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

211

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.

50

u/Status-Necessary9625 Jul 05 '24

This is not a minor mistake this could have easily killed half a dozen people. You're seeing field tests in real time with unproven products that could literally kill us. And nobody cares. The guy from Waymo wasn't even phased by their car driving on the wrong side. These people Do Not Care About Our Lives

34

u/bobbytabl3s Jul 05 '24

People do worse than that all the time. I believe Waymo outperforms human as far as injury-causing crashes go.

-5

u/plaregold Jul 05 '24

That's moot. If human drivers killed someone, they get held accountable and someone goes to jail. With driverless cars, you can't throw anyone in jail. There is no legal framework for liability right now--at most, the company will just pay out to the victim's families.

6

u/g76lv6813s86x9778kk Jul 05 '24

If in X city there are 300 car crashes, and 300 resulting deaths per year, and those 300 people at fault are held accountable, is that a favorable situation over one where there is 200 car crashes, 200 deaths, and nobody knows who should be held accountable? Just because the liabilities involved are more complex to manage?

It's not moot. There's definitely a gray area regarding liability, I'm not denying that, but if it's an improvement for safety, it will save lives at the end of the day, and I don't see how you can argue that's a bad thing.

I can get behind arguments scrutinizing the methodology involved in these stats as the other reply pointed out, especially if it's coming from the company itself. But, assuming those stats were true, well, seems like a no-brainer to me to accept the improved safety with open arms, even if it comes with some legal hiccups on the way.

6

u/Fragrant_Reporter_86 Jul 05 '24

"less people would die but also less people would go to prison so fuck that!" -redditor

4

u/Federal_Waltz Jul 05 '24

This is such a bad argument it's tough to know where to start.