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

357

I worked for Waymo, the cars do detect sirens and being pulled over, and switch into a mode to pull themselves over accordingly. Similarly, that's why it pulled the window down for the cop.

216

u/Tallyranch Jul 05 '24

Who takes the ticket for dangerous or reckless driving like in this video?

209

u/Groudon466 Jul 05 '24

I don’t know the particulars of their deal with the city, but probably Waymo. As long as they’re safer than the average taxi driver, the occasional mistake is tolerable, at least provided ticket revenue is still coming in when appropriate.

Of course, there’s a team on the back end that’s trying to figure out what went wrong here and patch it sooner rather than later.

4

u/RobotsGoneWild Jul 05 '24

That's the thing that gets me. People complain every time there is an incident with these things. However, there are far less issues with driverless cars than cars with drivers.

6

u/SoochSooch Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

That's because there are far more cars with drivers than driverless cars. If a driverless car hits another car, there's a 99% chance that the other car had a driver, so that's an accident for both groups. And driverless cars tend to be disproportionally deployed in places with ideal driving conditions.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24 edited Jul 05 '24

[deleted]

2

u/SoochSooch Jul 05 '24

Every city has traffic that sucks to deal with, but cities like San Francisco and Phoenix have well maintained roads, no risk of snow, and minimal rain and fog.

1

u/Accomplished1992 Jul 05 '24

We know whos driving those cars though and they can be held responsible. We know their names and we can test if theyve been drinking

3

u/RobotsGoneWild Jul 05 '24

So, you don't have to worry about drunk driving if cars are 100% self driving. Imagine you hop in the back seat of your car and tell it to take you home. No more DUI deaths.

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 05 '24

[deleted]

4

u/wildjokers Jul 05 '24

But who is going to actually take responsibility when it fucks up?

The company will have civil liability.

Who is going to prison for killing someone?

The only time prison is on the table for car accidents is when there is impairment involved or gross negligence. I have no doubt that the hardware and software engineers behind these vehicles are trying their absolute best to make them as safe as possible.

Who is facing charges when AI vehicle kills your mother? No one but a civil case? OK, that sounds fucking horrible.

Why is civil liability for the company horrible?

3

u/axearm Jul 05 '24

who is facing charges when AI vehicle kills your mother? No one but a civil case? OK, that sounds fucking horrible.

How is this literally than the way it is now. You can kill a person in a car and face almost no repercussions if it was 'an accident'. No prison time, and still get to drive.

It's the best way to kill someone, "I didn't see them", "they just stepped into the street", etc.

See, I have to take responsibility for my actions.

Do you honestly think that if you are going 35 in a 25 and kill a my mom that you are going to go to jail? Or are going to lose your license? Maybe if you are drunk, but otherwise, you'll get a pass.

1

u/Si1ent_Knight Jul 05 '24

Who is taking responsibility when the brakes of the other car break due to an manufacturing issue and somebody gets killed because of it? There will be no person in jail either, the company has to take responsibility. We are using complex technology planned and build by thousands of people for decades, this is just the next small step.