielded; the Google car signaled it's intent well before the bus passed it and with plenty of room for the bus driver to respond safely.

* from another article there were sandbags on the side of the road

 

[Xeorm]

So, just to be clear... The car was to the far right in a single (wide) lane in order to make a turn. It encountered an obstacle* and when attempting to go around it, the bus - while attempting to overtake in the same lane - made contact and its the cars fault?

Last I checked a vehicle has right of way to the entire lane it occupies, and while moving over when slowing down for a turn is nice, it does not forfeit it's right to return to the center of the lane once immediately adjacent vehicles have passed. It's not just that it was assumed the bus would yield, the bus should have yielded; the Google car signaled it's intent well before the bus passed it and with plenty of room for the bus driver to respond safely.

* from another article there were sandbags on the side of the road

It didn't follow law zero of driving: don't crash. Or more specifically, the bus should have stopped and let the car into the lane and the car had every right to get into the lane, but the rule is vague enough, especially in actual driving conditions, that the google car should have backed down and stayed where it was rather than continue moving.

It'd be similar to a (slow moving) car running a stop light in front of you. Sure, you have right of way and the other car isn't obeying the rules of the road, but things are happening slowly enough that you can easily not crash into them, and so are expected not to do so.

 

[L3D]

Seems to be intersection area, Google car is way too late to change lanes at that spot. I would pin this 100% on Google.

 

[LetalisK]

I think they still have a much better track record than humans, though.

 

[Dyspayr]

So, just to be clear... The car was to the far right in a single (wide) lane in order to make a turn. It encountered an obstacle* and when attempting to go around it, the bus - while attempting to overtake in the same lane - made contact and its the cars fault?

Last I checked a vehicle has right of way to the entire lane it occupies, and while moving over when slowing down for a turn is nice, it does not forfeit it's right to return to the center of the lane once immediately adjacent vehicles have passed. It's not just that it was assumed the bus would yield, the bus should have yielded; the Google car signaled it's intent well before the bus passed it and with plenty of room for the bus driver to respond safely.

* from another article there were sandbags on the side of the road

It didn't follow law zero of driving: don't crash. Or more specifically, the bus should have stopped and let the car into the lane and the car had every right to get into the lane, but the rule is vague enough, especially in actual driving conditions, that the google car should have backed down and stayed where it was rather than continue moving.

It'd be similar to a (slow moving) car running a stop light in front of you. Sure, you have right of way and the other car isn't obeying the rules of the road, but things are happening slowly enough that you can easily not crash into them, and so are expected not to do so.

The Google car never actually changed lanes, the bus was trying to go around it while in the same lane. And to your point, if I t-bone a car while I'm on the green light, and they're on the red, I can almost guarantee (depending on local laws) that they will be held responsible so long as I did not accelerate or steer towards them to show that I willfully made contact. There are any number of legitimate reasons I may not have noticed the offending car running the light in time to stop: sun, checking for oncoming traffic from opposite direction, assumed they were creeping to get a better view for a potential turn-on-red. In the majority of places the person that legally has to yield is responsible for avoiding those that have right-of-way .

You and LD3 would be perfectly correct -if- the car was making a lane change, indicator signal or not. But as long as the car was in front of the bus in the same lane, the bus hit the car, not the other way around. If you are in an area that assigns partial liability, there is an argument that it was technically avoidable, but I would guess a 75/25% liability split at most.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

The patch they are rolling out for the car's OS, involves extending a prosthetic hand, flipping the bird while swearing and honking the horn.

That patch is only available in the USA, however.

 

[Quellist]

This is all such bullshit, even if they perfect the system one angry cyclist could lock up a Driverless car for as long as he likes and don't think they wont!

Not to mention the fact that many people simply wont trust a piece of machinery that could crash (in both senses of the word) or be hacked, look at how many times GPS fucks up...