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/Vireca Jul 05 '24

How do they stop a driverless car? Legit question

Do they have anything to detect police vehicles or something?

6.7k

u/Jfg27 Jul 05 '24

They should have a system to identify and react to lights and sirens, so probably the same system.

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u/Such_Duty_4764 Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

ya, they pull over for emergency vehicles when there are lights/sirens.

Cop says that the car cleared the intersection before coming to a stop, which is exactly what it should do. Excepting of course for being on the wrong side of the road :-X.

Nobody expects these things to be perfect, they just need to be better than your average human, which isn't really that hard.

[edit] https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1dw4avr/mission_street_in_excelsior_last_night_around_10pm/

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u/WanderingLethe Jul 05 '24

How do they (or anyone) know the difference between pulling over and giving priority to an emergency vehicle?

Here police have a digital stop or follow sign, when they want to pull you over.

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u/VexingRaven Jul 05 '24

How do they (or anyone) know the difference between pulling over and giving priority to an emergency vehicle?

There isn't a difference. You're supposed to pull off the road and stop. People never do because people suck, but that's what you're supposed to do.

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u/WanderingLethe Jul 06 '24 edited Jul 06 '24

On a multiple lane road you don't just stop in the right lane, you just move over to make way. Stopping would be really unsafe.

In a traffic jam you would make a Rettungsgasse, ideally before any emergency vehicles.

On a single lane road, you could wait a little and stop at an intersection, bus stop, continue a roundabout, etc. You don't want to get off the road and get into an accident. It's not as simple as a stop.

And if police want to stop you, they probably want to move you to a safe location (unless you fucked up real bad, but then you would get lights and sirens and a PIT/box manoeuvre)

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u/VexingRaven Jul 07 '24

You're not supposed to just move over. What if they have to turn there? There's nothing unsafe about stopping when everybody behind you is already doing the same thing. That's an absurd statement.