A recent incident in Phoenix involving a Waymo autonomous vehicle has raised questions about how law enforcement handles traffic stops with driverless cars. According to dispatch records, a Waymo vehicle swerved into oncoming traffic, ran a red light, and was subsequently pulled over by a police officer. The unusual aspect of this particular stop was the absence of a driver behind the wheel.
Waymo has stated that autonomous vehicles are designed with technology that allows them to respond to emergency vehicles, and the company’s training guide for first responders outlines protocols for communication and intervention in the event of a traffic stop. Officers can communicate with operators through in-car intercom systems or call a dedicated phone number, and the cars can be manually overridden if necessary.
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After navigating back to its correct lane, Waymo's autonomous car proceeded forward and pulled into a parking lot. The traffic stop concluded “approximately one minute” later, according to a Waymo statement. The incident did not escalate beyond the level of a routine traffic stop, and the police officer did not issue a citation.
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I have 2 points to make, and I think they’re both valid.
1, the entire driving system, where we’re hurtling towards one another at combined speeds of over 100 mph on many roads, is nothing more than a ticking time bomb that keeps going off every however many seconds with another accident claiming another life. There’s a reason they made highways divided. ALL streets should be divided. This “inches away from death” side-by-side system just depending on 100% of the people concentrating 100% of the time is patently ridiculous, if you stand back and analyze it objectively. If we were smart, we’d re-imagine the ENTIRE transportation grid from square 1.
2, look at that car. No, seriously, take a good look on it. There are more cameras on that car than in a television studio. We have computers that are ridiculously powerful now, and this car probably has 5 of them if it has any at all. Here is an absolute fact, and it may SOUND like it’s my opinion, but I challenge anyone to dispute the following: The very act of driving is endlessly dynamic. That means that you can drive the same route 5,000 times and in 5,000 trips, you will see more variables than you can probably count reasonably.
YOU CANNOT PROGRAM ANYTHING FOR INFINITE VARIABLES BECAUSE IT WOULD REQUIRE INFINITE CAPACITY. We’ll call this “letmepicyou’s law” until someone disproves it. The point is, only human mind…with the ability to predict, anticipate, reason, estimate, compute probibilities, estimate threats and process new variables, CAN SAFELY DRIVE IN THE SYSTEM WE HAVE NOW.
This point goes back to point #1. If you want a world where cars drive themselves, you can’t re-invent the car first. You have to re-invent the roadways first. PERIOD. And only be reducing the number of encountered variables can a silicon-based computer, AI-powered or not, successfully navigate. This is evidenced by this monstrosity here. If THIS thing can’t successfully navigate, it’s time to stop developing new car technologies and start developing new road technologies.
My neighbor recently purchased a Tesla. He came over the other day and was bragging about all of it features, particullarly the self drive feature. I said, “That souds really cool, I would like to see that, where is it?” He said, “I have no idea, it took off three days ago and I haven’t seen it since”.
Bravo!!!