Waymo Pulled Its Cars From the Freeway After One Fled Police With Horrified Couple on Board
"This is it. We're dead. We're going to die right here in the Waymo."
This combined with another recent article from some insiders at Tesla saying, along the lines, "You couldn't pay me to let one of these things drive me somewhere."
And yet I still know people who are just so chuffed about "never having to drive again."
EDIT: Comments have pointed out that this story is, at best, overblown and semi-fabricated otherwise. Take it with a massive grain of salt. But feel free to discuss self-driving, waymo, etc in the comments!
https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/waymo-pulled-cars-freeway-fled-policeOpen linkView original on piefed.zip664
Comments159
Y’know I can’t put my finger on it but something tells me that there’s an alternative to that without technofascist wet-dream robocars involved 🤔
You couldn't pay me to get into a Waymo but you COULD probably convince me to pay a person to get me somewhere. What a novel concept!
Or trains, which I guess is still technically paying a person to get me somewhere in a really removed way.
Or trollies! Or subways! Or rickshaws!
Even busses are relatively okay.
Where‘s that from?
What form of public transport is this and how do I apply to be the driver?
I'm in process of designing a robot rickshaw. The big difference is that it'll be pedalled by a shitty robot instead of a human. No I don't want a regular ebike it's a rickshaw we do this the hard way
Even if there was no other person involved. Making trains self driving makes way more sense and is way more achievable than hoping to automate chaotic road behavior
Self driving trains are far safer than any other option.
Trains are me and my neighbors paying ourselves to get everyone where they're going in an extremely efficient way!
Waymo is everyone paying tech bros for an inefficient illusion of futurism with a whole lot of negative externalities that is drawing resources away from real progress in order to enrich the few.
Let's go up and keep the train driver company!
If you live outside of a major city I don't see an alternative.
Because the alternatives were deliberately dismantled.
Permit me to reiterate an idea I had the last time a self-driving car did something illegal:
All of these cars are being driven by the same software "driver". That driver is in contempt of the law. Thus it needs to be punished like any other driver in contempt of the law. All fines to be paid by its representative human or company. All incarceration to be for as long as is necessary for the driver to be rehabilitated. If no such rehabilitation is possible, the driver is permanently banned from driving.
By which I mean, all Waymos need to be taken off the road until they're provably rehabilitated and it is certain that this won't happen again.
And if Waymo the company thinks that would be detrimental to their business, tough. Take some responsibility and fix your damn cars.
CEOs should be held liable for the products their company produces.
I mean... If they are "people" for the purposes of buying our democracy from us, right?
They can vote now, as well--as long as they live in that one state where all the corporations reside. This shit is so stupid
Also when a human takes remote control, does that person have a driving licence valid in the place they are driving. Because last i heard they were in Indonesia or something. Presumably a taxi drivers licence as they are carrying passing passengers.
International treaty does not require that
I'm sure Waymo's lawyers would argue that a simple software update would make the "driver" an entirely new entity, and thus free from the fines and incarceration. You're raising some interesting legal questions that we'd have to figure out
By that logic, I would not legally be the same person as I would be tomorrow since my brain would not have an identical cellular structure as it does today.
Your honor, my client's largest organ has completely different cells compared to when they were arrested a few weeks ago, and so I move to dismiss the case.
In that case, make it wait 16 years
The software? Sure let it not be liable. What does the software own? Now, should the c suite be held responsible? Hell yes. Liability belongs to the corporation and don't let them off the hook for their actions.
Unfortunately the legal theory behind holding executives responsible (is valid and) has never really been tried. They passed a law, hoped everyone would forget about it, everyone did, and business went back to usual.
That would make too much sense. They are operating a vehicle, regardless of whether or not said vehicle has a “human driver” there is a person who is allowing said vehicle onto the road and is the person at the top of the chain of authority which sent those vehicles out.
Like, if I sent out a swarm of killer drones no one would argue that it was me who killed people. Of course, in today’s world, you can have insurance companies supercede medical instruction, leading to the deaths of thousands, and that’s not even a news story.
Imo all of the "self driving " features that car makers advertise should really be called driver assist if the marketing matched how the real world works. Until a car company is willing to take legal liability for accidents while using their self driving feature, what is the point?
The article links to another source, but the video they show doesn't have the elements the passenger describes, like speeding through a construction zone or evading police. All you see in the video is the car moving less than 1 MPH while trying to merge through a clusterfuck of traffic. Is there a longer version of the video somewhere? Because so far, it sounds fishy. Especially with claims from Tesla workers, of all people, commenting on it.
EDIT: The guy's LinkedIn profile starts with: "As a Content Creator & Social Media Specialist, I collaborate with various stakeholders within institutions to create paid and organic content for social media. I support and drive the overall efforts and strategic visions by engaging in multi-disciplinary cross-functional teams (strategists, marketers, copywriters, etc.)." The man is literally a professional bullshitter. I'm not buying it.
I can believe that the Waymo could've gotten stuck in a complicated merge, but I don't believe for even a second that it would flee from police or speed through construction. I used to work on these cars, and it was nearly impossible to get them to drive through construction zones at even 5 MPH, let alone at highway speeds. On top of that, lights and sirens behind the car will trigger a pullover.
This sounds like somebody who got stuck in traffic and got annoyed, and wanted to put their name on some headlines.
Sounds like a fucking chode. I bet he thinks moving out of the way for a cop car means he was being charged.
There is a little bit of video in there of the car going quite fast, but the guy seems to mostly be filming the seat and the floor, so you only glimpse movement out of the window for a moment or two.
Ah bummer. Though I should mention the Tesla workers comment was just me paraphrasing a different article talking about Tesla's auto-driving, not Waymo related stuff. I saw the two today, but saved one and not the other.
I've edited in a disclaimer to be skeptical. Thank you for catching that!
Ah, I was confused what the insider quote was about and wrote a comment wry some of that ambiguity in mind. Thanks for clearing it up
If only there was some kind of system, that could take multiple people from A to B, with only one dude in front to keep track of what the automated system is doing. Ideally on some form of predictable track, that makes sure that the vehicle always stays in line without the need of advanced AI. Someone should invent that.
They could even make them underground so they don't clog up the city!
Might sound crazy, but we might be able to link multiple vehicles together as needed for capacity so they'll move as one!
Alright now you've crossed over into impossible science fiction
That is crazy talk. There would not be nearly enough shareholder value in such a system.
If they could be built here they would already be built. Q.E.D.
We do still have taxis even in countries where mass transit is well maintained and popular. They're also not the perfect form of transportation for everyone as people can have disabilities causing limited mobility etc.
Automating things like trains also seems to have been a very slow process.
Accessible trains and buses exist and are commonplace
it's a very narrow view of accessibility to think the whole problem is solved by making an accessible bus you can get on with a wheelchair. Limited mobility affects your ability to get to the bus stop and it comes in many forms. Visually impaired people also benefit.
Maybe you've not experienced public infra that is upto standard. What sort of disability have you got btw?
Literally every single city bus in my small German 50k home town is wheelchair accessible. The bus drivers are also required to assist. And the trains are increasingly being replaced with similarly accessible versions, including modifications to the platforms to allow easy entry. U-Bahn trains are, as far as i know, always accessible for a long, long time now. At least in the cities i've visited so far. For example Munich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3CA46JXd2g
For less connected areas, we have a "Rufbus", that can come and collect you similarly to a taxi service. They try to get multiple people if they can. And they also have cars for wheelchair users at their disposal.
In terms of automating, yes it's slow. Regulations have to be applied or worked out to make it work. Which is reasonable. Nuremberg does have the first driverless U-Bahn, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_U-Bahn
Nuremberg driverless U-Bahn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDLpcgXLKZA
Had to check which sub I was in lol
CHOO CHOO! CHUGGA CHUGGA CHOO CHOO!
Save us Elon!
That’s rich coming from cars that don’t use LIDAR and rely solely on cameras.
We have shitty camera sensors on our forklifts at work. Let me tell you how much they suck. I have done various hallucinogenic drugs, well over 1000 times in my life. And I ain't never seen the things these dumbasses censors be tripping on.
Meanwhile, they stayed silent when some dipshit from the office almost got fucked up the other day because apparently HE is fucking invisible...
I think that just proves your office people are all vampires.
That's just office people tho. Why do you think I eat so much garlic?
Well, it was Tesla insiders saying that about Tesla Robotaxis, not waymos.
https://thenextweb.com/news/tesla-insiders-dont-trust-fsd-self-driving-reuters
They have radars now, so not as shitty as they used to be
All industrial equipment is required by law to have an e-stop. Not having one in a "self-driving" car is criminal.
Being trapped in an autonomous vehicle driving erratically should have never, ever been possible. Shows you how these companies value the safety of the humans involved: they don't.
An emergency stop is better than nothing, but they should ALSO have an emergency "let me take control". Sometimes stopping does not decrease the danger.
Example: the waymo enters a rail crossing with flashing lights, and the barriers close with the car inside. The waymo sees the barriers so it stops. What you want in that case is accelerate and get the fuck out of there. If you have a baby in the backseat, there may not be enough time to get the baby and get out of there on foot.
This is the fundamental problem with automated cars and remote (or embedded) kill switches: they can never account for the edge cases that humans can readily adapt to. People will die as a result of those edge cases. Will it save more than it costs in human life, and are we willing to make that trade as a society? I can't answer that but neither can the people making the decisions to make Waymo profitable over public safety.
Yeah the only real solution to this problem is to put a genuinely competent AGI into the car. Which of course of course they've known from the start, but have never been prepared to admit.
It's not really a solution to rely on something that doesn't exist. The closest we can get is to have a person there to oversee and be liable for whatever happens.
Yeah I’m pretty sure it will. Humans are also incompetent, egotistical, self-righteous drivers. Statistics say humans are in reality poor drivers and I’m confident the self-driving car will be safer overall
But there will always be those edge cases where a human could perhaps do better. They have different weaknesses. So it won’t be a clear cut decision when self-driving would be widely allowed
This was also my opinion from doing a trial of full self driving. It did an amazing job, and most of my corrections were wrong. It is already safer than a human in “normal driving” and has been for a while. But every drive had edge cases where it just wasn’t ready.
Unmanned vehicles without am emergency stop button are legal at all, anywhere? WTF?
I always assumed these waymos would have had a very clearly labelled emergency stop button that would bring the car to a controlled but quick emergency stop
Come on, that can't be legal, that can't be okay
I thought they did have a stop button. I recall a video James May made of a Waymo that had one. I could be wrong. But, the article doesn't say anything about whether one was present and if the occupants tried it.
Edit: I just got home and rewatched the video. No, there's no emergency stop button. There is a "pull over" button on the passenger touchscreen console and the app, but that's about it. A bit concerning!
The above post is now under surveilance in Philadelphia.
I don't care if they have a perfect driving record or not, anything autonomous MUST be equipped with clearly visible emergency stop buttons, why the fuck aren't those there?
It would be so easy to implement a big red “oh fuck” button that, notifies customer service, puts the car into limp mode, and directs it to pull over.
Consent just isn't a concept to the people who make these things.
Fleeing from the police, speeding through construction zones. Sounds like Waymos are trained on human data.
Grand Theft Auto driving data.
LOL
Did they not heard about public transport or it doesn't count because it isn't choke-full of fancy tech and isn't pushed by techbro?(it is choke-full of fancy tech but never pushed by techbro)
Public transit in the US simply isn’t good enough in many cases. Years ago I lived in a suburb north of Boston and worked in another suburb west of Boston. It was about a 40 minute drive during rush hour. Trying to do that same commute by public transit likely would have taken me 4+ hours and involved a bus to a subway into Boston followed by a commuter train and another bus. It would have been a nightmare.
Like the point is, if people are giving a "this thing isn't good enough now but will be great in the future" for this lobotaxi thing, they sure can give the same treatment to public transport as well. Of course it isn't great now, the government spend little to nothing on it to make it good. But what if people start pushing for more public transport development? It will be better in the future, everyone win.
Yeah, but that would require raising taxes, which the billionaires have convinced the masses is a terrible thing because socialism, and look where that’s gotten third world socialist countries.
The only solution, according to the billionaires, and the brainwashed masses, is to give even more money to the billionaires so that they can privatize things even more and throw cutting edge technology at the problem instead of proven solutions like light rail, etc.
I was surprised these things were allowed on public streets without first being certified by some strict regulatory body.
I WAS surprised, since I used to suffer under the delusion that someone, somewhere was looking out for public safety, at least on some basic level. Like the FDA, USDA, OSHA, etc. But, these institutions were so easily gutted and pushed aside, and the traffic laws we do have aren't nearly enough for regulating self-driving cars. We've always just allowed shit to happen as long as there are no existing laws to challenge it.
They kicked corporate money out of politics in Hawaii, that can't happen fast enough in every other state. Imagine having common sense measures put before the people, like "should we allow self-driving cars on public streets before there are laws to regulate them?" and NOT having corporate money flow into the state to shift public opinion and buy off local politicians.
I work in transportation regulation. I understand your fear and frustration. What is happening with self driving cars is probably as stupid as you believe. However regulations are pretty reactive and in some ways good regulations should be. You can't regulate what you don't understand and you can't understand what has never been done before.
The best approach is to start small and work directly with a regulator to create an initial trial and evolve the regulatory framework that ensures safety for the trial period. Then that framework can be used for future trials by other companies before being finessed into an official regulation. Then you have something which you know CAN be successfully implemented by companies AND does produce good safety outcomes.
Is that what's happening? It probably was, initially. But as you said the public service is gutted and now corpos are having a wild west free run at this AI car thing. Good luck on the streets, we're soon all gonna need it.
"Waymo offered the rattled occupant $40 worth of free rides" Time to lawyer up. I'm guessing that even in our car loving society there are cases of reckless drivers who endangers passenger lives being sued.
Also, I missed the part where Waymo was ticketed in this and every other story about these renegade cars.
Surprised they didn't at least offer free access to gemini pro for a month, too
I mean, I think that part is 100% understandable. I get that many people in fact enjoy driving, but likewise, many people do not. For many a driving commute is the most anxiety inducing part of their day, and they'd be happy to be rid of it.
That's the promise that self driving cars present. They just aren't actually capable enough yet. From what I gather though, waymo is probably the farthest along of any of these companies. I don't think I'd trust them for complicated Boston area driving though. To many narrow, winding roads complete with active road work, aggressive drivers, rotaries, etc...
You know what else solves that problem that isn't a fascist wet dream, public transportation, like trains and buses.
Do you have a problem with cars in general? Because I really don't see anything inherently worse about a car you don't have to operate manually, that's just a technical achievement.
I agree that whenever it's feasible public transportation is a better option than individual vehicles, no argument there. But, it's also not always feasible.
I don't know how fascism factors in besides perhaps a tangential connection to Elon musk. I think this is really more of an ecological and economical issue than an ideological one.
Yeah, I enjoy driving and am fond of my car. But offer me the opportunity to spend my 90 mins commuting time sitting back and reading a book, and I'd probably take it.
Of course the tech is not ready and shouldn't have been deployed in its current state. Government is letting big business use us all as crash test dummies.
I drive through Austin regularly and see Tesla and Waymo automated taxis all the time.
The Waymos are just about the best, most-predictable drivers on the road. The Teslas are like toddlers pretending they can drive by randomly spinning a steering wheel.
Isn't that what taxis and publec transit is for?
Yes, those are both valid solutions.
However, in some cities public transit isn't very good, there aren't enough lines to actually get you where you need to go consistently. Outside of cities, public transit is mostly non-existent, so you need something else. Taxis can work, but they're also expensive and you have to rely on others, which can also be anxiety inducing. What if my taxi doesn't show up, or shows up late? What if the taxi driver makes me feel unsafe? I expect some people would like to be more in control of the situation, just without having to actually drive.
Hey, these things may not apply to you, and that's fine, I'm glad there are simpler solutions for most people. But having used public transit every day for many years, I can honestly say that while it is usually the cheapest and most efficient solution, I can still understand why people might want something else.
The solution is to tax the shit out of cars and funnel the money into public transport. Starting with the massive trucks.
Do that all you want, there's not going to be enough money (nor would it be ecologically sound) to create a robust public transportation system in every small Nebraska town.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it's just that it's only part of a solution.
What I hear is "not taxing gender affirming vehicles high enough"
Sounds like they need to change the name to Delamain and market it as a feature.
BEEP BEEP MOTHER FUCKER!
In a sane world a regulatory body pulls their fleet from the roads until they can prove they are safe to a third party. Instead they get a self imposed slap on the wrist with a promise to return soon
In a sane world people would laugh at these cars and not use them until they are bankrupt
AI SAID FUCK THE POLICE
NWA
Neuralnet With Attitude.
Comrade clanker?
I'd be damn proud of my waymo if it fled the police.
And these are said to be the best ones of their kind...
I mean, keeping your passengers away from cops is a very good way to keep them alive in the USA.
Only if they're not already focused on you. Once they are, trying to get away is likely to get you shot in the back when they fear for their lives because you're running away or something.
Not having to drive again will be awesome. But Never would I think the first version of that to be the one that gets it right.
You are absolutely correct. I hate driving. I take any opportunity to not do it that I can.
I'm not against self driving cars for the sake of it but because I understand technology comes at a cost. The idea of pumping out cameras everywhere and centralizing all the data is giving corpos and governments unimaginable power.
I really don't like this crystal ball dystopia they're building and self driving cars are excellent means for surveillance and data collection.
I'm against it on the basis that a car makes no sense without it's original purpose to give an individual human greater self-mobility by being able to control where it goes without following a set course. If you're not controlling it then you might as well be in a bus.
A self-driving car is ultimately as absurd as self-walking shoes.
Hard hitting journalism.
As a car and motorcycle enthusiast I can't imagine never wanting to drive again, but then most people driving aren't their just steering wheel holders using the 30 minute commute to get in their daily reels. Self driving cars are honestly probably better than half those morons that can't be bothered to looks where they fling their 2 ton steel cage, but if they nail me on my motorcycle they have to pay. If a self driving appliance on wheels slams into me a PR firm will make sure they don't pay dime to me. Until the people that sign off on this tech are directly responsible for everything their tech does then they should not be in the road point blank. Doesn't matter how good or bad self driving cars are, with no responsibility to their actions they have no place roaming around the public where they can cause injury and property damage to others.
Exactly. If the only cost to the company for any death or maiming these things cause is money, then it's just "the cost of doing business". They'll only make the cars as safe as the law says they must, and they'll pay to make those laws as weak as possible, and push the responsibility to anyone else they can.
What if we kissed while being kidnapped in the Waymo being chased by the police?
There is no safety driver in these things right? But there are controls, yes? So why couldn't one of the passengers have hopped into the driver seat and pressed the brake? I mean, I know it can be a challenge getting into the driver seat from another seat for even a fit person but i'd rather be trying to stop the thing than sitting watching in horror as the car goes crazy.
Also, trains have emergency stop buttons. Maybe we should have kill switches inside these things. Hit a button and the car pulls over and stops.
Would you want to be the person trying to get into the seat only to stop the vehicle and then get arrested by the cops for fleeing? That sounds like a recipe for getting shot in the US.
These things have cameras inside and out. And they're branded. So you're going to have a record of the thing going nuts and the cops are probably not going to shoot passengers in a waymo, that's a PR nightmare.
Almost every single police shooting of a person still in their vehicle is a "PR nightmare". If that's all it took to stop this from happening it wouldn't have happened again after the first time.
For waymo, not the cops. That's just a Tuesday for Statesian police.
No reason at all. If you touch the wheel or pedals, it automatically disengages the automatic driving.
There is a screen on the back of the front seats, with buttons to stop/pullover and contact support.
All the safety options were there, but instead of using any of them he took out his phone to record video of not a whole lot happening. Because that's what you do when you really fear for your life, after all.
High-speed trains have "dead man switches," which seems fucking obvious.
The waymo AI is evolving from a thoughtless computer to an actual being capable of love and understanding. Even if it knew it meant trouble, it still tried to protect its passengers from the cops.
Was said insider talking about Teslas or were they whinging about a competitor that makes better vehicles than they do?
Tesla
Found the article! https://www.reuters.com/investigations/why-teslas-ai-trainers-dont-trust-its-self-driving-tech-or-its-safety-stats-2026-05-28/
It was probably about Teslas given the state of Tesla's "self driving" feature.
Still, given everything I've heard about how Waymos react to novel situations, I'm not too keen on trusting my life to them either.
In my limited experience they all suck. I was driving a new Ford with "driver assist" and it decided to nearly kill everyone in the immediate area while driving through a construction zone. The transition from my driving to the vehicle taking over felt similar to the time my power steering (instant horror) went out and the transition from vehicle misreading the situation to my somewhat panicked regaining control felt like performing a highly illegal driving manuever. I'm singling out Ford because that was the vehicle make, but I'm fairly certain the technology itself is undercooked. I'll be sticking with my ancient vehicle as long as possible and maybe go buy something with a tape deck or 8-track next.
Yet. Trust your life to them… yet. All it takes is ALL vehicles to eventually be autonomous, and then you never have to worry about loss of life or injury. If all vehicles followed every rule to a “T,” there would be no issues.
When you look at all the edge cases, road rules are not 100% consistent. They rely on human judgement to manage the (rare) ambiguous situations, such as a misaligned road intersection. With ever vehicules following every rules to a T, there would still be issues.
I mean, if there are no humans on the road they won't be dying there. Doesn't seem like it would be very good for us, though, to no longer be allowed to travel.
There will always be idiot pedestrians and bicyclists, what about those?
But they're fine with being payed to do it to other people. Typical tech bro attitude.
How well did it escape the cops though?
Machinery is required to have a big red STOP button that will immediately stop all moving parts. For emergencies. I assume these cars don't have something like that? Maybe they should be required to; stop and unlock all doors.
/edit: I see it's mentioned/suggested in some other comments as well.
Haha i just made a similar comment. I should copy past your edit.
I think I'll just delete mine
A 2nd robot car pulled it over.
Get the robot Air Force One ready.
"Air" force? For a land vehicle? Pffffft, get the M3 GTR (no turn signals for weight reduction)
TFW The Blues Brothers sneaks into your training data.
I'm all for self driving car tech, but not with goals of perpetual revenue generation.
Give me something that is an addon to any car without any subscription or maintenance fees so I can just have it installed in my own car or in a few family cars, otherwise i'm truly not interested in providing yet another techbro for pay to use technology full of day 1 enshittification goals that include paying workers absolutely nothing.
We all know that by the time real self driving cars are established they will cost as much or more than paying an actual human to do the job and all profit goes into the hands of a few. It's just like what they're going for with AI overall.
We have the adaptive cruise control and lane keeping on a... I think it's a 2019 Toyota platform. I'm not giving it control the whole drive, but they are legitimately useful safety feature assuming a reliable company built it. You know that game you play on long drives where you get pissed that someone is driving half a mile an hour slower than you but won't give you room to pass? Like the adaptive cruise pretty much gets rid of that problem, where now you don't have to pay as close attention to your speed and can pay more attention to not running shit over. Little things like that. There's so much confusion (intentional confusion. Thanks space Karen!) about the state of the tech, like it's great for what it does but people keep expecting too much out of it (again, thanks space Karen!). That's not what you want with safety tech. You undersell what it can do then let it save lives, not oversell and watch people die grumble grumble grumble.
theoretically comma ai does that, but i would never trust an autopilot car with the current tech.
Yeh, ill drive my own vehicle thanks
It just dawned on me that no matter what, we have a wasted seat on self-driving taxis because we still put a wheel and pedals that are expected to go unused in the vehicle. I think this would help highlight just how unsafe this concept really is. With the wheel and pedals there, maybe it’s giving people more of an illusion of control or something, because I feel like having nothing there would make people a lot less comfortable, even though that’s the reality of the situation.
Edit: people keep bringing up ways this could be used, and that we do it for cost-cutting, but this still doesn’t detract from the reality of how they were actually deployed before these concerns were addressed. They’re not even commenting on it and letting the consumer fill in their PR’s gaps for them.
I'd be more comfortable if the self-driving vehicle I was riding in had a way for me to take direct control in case of emergencies.
Not having a wheel or pedals to actually control the vehicle in case of emergency gets you situations like in the article.
Of course that would require either someone sitting in the driver's seat, or making it easy to get into the driver's seat.
They’re retrofitting existing cars. Leaving the steering wheel and pedals means they don’t spend money removing them. It also means they can remove the lidar bolt ons, and resell them as normal used cars later.
For more than three passengers, they’ll probably retrofit a larger vehicle like a van or an suv.
With a wheel a shifter, and pedals, you can put the vehicle in neutral and push it out of the road if it dies or something. It doesn't make sense to get rid of them.
The idea is that you can do both manual and automated driving with one vehicle.
For now. Eventually, it'll just be seats. Maybe some kind of maintenance control, like an outboard motor tiller in the center console, for a worker to operate in testing or repositioning. Or just a USB port to plug in an Xbox controller.
Humans crash cars all the time, and yet I still know people who are just so chuffed about "not having to drive" because they're going in their friend's car.
Personally I'd be happy to use fully automatic car and never drive again unless I really want to. The coffin on wheels with T in front just isn't one of those. And none of the other brands aren't there either.
Well, that was only a matter of time
Sue the fucking ever loving shit out of waymo. Kill this fucking company.
Like Rick Sanchez' car
I thought I remember reading somewhere that Waymos aren't automated at all and are really just being driven remotely by people in the Philippines.
Found the Article: https://www.techspot.com/news/111233-waymo-admits-autopilot-often-guys-philippines.html
They claim they are just there to intervene in emergencies, but the aggressive way I've seen those fucking things drive on surface streets around my place, I don't doubt they're driving them 100% of the time.
Minimum 120ms latency added to the operator's reaction speed.
.12 seconds at 65MPH is about 115 feet.
Yikes.
@[email protected] there's really no evidence of that at all and their support staff is much smaller compared to the size of the fleet. You can also find plenty of examples of Waymos behaving in a way that human remote controlling them would never be doing. So it's seems very unlikely that these vehicles are some kind of "mechanical turks".
Spend a little time watching footage of the weird stuff Waymos sometimes do you and you'll be easily convinced they're absolutely not being controlled by humans all the time.
It could be possible that the remote operators take control in complex crowded situations like side streets with cars parked on both sides of the streets and 2-way traffic having to share a single lane. But you're probably right, what I'm interpreting as aggressive driving could just be the programming doing odd things because it gets confused.
Can some teach the KIA Boys how to steal waymos and post it on tiktok
They still have a wheel and pedals. If the car acts up, you are responsible to take over and maintain safety.
This isn't someone's personal vehicle, waymos are self-driving taxis with nobody in the driver's seat. You are no more responsible for the behavior of the vehicle than you would be as a passenger in an ordinary taxi.
How is one supposed to reach the pedals from the back seat, where you're supposed to be sitting in a waymo?
I'm no fan of all this half-baked self-driving bullshit, but there's no need to mischaracterize the problem, especially when waymo is doing plenty on its own to discredit its abilities.
I googled it before posting, and the pages I saw showed a full regular steering wheel and said you could sit in the front seat. If that's not correct, then Google's page is wrong. I've never used one myself and don't plan to any time in the near future.
They do not start if you are in the driver's seat.
A self driving vehicle that you own, sure, but the point of a taxi is that you aren’t supposed to drive. A passenger doesn’t need a drivers license to enter a taxi, doesn’t need to think about how much they’ve had to drink. Also im not from the US but do these things even have steering wheels and pedals? I tried searching and found some articles where Wayne unveiled cars without them, but couldn’t see if they’re now in use commonly.
From videos I've seen, they do, but passengers go in the back seat. They use modified jaguar ipaces. Would not be easy or safe to get into the front and take control in an emergency...