This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Remember when the argument for self driving cars was that they don't need to be perfect, just better than humans?
@JackbyDev@programming.dev @return2ozma@lemmy.world well that's still Waymo's argument I think. Elon is a bit different in many ways...
If only there was an entity that could make rules about who and what can be driven on public roads.
I know it sounds impossible, but what if this entity could have stepped in before companies tread public roads and other drivers as beta testers for their half finished commercial products? They could have forced companies to either make this stuff work, or keep it off the roads.
Real talk for a moment: The world, but especially the USA has been on fire over the last decade. Sometimes I wonder how different the introduction of certain technologies could have been if everyone wasn't distracted by all the craziness and governments had actually done their job. I'm not just talking about self-driving or AI, as another example, but also crypto and social media in general. Would things be much different, if this stuff appeared during "boring times"?
Sorry, I'm just rambling here ...
Pretty sure that would make them as bad as or worse than drunk drivers.
I will never take any auto autonomous Tesla. Waymo maybe, but always a taxi or Uber and better yet a bus or train.
I can't remember how many safety features Tesla has foregone in the name of profit, but my perception of them is that they're death machines for both riders and pedestrians. No thank you
i prefer human taxis
Human: pffft hold my beer... Wait no, I'll keep it.
They still drive better than Elon who is in a k hole right now 👍
There was a news story two weeks ago about Waymo taxis in Texas driving through 20 bus stops over a few days.
The only response was, "company officials treat this very seriously and are working on a fix."
It's bizarre how if you drove through twenty bus stops in three days, you would not only lose your license but be in jail on multiple charges.
But if a corporation does it it is, "Oops, we will do better next time."
Utterly insane.
No wonder Sovereign Citizens think they can get away with anything with the right paperwork.
It's bizarre how if you drove through twenty bus stops in three days, you would not only lose your license but be in jail on multiple charges.
This is a relatively unique Texas law that requires cars to stop when school buses are loading or unloading passengers, including on the opposite side of the road going the other direction. The self driving companies didn't program for that special use case, so it actually is a relatively easy fix in software.
And the human drivers who move to Texas often get tripped up by this law, because many aren't aware of the requirement.
It isn't a unique Texas Law. It's law everywhere in the US and Canada.
"mostly all in North America, require all surrounding vehicles to stop when a school bus is stopped with its red lights flashing."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus_traffic_stop_laws
"And the human drivers who move to Texas often get tripped up by this law, because many aren't aware of the requirement."
Only if you are from a different country.
Which is beside the point that if anyone else drove through 20 bus stops, they couldn't use the excuse, "I'm from another country so I don't know your laws." to get out of jail.
That it's a software fix is also beside the point. "Oh I drove illegally 20 times. I know better and won't do it again."
The default in most other states is that opposite direction traffic on a divided highway don't have to stop. The states differ in what constitutes a divided highway, but generally at least 5 feet of space or a physical barrier between the lanes would qualify. In Texas, however, there is no exception for divided highways, and the key definition is "controlled-access highway," which requires on/off ramps and physical barriers between traffic directions, or "different roadways,"
So for a 5-lane road where there are 2 lanes going in each direction with a center lane for left turns, Texas requires opposite direction traffic to stop, while most other states do not.
The incidents had nothing to do with divided highways. You can see the video is at residential streets.
It’s not just Texas. It’s a requirement to stop for a school bus with its flashing lights on and stop sign out pretty much everywhere in the US.
Some things are just super obvious that even if we can, we should not
Feeling a bit smug since I was early adopter of calling "self-driving" cars a grift. Remember when it was an undeniable fact that most cars would be driving entirely by themselves by now?
I'm sure all the Tesla apologist that kept saying "it only has to be safer than a human" whenever we pointed out how poorly the Tesla self-driving system works will change their tune now.
... Right?
Some of the lidar based systems might work eventually, but Musk's "humans only have eyes, so we only need cameras" is unlikely to ever work
Waymo self driving cars are very good imo, I live near a location where they operate and drive along side them daily on my way to work and have ridden in one twice. They are way better than human drives in my area.
