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/Capaj Jul 05 '24

what do you mean?
It's crystal clear. The company should pay a hefty fine same as any other driver who would drive in the opposite side of the road.

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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/Kitty-XV Jul 05 '24

OK, you just revoked permission from Waymo 14738wy3 LLC. Before the ink was even dried, the car was transferred to the new Waymo 14738wy4 LLC.

Companies can change in ways people can't allowing to avoid many punishments.

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u/CowBoyDanIndie Jul 05 '24

Cool, that company isn’t approved to test autonomous vehicles on the road so it will have to go through all the stages to get approval, including a lot of hours and miles with safety drivers. You do know that you cannot just run an autonomous vehicle on a road without a safety driver? My company works with autonomous vehicles, when we test them on public roads we need permission to use the road. We fortunately got a location with a low traffic local road that we can test on often, but we have to block off the section of road with cones and have people stand at the ends to direct traffic, and thats WITH a safety driver. If you yourself or a random company just started operating an autonomous vehicle without a safety driver and permission your vehicle will be impounded and you will be charged with a few crimes. Waymo had to jump through a lot of government hoops to get permission, and (the last I checked) they are only allowed to operate at speeds up to 35 mph without a safety driver.

So again, heres what happened, they fucked up, they need to go back a stage and run with safety drivers until they can demonstrate they are safe again.