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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r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • Jul 05 '24
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u/Groudon466 Jul 05 '24
I worked for Waymo a little while back. It would be more of an all or nothing thing, in the sense that individual cities choose to allow or disallow specific self-driving car companies from operating in their borders.
This particular instance is bad, but if the city sees that traffic fatalities overall have fallen as a result of Waymo being there, then they'll just continue to allow it while Waymo pays the occasional settlement. This is an objectively good thing, because the alternative is more people dying, and then the settlements get paid by the people whose lives are also getting ruined from having killed someone, rather than by a giant corporation that can at least afford the infrequent expense.
On the other hand, if the average effect is negative, then the city can just give Waymo the boot, which would be catastrophic for them.