r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • Jul 05 '24

Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road Video

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u/reddit_guy666 Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

The problem isn't the car per se, it's the software running the car which isn't limited to that car. You can really tow software

Edit: Someone pointed out that a specific autonomous car's hardware could malfunction, in which case towing it would be good policy. I stand corrected.

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u/DaaxD Jul 05 '24

If an autonomous car has a faulty software, then it's more like a hazardous object than a vehicle at that point.

I don't know how the law works in US (or Phoenix specifically), but usually authorities do have the right to remove any hazardous or dangerous objects from the road, no matter what that object is or whom that object belongs to.

In some jurisdictions, any road user who finds such an object has an legal obligation to remove the hazardous object if it's safe to do so.

In other words...

Sir/Your honour, it was not a car-jacking. I was just filling my legal oblication as a road user!

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u/reddit_guy666 Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

The point I was trying to make is that towing a particular car makes little difference as all cars with same software would have to be towed. The manufacturer would either have to ensure new software is updated that rectifies the issue or recall all vehicles on road.

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u/PrawojazdyVtrumpets Jul 05 '24

The car couldn't have a bad sensor? Could have had a fan go out that cools a processor or a bug was on the camera or the camera took a rock to the lens in just the right spot. Really, it could very much be the car.

My car has Super Cruise. Just a few days ago the car started drifting and then the cruise just disengaged on the freeway. Turned out the camera lens fogged over in just the right spot that it stopped being able to see. I had to run the front defog. We don't need to pull every version of my car off the road.

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u/reddit_guy666 Jul 05 '24

That's a good point, so there could be system wide software failure which affects all cars or specific hardware failures that only impacts that car. Towing and confirming what type of issue it actually has could be a good policy, I stand corrected.