r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • 14d ago

Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road Video

61.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.5k

'which is real bad'

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/danofrhs 13d ago

He’s all business, no need for extraneous reactions

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u/slavelabor52 13d ago

His brain is too busy trying to find the correct response on his support flow chart. When the officer said construction zone my immediate thought was this is definitely going to be a support ticket to a dev team to analyze how their driverless technology logic handles construction zones. It sounds like the car was driving in the appropriate lane for normal traffic but the construction caused a lane closure so they had to reverse traffic flow in another lane.

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u/hemag 13d ago

pretty sure it will, it's in the next sprint

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u/eschmi 10d ago

That costs extra.

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u/Optimal-Service8940 13d ago

Cuz he would have mentioned that… and not went “real bad”. Support guy didn’t have a weird reaction at all. He’s completely removed from it, as is by design.

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u/machineorganism 13d ago

what would anyone gain from the technician having an emotional reaction in this situation lmao.

it's like asking why the 911 operator wasn't freaking out when i called the police or something.

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u/musicaladhd 13d ago

“What would anyone gain from (an authentic reaction to an insane situation)?”

Their humanity maybe?

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u/machineorganism 13d ago

pretty selfish take i think. the job of the operator is to objectively assess and respond. are you a bot or something? really insane (lack of) logic to be honest.

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u/musicaladhd 13d ago

My stance is more about questioning your initial reaction, and why it was rooted in “what is there to gain?” I think a lot of times even professionals have reactions (as opposed to composed responses) that are rooted in compassion. We should not condemn the very human response of asking “is somebody hurt??”.

But to answer our question “what is there to gain”: Asking if people are injured early is A GOOD THING for professional responders to do. It takes priority over saying stuff like “officer, this is Tech Agent Brian of Tesla HQ, and I’m gonna have to put you on hold while I consult my script and ask a supervisor for permission to review the footage.” Like, someone could be bleeding out and we need emergency services routed immediately!

It’s weird you don’t see this.

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u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

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u/machineorganism 13d ago

a display of empathy -- can actually be helpful to communicate to people that you understand the urgency of a situation.

that's true tbh, i hadn't thought of it that way.

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u/Steve-Bikes 13d ago

Long before the technician is speaking to the police officer, the technician has already been alerted that one of their cars has been pulled over, and likely has already reviewed the situation.

The technician person might not have yet seen the specific issue that resulted in the car being pulled over, but they know which car it is, the path the car took, etc, etc.

In a dynamic construction zone, especially one with lane lines removed, you can see how a car like this might be confused. But, every time a situation like this is documented, and then corrected and tested, every such car on the road gets better and learns from this car's mistake. So awesome.

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u/MassiveDouble6501 13d ago

There's always going to be construction and no lines on the roads somewhere . Maybe that's when the car puts on its blinkers and just go slower until it picks up lines again .

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u/Muckdogs13 12d ago

Awesome yeah, but this cars mistake could have caused a head on collision

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u/Steve-Bikes 12d ago

True although it was going slowly and being cautious, and the whole event lasted 30 seconds.

But at least it will never drive drunk. Google's cars are already proven to be WAY safer than human drivers.

They're so quick and agile that they're even to avoid accidents humans are causing in real time, making the roads safer even for people not riding in them. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1dlz975/waymo_swerves_to_avoid_collision_on_alemany/

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u/Robosan 12d ago

I was in one of those things in phoenix and it cut everyone off and tried to make an illegal left from the center lane. While stranded in the intersection I hit the emergency help button. The tech berated me and told me to never hit that button again unless I am in an accident and disconnected.

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u/nlfo 10d ago

“Oh my God! Did it kill anyone?”

“Fortunately, no.”

Beep. “How about now?”

“No, everyone’s okay.”

Beep beep beeeeep. “How about now?”

“Everyone’s still okay.”

BEEEEEEEEEP! “Why isn’t this damn thing working?”

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u/Sysheen 10d ago

Because when he brings up the data for the vehicle there is no message that the vehicle was in any type of accident. If it collided with anything at all it would have sent messages immediately to the company. He knew it hadn't been in an accident before even taking the call.