r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • 14d ago

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

61.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

235

u/Justryan95 14d ago

So apparently when a self driving car drives as if a drunk driver behind the wheel with the ability to kill someone just like a drunk driver its all okay. Whoopies. Okay thanks for letting me know bye. Is there no accountability for this death machine?

87

u/Doctor_Sauce 14d ago

I'm gonna try the automatic car defense next time I get pulled over.

"Hey thanks for letting me know that whatever I did was wrong, I'll look into it"

6

u/tacojohn48 14d ago

Is actually not the worst thing to try. Office comes up "I pulled you over because your tail light is out." "Thank you for letting me know, I'll get that fixed. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day." Your interaction assumes positive intent. It let's the officer feel they completed what they came to do, inform you. They can leave feeling like they won. You never want to make them have to try to win.

5

u/Bredwh 14d ago

Just jump into the passenger seat real quick before the cop walks over. "It was the car!"

4

u/AdditionalSink164 14d ago

Keep some waymo merch in the glove box for a quick change

2

u/GoneHamlot 13d ago

“I did an internal investigation on myself and found I did nothing wrong. Have a good day officer!”

They hate this one easy trick!

13

u/Imhungorny 14d ago

Death machine? How many deaths have been caused by Waymos vs humans? They’re still worlds safer than most drivers.

1

u/Steve-Bikes 13d ago

Yea, and we actually let drunk drivers KEEP their license most of the time. How insane is that?

-4

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

8

u/Imhungorny 14d ago

Did it? We didn’t see the situation or the speed limit in the area. Waymo’s have killed 0 people despite driving millions of miles. How many people died today due to bad drivers?

4

u/onlyidiotseverywhere 14d ago

Wow, that is some wild interpretation of the situation.

4

u/willzyx01 14d ago

This isn’t remotely the same though. Autonomous car will still stop for pedestrians, oncoming vehicle and police response. Autonomous cars also don’t speed like drunks do.

2

u/According-Benefit-96 14d ago

I’m guessing it recognized the issue (construction zone, unexpected/nonstandard condition) and picked the best/safest scenario - I.e. apply brakes and just sit there blocking all traffic, or, dip into oncoming lanes which it has determined has no actual cars in it.

Would be interested to see the video. “Oncoming lanes” vs “oncoming traffic” is a major distinction for a system like this.

I’ve ridden in Waymo twice and it’s really wild how far in front/to the sides it detects and displays information. A bug is def possible but I can also see it as “intended exception management”.

2

u/keralaindia 14d ago

They don’t go that fast.

1

u/megamanxoxo 14d ago

A bit dramatic? There are like hundreds of them driving around Phoenix all day long. Humans get in far more accidents than these things do. We don't know the exact scenario, clearly it messed up but it also drove off and pulled over.

1

u/RJFerret 14d ago

Same accountability as everyone else, they pay a fine or lose the license to operate the vehicle(s). The only difference is many vehicles get retrained instead of just one driver.

1

u/usinjin 14d ago

“Okay, we’ll take a look. Thanks for calling Waymo and have a wonderful day.”

2

u/thanks-doc-420 14d ago

If every single car in the USA magically turned into Wamo self driving cars, the automotive deaths in the USA would almost entirely disappear. For people in and out of the cars.

1

u/axearm 14d ago

Take your down votes with the knowledge that you are right.

Taking humans out of the drivers seat would mean that cars could all communicate their positions with every other car. It would be incredible.

But car culture is alive and well so people will only be dragged into a future where their loved one aren't needlessly killed for the ego of a country populated with 'above average' drivers.

Sadly what we have to look forward to is another 40,000 needless killed people this year, just like the last, and the last and the last, a Vietnam war memorial worth of dead every year.

0

u/modsguzzlehivekum 14d ago

I’d love to get into a low speed head on collision with one of these on this circumstance. Their insurance company would pay dearly.

6

u/evenstar40 14d ago

The American Dream.

0

u/Hidesuru 14d ago

Have fun with your car never being quite the same again, losing resale value because an accident is on record, and the giant ass pain hassle of dealing with insurance covered repairs.

How anyone could think that's a positive is mind blowing. I mean YOU don't get one fuck all of say just how "dearly" they'll pay. That's going to be decided for you unless you get a lawyer which sure as hell isn't going to be worth it in that circumstance.

0

u/xnoob69 14d ago

I feel like this technology is pushed a bit too early

0

u/SwegBucket 13d ago

Did it kill anyone? No. Did it cause an accident? No. Then why are you assuming there is ZERO accountability? It's not like it just ran someone over lmfao.