Comment by estebank
13 hours ago
Earlier today saw a guy on a pick up truck griefing an empty Waymo by brake checking and boxing it, all over the road for about 10 minutes and over 5 blocks (no idea how much earlier it started), causing every other driver to freak out or be confused about what was going on.
All the while all I could think was "you're spending your time making it more likely for a collision to happen, all to 'anger' a toaster with 360° camera coverage".
I hope the cops showed up at his house and confiscated his vehicle.
One advantage of existence of self-driving cars is the state can permanently revoke someone's ability to own or operate manually driven motor vehicles, without the argument this is ruining their lives.
But taxis already existed?
In many places in the US they effectively do not.
Is is a receivable argument in a US court ? Or does it just influence a jury ?
There will always be some threshold at which this argument can be made.
Driving 200 in a school zone? License revoked, certainly.
Driving 60 in a 55? Just a speeding ticket.
Pick some line in between the two where that argument seems like it could go either way.
Where I live in Canada, there's careless driving and dangerous driving. Dangerous driving is in the criminal code. Careless driving is a citation akin to speeding.
I've seen courts grant an exception from a license suspension, for normal (but a suspendable amount of) citations such as speeding or something of that ilk.
Those drivers licenses have special wording on them, that indicate the person may only drive to and from work, and often has the address the person has to drive to and from.
However I've also seen contractors allowed to drive to and from job sites, and directly home.
This is in a province of Canada, and dangerous driving or alcohol use, would invalidate that ability to get an exception.
This driver with the Waymo sounds like dangerous driving.
Unclear if in this US State the situation is similar.
Some group (my bet is on "transit advocates") will try and paint Waymo as "Flock on wheels".
Well, they basically are. But that's not alone a good enough argument against SDVs.
Good thing we get wiser with age. Oh, wait no we don't. We insist on driving while beeing unable to look over the shoulder or having dementia. Knew somebody whose by no deceased dementia afflicted father used google to navigate him home when he forgot where he was. Thats the accidents with a "confused" driver, not from the accident.
Which country is this? In the UK they take your licence off you straight away as soon as there is a dementia diagnosis, I believe.
Most people are losing their facilities years before any formal diagnosis and plenty of people, especially those who don't want to lose their freedom simply won't go to the doctor for a diagnosis. Nobody can force someone to see a doctor.
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