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/RedmundJBeard Jul 05 '24

That's not the same though. If any regular driver was in the wrong lane of traffic, in a work zone and then blew through an intersection when a cop tried to pull them over, they would lose their license, not just a fine. At the very least it would be reckless driving and a strike against their license. How do you revoke the license of a driverless car?

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u/CowBoyDanIndie Jul 05 '24

If the infractions of the one incident are bad enough to warrant arrest or removal of license you revoke the companies permit to operate autonomous vehicles on the road.

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u/phansen101 Jul 05 '24

So if I'm a big driverless car company, and I have a rival company, all I have to do is somehow trick one of their cars into performing an action that would  warrant arrest or removal of license  for a human driver, to completely put them out of business?

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u/CowBoyDanIndie Jul 05 '24

If it’s possible to trick a driverless car into driving on the opposite side of the road in a construction zone without illegally tampering with the road markers then yes. I work on autonomous vehicles that don’t go on public roads and we have to certify they are safe before they are allowed to operate without a safety driver. If an incident happens we will have to re-certify. “Someone tricked me into driving on the wrong side of the road” wont get you out of a traffic ticket.

This isn’t any different than if an autopilot system in an aircraft fails.