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What to do when your Waymo holds up a Secret Service motorcade

32 points · 22 comments · cjs_ac

  1. boredatoms · · focus · HN ↗
    Hopefully this highlights the total absurdity of the motorcade in the first place.

    Just use a helicopter, block one street for the takeoff/landing

    1. SoftTalker · · focus · HN ↗
      Or the absurdity of autonomous cars that can find themselves in situations where they don't know what to do, and so just stop?
      1. toast0 · · focus · HN ↗
        Road vehicles stop all the time for all sorts of reasons.

        Safely coming to a stop because the conditions are unexpected is the right thing to do for an autonomous car.

        Slow response by exception handlers is more of a problem.

        1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

          [deleted]

      2. phoronixrly · · focus · HN ↗
        As opposed to what?... Floor it? Just stopping is the safe default* that should be practiced by more human drivers, too.

        *) In the general case especially within cities. There are exceptions - for example on roads with high speed limit like euro highways, where stopping for non-emergency reasons is banned anyway.

        1. Brian_K_White · · focus · HN ↗
          As opposed to not existing.

          As opposed to any number of ways to provide for emergency override.

          If I drive a car in the wrong manner, I am responsible.

          If I just leave a car dumped somewhere on the street, unattended just like a Waymo, I am responsible.

          Yet somehow Waymo and all the others are allowed to basically dump a special kind of litter all over the streets. There is no reason this has to be tolerated like there is no alternative. It's not inevitable or required or anything. It's absurd that it is allowed to happen at all in the first place.

          It's absurd to ask "As opposed to what? Floor it?"

          1. phoronixrly · · focus · HN ↗
            I can agree that cars should not exist. I cannot agree that cars that already exist and sadly emburden cities with their presence should not just stop and safely wait for the resolution of a road situation.
            1. Brian_K_White · · focus · HN ↗
              Who the hell said cars should not exist? Why should anyone care to engage with someone who just fabricates things and then acts as though the fabrication was any part of the discussion?
            2. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

              [deleted]

          2. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

            [deleted]

      3. bryanlarsen · · focus · HN ↗
        Freezing and not moving is also a very human panic response.
        1. SoftTalker · · focus · HN ↗
          Most humans, when faced with a human directing traffic, will not panic or freeze, but will just follow the directions.
          1. wpm · · focus · HN ↗
            I see you never driven with my mother.
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