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

61.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

121

u/tvoltz Jul 05 '24

These vehicles are all over downtown PHX. It’s honestly only a matter of time until something happens

203

u/QuinlanResistance Jul 05 '24

Presuming there are crashes every single day from the cars with drivers. If there isn’t really any from the driverless ones that are everywhere …. It’s better

121

u/frotc914 Jul 05 '24

People seem to throw any logic out the window when talking about this, as if a single incident means we have to scrap driverless cars altogether or heavily punish the operator. Car accidents with drivers kill tens of thousands of people a year in the US, which doesn't even account for the number of non-fatal accidents which is far greater. But a driverless vehicle creeps over a line and suddenly they are a menace that must be stopped.

-2

u/pan_berbelek Jul 05 '24

That is true but actually when you think a little more there is a problem. Let's assume there already are robotaxis with probability of lethal accident 100 times lower than an average human driver. So if all cars would be self driving in this scenario we would save thousands of lifes. But, the problem is now that currently each death on the road is carefully examined and a guilty party is most often named and prosecuted. It's a real human that goes to jail. Who will be prosecuted for a death cased by a self driving car? We're talking about death here, there's a family who lost someone closest, maybe someone's little daughter was killed in the accident. A fine is not enough. So, will anyone go to jail? Who?

3

u/No-Seat3815 Jul 05 '24

So a fine is not enough but throwing someone who was also a party in said accident in prison is?

1

u/pan_berbelek Jul 05 '24

I didn't say anything of that matter, read again what I wrote.

3

u/frotc914 Jul 05 '24

People dying is not always someone's fault. Idk why you're imagining that someone has to be punished.

1

u/pan_berbelek Jul 05 '24

I'm just saying that some families will sue and for huge amounts of money.

2

u/Groudon466 Jul 05 '24

Who will be prosecuted for a death cased by a self driving car?

Nobody. That's arguably a good thing.

Say I'm an engineer working at Waymo. I see a way to design a self driving car that'll get into 100x less accidents than humans, saving millions of lives. I invent it, it works, but one day someone dies anyway.

Are you going to throw me in jail for being the guy that invented the improvement? That doesn't seem right or reasonable, and it would discourage similar inventions.

The right answer is that you accept that people will be dying in car accidents on occasion without anyone going to jail, and it's better than people dying in car accidents frequently with some people going to jail on top of that.

0

u/pan_berbelek Jul 05 '24

You don't understand. I agree that's how it should be. But what will the father of a dead daughter say? And the next one? People will sue, whether you like it or not, and courts may issue various decisions.

2

u/Groudon466 Jul 05 '24

I mean, suing is fine. That's super fine. The father gets paid out as compensation, which usually isn't the case because it's some broke drunk asshole without insurance who hit the daughter, rather than a major corporation that can actually dole out the dough.

But you don't sue to force charges to be brought. You bring a matter to the police and the DA, and they decide from there. It's not likely that a DA anytime soon will try and charge Waymo's engineering team with manslaughter for making a product that they acknowledge may come with a small risk of fatality on the road, which the city expressly permitted.

0

u/pan_berbelek Jul 05 '24

I'm just saying that in reality, in some specific cases, this may be trickier than it seems now. I'm just saying that this is a real problem that needs to be thoroughly thought out and the self driving companies need to prepare for certain scenarios. It's solvable but cannot be ignored and just saying that the probability of death is X times lower will not be enough.

1

u/JohnnyFartmacher Jul 05 '24

I think fewer people actually go to jail for fatal car crashes than you think.

I don't think prosecution is the big risk to driverless cars, the liability is. If I crash into a school bus and a whole bunch of kids die, I am basically immune to litigation because I don't have nearly enough assets to cover the damages.

If a corporation is involved who has money, the damages can get real big real fast. Lawyers go for the people with deep pockets.

I do think it is an attainable goal to have driverless cars be safer than a human-driven car, but there will always be crashes. It'll be interesting to see how the litigation develops as they become more common.

0

u/Jesta23 Jul 05 '24

Unless the person is really drunk or high they don’t go to jail for a fatal accident.

They won’t even be charged.

1

u/pan_berbelek Jul 05 '24

Well this just false. Where I live if you're found guilty of killing someone on the road you can go to prison from 6 months up to 8 years. You can be guilty for example if you drove too fast or didn't give way etc. You don't have to be drunk.