These cars need to have a panic button that allows a remote operator to talk to the passengers, assess the situation, alert police and override the auto driving to get them out of bad situations. Same as an emergency call button on an elevator basically. I dont understand these cars to have any feature like that so far.
These cars are likely going to turn into hijack machines if they’re programmed for “maximum safety” in situations where, realistically, hitting a pedestrian or causing damage to the vehicle through dangerous terrain may be the only way out with a living passenger. Or they turn into a hearse if the passenger has a medical emergency and the car doesn’t redirect and the passenger is incapacitated.
But that of course requires labor so it will not happen until legally mandated after a minimum threshold of people die.
It sounds like Waymo were already aware of the situation, in fact they called her in the vehicle as it was happening.
Not to say this isn’t a good suggestion, but they seem to have other systems in place that worked.
It worked, only because these men were only being creepy sexist pieces of shit and didn’t have worse intentions. Customer support according to this article has no control over the vehicle other than restarting the auto driving routines to make the car move again.
Considering the length of your comment, you could have started by reading the article.
They do, she only used it after they were gone.
They have a button on the center-front thingy but it’s not labeled panic or anything.
override the auto driving
I must be tired right now but I don’t see how a remote operator could have driven better in this situation.
You can’t get away from someone blocking your car in traffic without risk.of hitting them or other people or vehicles.
You probably meant they ought to drive away regardless of what they hit, if it helps the passenger escape a.dire.situation? But I have to wonder if a remote operator would agree to be put on the spot like that.
If a man jumps out in front of my car in traffic and points a pistol at me after I stop. I am going around or thru him and there is no other option. Anyone else trying to stop me even without visible weapons is going to get evasive maneuvers to protect myself because I am not dealing with that bullshit. That includes weaving far outside my travel lane or going over a sidewalk. That is self defense and a split second decision that any driver may have to make. Waymo prioritizes all outside obstacle avoidance which means it doesn’t even want to leave it’s set travel lane, which makes them trivial to stop like this with no recourse.
The point I am making is that self driving has a really hard time interpreting traffic edge cases or passenger emergencies like this. A remote operator could make the decision to drive over curbs and other lanes, if free, to save the passenger, and realistically should avoid hitting pedestrians too… but in the case of an armed attacker - well, yknow. Like force for like force.
Calling police would only be an auxiliary function. They cannot be depended on to respond in time to most calls to actually make a difference.
Would a remote operator interpret things accurately in 10 seconds or less, or be a job anyone would even want? How does the liability chain of command work? Who knows. But the current system makes no decision at all, and that is unacceptable. And the medical point still stands too, a remote operator could immediately reroute the vehxile to a hospital and alert the medical staff. A panic button is absolutely needed.
I can’t think of a NY cab driver that couldn’t have handled this situation.
This guy isn’t doing fedoras any favors either - I’m already a bit on the skeptical side when I see a fedora.
Fedoras haven’t done anyone any favors ever.
Yea I’m not too keen on giving authorization to hit pedestrians. If I feel threatened in my car, I am not allowed to run over the person so why should a driverless car gain that right? And if the panic button is going to call the police, how is that any different from the passenger using their phone to contact police? Seems like extra steps of middlemen and confusion when the passenger could just call once they feel the need.
I could defintely see a case for some extra safety features that help keep the doors locked and shut, maybe thicker windows too if needed to prevent robberies/assaults.
If you are in literal, actual mortal danger you are generally allowed to escape with the goal of escape. Especially relevant where waymo operates.
If I feel threatened in my car, I am not allowed to run over the person
You are not allowed to run people over merely because you feel threatened.
You are allowed to use deadly force, in the USA when you reasonably believe that it is necessary to prevent someone from unlawfully killing, causing serious physical injury, or committing a short list of violent felonies. The harassment described in the article probably does not rise to that level, though an ambitious lawyer might try to describe intentionally causing the car to stop as carjacking or kidnapping.
probably
Yeah somehow I don’t think tipping a fedora counts lol
It’s likely the harassers can be prosecuted for false imprisonment, a misdemeanor. It is illegal to use deadly force such as hitting people with cars to prevent/terminate a misdemeanor.
Is there any law in any state that would allow you to kill a 3rd party to escape being killed yourself? (If there were, I’d probably opt for not living in that state)
I vaguely remember reading in my criminal law textbook, years back, that murder is one of the few exceptions to the doctrine of necessity (this would have been in the context of US law), so I don’t think that it’s ever legally-permissible to intentionally kill some random person to save yourself. IIRC the rationale was that it prevents thing like terrorist groups from coercing someone to do actions for them by threatening someone else.
That being said, there are obviously points where people are forced to take actions where either one group of people is going to die or another; in ethics, the trolley problem is a well-known example. For a maybe-less-artificial problem, closing hatches in a ship where not everyone is out of a compartment to prevent the ship from going down, say. I don’t know how law applies in the situation of weighing lives; my assumption is that it doesn’t mandate inaction.
Sure, there are some states that let you mag dump through your front door if someone rings the doorbell
What do you mean by “allow you to kill a 3rd party”?
Like if rioters are breaking into your window and start trying to pull you out through it, then you floor it and kill someone else in the crowd who wasn’t actively breaking into your car?
This is something that’s going to vary from state to state, but ultimately it will be a case by case decision where a jury will decide if the use of deadly force was reasonable.
You will be judged based on other’s perception of the events, not based solely whether you yourself thought you were in danger or not.
So, someone trying to “drive slowly” through a group of protesters would probably be found at fault, while a car that was stuck trying to wait patiently suddenly having a Molotov cocktail thrown on it would be judged differently. Even then they will need to consider whether you could have just gotten out of your car and run.
If you legitimately believe your life is in danger, you have the right to escape or defend yourself, even if that means running someone over. This has happened in multiple countries with similar outcomes.
And if the panic button is going to call the police, how is that any different from the passenger using their phone to contact police? Seems like extra steps of middlemen and confusion when the passenger could just call once they feel the need.
Think of it as a backup for the phone in the case where, say, there’s an adult and a kid in the car, the kid has no phone of their own, and the adult loses consciousness with their phone locked. Or the car is being actively jostled by a group of people (say it drove into the middle of an embryonic riot), causing the passenger to drop their phone, whereupon it slides under the seat. Or the phone just runs out of charge or doesn’t survive getting dropped into the passenger’s triple-extra-large fast-food coffee. It won’t be needed 99% of the time, but the other 1% might save someone’s life, and (presuming the car already has a cell modem it in) the cost of adding the feature should be minimal.
The “hitting pedestrians” is an extreme hypothetical, and not one you should particularly get hung up on. But it is one that still has to be considered. Passive security measures only go so far for the passenger.
Realistically, a car can get out of many situations evasively without hitting hostile pedestrians, such as reversing rapidly and then turning around or driving in an opposite travel lane to bypass the blockage. Or hopping a curb and using a sidewalk if it is not occupied (or just blasting the shit out of the horn if it is occupied). These are all things that waymo’s auto mode cannot and will not do, because it doesn’t have the reasoning to understand when such measures are necessary.
What are you going on about? Have you ever ridden in one of these?
They do have these buttons…
“The men came over to the car again and stood in front of it for a few minutes. Finally when they left, the car was still stalled but I clicked the ‘in car support’ on the screen and they seemed to be aware of the issue,” Amina said. “They asked if I was OK and the car began to drive towards my location. They asked if I needed police support and I said no.”
When she was almost to her destination, Waymo support called her again to ask if she was ok, she said. “I assured him that I was fine and he told me I would be given a free ride after,” she said. “After many hours I was called one last time by their support team. They asked if I was OK and told me that they have 24/7 support available. They also said I would get the next ride or next two rides (uncertain) free.”
“In an instance like this, our riders have 24/7 access to Rider Support agents who will help them navigate the situation in real time and coordinate closely with law enforcement officers to provide further assistance as needed,” a spokesperson for Waymo told 404 Media in an email. “While these sorts of events are exceedingly rare among the 100,000 trips we serve a week across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, we take them very seriously. We continuously look for ways to improve rider experience and remain committed to improving road safety and mobility in the cities where we operate.”
they should have [thing that already exists]
Nobody reads the article though…
It’s blocked for me unless i want to sign up. And I don’t for one article.
They have customer support that provides words of platitude, an ineffective police call with a 15minute response time, and no control over the situation. My point remains standing.
They should have a support chopper that you can call in
Hello, customer support?..Yes, air strike on my location, thank you
Agreed, but to play devil’s advocate, the support wasn’t branded as such and customers could’ve not reported out of shame, which wouldn’t happen if they knew they could do that at the beginning before it became anything substantial.
Honestly a proper panic button would have an alarm go off and speed dial 911. But I’m sure people would abuse it.
She talked to an operator who asked if he should call the police and she said no. It’s in the article.
Not sure what a button would have changed…
I guess there was no way to honk?
Waymo honking is only enabled after 10 pm.
literally tipped a fedora
That’s a trilby, not a fedora. Narrow brim.
Ackshully, that’s a jackdaw. Wait, where am I?
Yeah, I would say that this applies in general. That hat that we associate with a particular kind of socially maladjusted individual is not the faithful fedora but its contemptable cousin: the thrilby.
The official hat of “females always pick the chads, even though I dress better than all these normies!”
Technically correct, the best kind of correct!
Unless you want people to like you!
This is the internet, let’s be real here, nobody expects anyone to like them.
They are both super fucking cool and appropriate to wear with any outfit, so it doesn’t matter.
Ehhhh…
The hat doesn’t make it worse.
Ultraviolence anyone?
Too bad the cars can’t realize the people are being assholes and run the fuckers over.
Edit: Might help take stupidity out of the gene pool.
Cruise was testing that feature.
Doing things like this when you’re certainly being recorded is a great idea. Wait, hold on…
waiting for the name shame. what an absolute tosser
There’s enough footage etc I guess for them to be identified and arrested, wonder if that’s happening
Depending on where this happened this could be tried as sexual assault.
Not something you want on your criminal record.
They are quite lucky that woman was not my mother because she’d have pulled out her gun and been like, I told you to move, damnit.
That’s pretty stupid of her.
Without hesitation, because she is brandishing a weapon, anyone else simply watching the scene from a distance feeling even slightly any emotion is justified to shoot her to death as a form of self defense.
Never draw a weapon unless the intent is to use it, and in her case she would only intend to use it as a threat not a deterrence, and therefore deserves to die in this imaginary scenario.
Do you have any idea how deranged this sounds to the rest of the world
It’s deranged to Americans too. This guy is nutso.
Do you think it’s normal to see a civilian draw a weapon and point it to another one? First thing I would think is that she’s gonna kill them, but I’m not American.
Sure, but that doesn’t necessarily present a danger to you, and if it’s clear that she’s shooting as self-defense (and I think two young men accosting an elderly woman while physically preventing the car from moving qualifies), there’s no reason for you to feel threatened.
If we put it in a non-gun context, let’s say grandma pulls out a knife to defend herself from these men, and then someone sees that and immediately pulls a knife of their own and engages. Why would you do that? It’s incredibly unlikely that grandma is going on a killing spree or anything, she just wants to defend herself from these aggressive individuals.
Wait so the people that are justified to shoot her to death, would I be justified to shoot them since they’re pulling weapons too? Is it then open season on me
Yes. This is why brandishing a weapon is so fucking stupid, and why cops always get a wrist slap after shooting first instead of asking questions or deescalate.
anyone else simply watching the scene from a distance feeling even slightly any emotion is justified to shoot her to death as a form of self defense
That really depends on your area and what witnesses exist to corroborate your testimony. You can’t just “say” you felt endangered just because a gun was drawn, it needs to pass the “reasonable person” standard (i.e. would a theoretical “reasonable person” feel threatened in this scenario?). I’m guessing an elderly woman pointing a firearm at an individual who is clearly harassing her doesn’t present a danger to a reasonable person who isn’t in the line of fire.
That said, if the elderly woman appears jumpy or something, maybe there’s a case. But it’s not an open-and-shut case like shooting someone who is taking hostages or something.
Source: am American in gun-friendly state who reads news articles about justified and unjustified shooting cases.
I’m sorry but doing creepy shit like stopping the car a stranger is in to freak them out is what actually gets you shot in America. Th3se two are lucky this woman wasn’t a red blooded american.
What part of Texas is she from?
The texas part
The not-Austin part?
This is how you get shot for the silliest of reasons.
One of the men repeatedly made a “call me” gesture with his hand, then took his fedora off and literally tipped it at her…
It’s assholes like this that make dudes in fedoras look bad. This and -you know- the hats themselves.
Fedoras are cool. That’s a trilby, the classic neckbeard topper.
ItsTheSamePicture.jpg
Fedoras are cool.
Lmao
Some nasty jerks they are. Well now internationally famous nasty jerks.
Sign up for free access to this post…
The whole article is just a description of these tweets: https://nitter.privacydev.net/Amina_io/status/1840759345354809414
I love how 404 Media call out other bad practices on the web, but at the end of the day they still want you to sign up and give them your metadata.
This is why driverless cars are a bad idea, they assume that everything will work as intended and everyone will play by the rules.
You need a human to make a snap decision in cases like these.
I hope these men are arrested for sexual solicitation via coercion (could be tried as attempted rape in the right state), disrupting traffic, sexual harassment, public disturbance. Fuck em, or better yet, don’t fuck em, they’re unfuck worthy.
What were these morons thinking? I’m sex positive as hell, I’m all for bringing back the free love of the 70’s and the LSD of the 60’s, but not like this, never anything like this… Hypothetically bro say you do get her number this way?
The fuck happens next?
“Hey remember me, I’m the dipshit who pressured you into giving me this number by trapping you in your car via exploitation of its safety features? So I’ll pick you up at 7 for a romantic candlelit dinner and afterwards we could go see a movi…” click “Hello? Damn, friendzoned again.”
Driverless cars can work if enough vehicles are replaced with them. I agree that a few driverless cars in a sea of regular drivers is not optimal though.
Na driverless cars are the future and tens of thousands of people will be saved from car accident deaths per year once most cars are automated. And this may happen in my lifetime which is cool.
You have a bad take imo.
And it only takes one driverless car having a bug or some kind of user error to fuck it up for every body.
A man can notice a mistake and correct it, a machine will continue as if everything is fine.
I’m just telling you how it is, people’s feelings on this won’t stop the march of progress. Machines will take over most driving tasks, it’s inevitable.
“A man can notice a mistake and correct it, a machine will continue as if everything is fine.” Even if this is 100% true you already say yourself that machine driving will still be safer “user error to fuck it up for every body.” User error will 100% be why autonomous vehicles will be overall significantly safer to use and be around vs manual driving vehicles.
Again, machines don’t realize a mistake has been made, people do
Arguably incorrect statement from you, and either way humans already make more mistakes, fatal mistakes, compared to a full self driving car system like Waymo.
Getting a ride in an autonomous Waymo is safer than an Uber.
Let’s not go too far overboard. These guys are assholes who deserve some consequences. However the article didn’t include anything that looked like attempted rape, nothing violent, no direct threat of harm (indirect, maybe). Let’s try to be proportional here
Definitely a false imprisonment charge though
I guess I missed the part where you’re not free to literally get out of the car and leave?
Edit: the two guys definitely deserve harassment and disturbing the peace charges.
If you’re a female, you are going to get out of the car to get in the street and hang out with these 2 males harassing you on the street? She’s definitely safer in the car. The 2 males are keeping her prisoner in the car against her will. the car cannot leave, and she cannot get out.
we need more men willing to stand up for women.
Let’s not call them “men” please.
JFC, they don’t cease to be men because they’re assholes. Stop pretending that ‘men’ can’t do anything wrong. There is no man card and men are a diverse group of people.
I never said men can’t do anything wrong.
What I meant was “boys” will treat women like this. “men” won’t. It’s just a term. Not to be interpreted literally. And also, this isn’t to assume men are exempt from making mistakes, we’re all human and we’re all flawed, but it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to know that treating ANYONE like this isn’t something that is defined as “a mistake.”
Bollocks. Plenty of men do these things, it doesn’t make them boys.
Yes. It does. If we’re inaccurately defining the term “men” as a gender only, then what they do is entirely irrelevant- as behavior isn’t defined by gender. But that’s not what I’m doing here.
I’m taking about the term “men” as one being a grown adult. And grown adults don’t behave this way. children that don’t know better do.
Men know better.
EDIT: autocorrect is a monster!
Grown adults behave this way all the time, and plenty of them know better, they just dont care. You are being absurd.
Do you honestly think that I am assuming these people are actually children? Do you think that I don’t understand the difference between a small child and an adult? Is it possible that I’m accusing them of being immature little kids for messing in such an appalling manner by taking away their ability to be seen as men?
Or do you think that maybe you’re taking my comment to the extreme literal for the because you like to argue?
I’ll let you think about that for a little while and come back to this.
Why the need to stop seeing them as men? Why the need to redefine men behaving badly as boys? It seems like you can’t accept that some men behave this way so you want to pretend they’re not really men.
No, these are men, and the men are not alright…
Nope they’re boys with pubes. Pubes don’t make you a man.
I think you missed the point
“The men came over to the car again and stood in front of it for a few minutes. Finally when they left, the car was still stalled but I clicked the ‘in car support’ on the screen and they seemed to be aware of the issue,” Amina said. “They asked if I was OK and the car began to drive towards my location. They asked if I needed police support and I said no.”
When she was almost to her destination, Waymo support called her again to ask if she was ok, she said. “I assured him that I was fine and he told me I would be given a free ride after,” she said. “After many hours I was called one last time by their support team. They asked if I was OK and told me that they have 24/7 support available. They also said I would get the next ride or next two rides (uncertain) free.”
While scary, I’m left kinda impressed by Waymo’s support.
100% that is brilliant levels of support.
Some guys were annoying/sexist to her while she participated in a public menace and I guess this is supposed to mean something to me beyond “stay away from California”
California is awesome.
Nah, California sucks, there’s way too much traffic, and too many NIMBYs to solve the traffic problems.
Weather is nice, but that’s not enough to get me to move there. I have family there, so I visit fairly often, but I honestly don’t really enjoy being there. They have some gorgeous national parks though, so it’s worth a visit for that.
Wtf is that even supposed to mean? Fuck off.
Riding in a self-driving car isn’t illegal in California.
Street Harassment is: https://stopstreetharassment.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/SSH-KYR-California.pdf
Says a lot about you that you think riding in a Waymo means you’re fair game for sexual harasment. You’re just looking for excuses for it, huh?
