Waymo robo-car slays dog in San Francisco A Waymo self-driving car has hit and killed a dog in San Francisco, California. The car was operating in autonomous mode with a test driver monitoring the vehicle from the driver's seat. "On May 21 in San Francisco, a small dog ran in front of one of our vehicles with an autonomous specialist present in the driver’s seat, and …
You can boil down most news to pithy one-liners. Home burgled. Man shot. Research published. Software updated.
You could look at it that way. Or you could look at it like this: we've provided you all the context you need to make a personal judgement.
We think it's news because it's a new technology, it's supposed to be a trusted technology, it caused a death, and so here are all the details we have so you can weigh up whether it was an unfortunate accident or something else.
We always encourage readers to think for themselves. I suspect what you really mean by "this isn't news" is that you were hoping the dog was killed in darker circumstances.
It reminds me of George Carlin's bit about the news:
"I watch television news for one thing and one thing only: entertainment. That's all I want from the news; entertainment. You know my favorite thing on television? Bad news. Bad news and disasters and accidents and catastrophes. I want to see some explosions and fires, I want to see shit blowing up and bodies flying around!
"I'm not interested in the budget. I don't care about tax negotiations. I don't want to know what country the fucking pope is in. But you show me a hospital that's on fire and people on crutches are jumping off the roof and I'm a happy guy! I'm a happy guy!"
As a journalist of 20+ years, it's something I think about a lot, every day.
C.
> I suspect what you really mean by "this isn't news" is that you were hoping the dog was killed in darker circumstances.
While I disagree with AC's original criticism that the story supposedly wasn't newsworthy- for much the same reasons as you gave in your reply- it's somewhat unreasonable to read that into it.
It sounds like they were simply implying it was a non-story that shouldn't have been run- whether or not we agree with that- not that they expected it to be more entertaining.
I think that safe driving isn't required to exclude running the car over a dog. Or strictly, over a person if the person doesn't give you a chance of not running over them.
The car may skid, however, or worse. That's undesired.
But a typical car has many little insect corpses stuck to the front facing surfaces. And innumerable airborne viruses cooked to death inside the machinery. Not all deaths are newsworthy.
They did not report the collision to the local police before leaving the scene, which is a criminal offence under the Road Traffic Act 1998.
Oddly, there is no such requirement if you run over a cat.
Somewhat surprisingly, the dog owner is liable for any damage to the vehicle - so there is definitely a monetary incentive to obey the law.
Are there similar laws or bylaws in San Francisco?
Its California. We have different rules.
The criteria with automatic vehicles should be "do they perform as well or better than a competent human driver?" Tragic as this was, especially for the dog and owner, this may well have been unavoidable. Dogs can be very unpredictable which is why they're required to be leashed at all times in most jurisdictions.
It's quite avoidable if you don't let the automatic death machine get into situations in which its options to react are inadequate.
You know children also have this unfortunate habit of darting onto roads? Should we also say their deaths are an unavoidable act of nature because who could have predicted children in the road in an urban setting? Should I be able to get away with mowing them down because they're small and unpredictable and it's quite necessary to travel at bone-crushing speeds through dense streets with poor visibility?
The kid problem is fixed, that's what automatic screenwipers are for.
At least, that's what I think Tesla will be doing as an update to their Fools Self Driving software.
On a more serious note, I think this was not really an automation problem - the laws of physics get in the way here in "a mass of xx kg doing speed yy will inevitably take zz meters to swerve or stop" kinda fashion. Automation could shave a few msec off the recognition time and thus shorten 'zz', but it can't perform magic, whatever Google (or Musk) proclaim.
In short, the car being automatic or not was not relevant to the incident.
If you look up stopping distances from UK sources, the "thinking distance" part of it (ie the reaction time) is given as 3 metres for each 10mph of speed you are driving at. 10mph is 4.47m/s, so the reaction time is about 2/3s.
Total stopping distance at 20mph is (according to the AA) 12m, of which 6m is thinking distance. If you could get the reaction time down to 0s, then that would reduce stopping distance from 12m to 6m. There are certainly scenarios where 6m isn't enough of a stopping distance, but it would help.
> If something can get in front of your car within its total stopping distance, you're too close or too fast. Whatever that thing is, it didn't put you where you are.
Clearly that is complete rubbish.
A dog, child or adult can dart out in front of a moving car from behind a parked vehicle, it happens all the time, which is why we tell kids to cross well away from parked cars. The vehicle could be going 10mph and still the accident could be completely unavoidable.
whilst all the above is correct, what an autonomous vehicle cannot do is react to an incident which may or may not occur klike slowing down past built up areas, seeing a potential for an accident way ahead.
Not enough information to say who was at fault here. for example we see a parent with an awkward child on the pavement/sidewalk, or group of young children w are programmed to expect the unexpected and take action. same with a dog roaming free or deer crossing the road etc.
Round where i live we have lots of wandering livestock, ponies ,pigs and boar, Cattle, which all have right of way over vehicles. how would an autonomous vehicle deal with that.
If you have a child that is prone to darting out onto the road, and you, as the parent, do nothing about preventing it from happening (eg: leashing your crotch-pet), then it's your fault. not the drivers, not the auto-driving car, not hte software engineer. You.
>>Oddly, there is no such requirement if you run over a cat.
Not odd at all. Dogs have owners and are therefore property. So if you damage it you have to tell someone (cf. hitting another car, wall, traffic furniture etc.)
Cats have staff, and are counted as wild animals, so there is no-one to tell (in a legal sense).
"PCSHAGDOG and don't forget the dog". Stuffed I can remember what the mnemonic (pneumonic if you beleive the trainers) stands for these days but those letters are the first letters of everything that you have to report when in colision with.
-- Oddly, there is no such requirement if you run over a cat. --
There is a proposal to extend the reporting requirements to cats - not sure if its just Scotland or the UK as a whole.
There are no proposals to make cat owners responsible for their pets!
if the car was not making a trip this tragedy might not have happened. Robocars like this are going to mean more people are making more trips which of course means more traffic, more pollution and induced demand.
People should be smart and making less trips NOT more for themselves and for the planet.
You are referring to Jevons Paradox (when you make things easier or more economical/efficient to use, then usage of the thing will increase). However, although it might be theoretically possible to have a gas-powered robotaxi, in practice research in this area favours the use of electric vehicles for robotaxis, which means less pollution rather than more.
Ciaran: However, although it might be theoretically possible to have a gas-powered robotaxi, in practice research in this area favours the use of electric vehicles for robotaxis, which means less pollution rather than more.
cow: I wasnt aware that EV car's were completely green. I always thought that the components like steel and lithium came from big mines which of course appear to run on OIL. So even if EV cars are perfectly green while they run the amount of pollution to make them is significant.
More cars means more roads. Concrete is also a major contributor to carbon release. Those trucks and the chemical process of setting concrete arent green.
Can you also point me to any country that has a major network to recycle EV batteries ? REAL links to real networks with real recycling numbers ?
The pollution in manufacture is slightly more than for an ICE vehicle... it doesn't take long for that to be completely swamped by the running pollution (which, lest we forget is also being belched into the middle of populated areas).
However the more important question is - why would there be a major recycling network anywhere yet - even the earliest EV batteries haven't come to the end of their useful life yet, they're coming into their reuse phase, it'll be another few decades before they're at the recycle phase.
John: The pollution in manufacture is slightly more than for an ICE vehicle... it doesn't take long for that to be completely swamped by the running pollution (which, lest we forget is also being belched into the middle of populated areas).
cow:
Have you got any proof for your statement, taht the pollution cost of a car is equivalent to months of driving ?
Ive seen figures from 50% of the total pollution from an ICE to years ....but never months
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle
I call bullshit on your claim of months, because the abnove graph says that EV cars are only 1/2 as bad as ICE and it doesnt even factor the problem of disposing of the batteries.
And no recycling 1000 batteries is not a solution when millions of cars ae getting sold.
I never said months...
I said "It doesn't take long"
It's on the order of a few thousand miles - your own chart suggests that it's between 7/6ths and 9/6ths of the manufacturing emissions.
It also suggests a lifetime of only 125k miles, which is quite short, and NMC batteries (and old tech).
The emissions from fuel vastly outweigh those from electrical generation - and the grid is well towards the bottom of the range shown (which is 50 - 800) That very top end of the bar assumes 100% of your power comes from coal - which is a completely ridiculous spread to put on given that they don't go down to the lower reaches of renewables or nuclear generation.
"And no recycling 1000 batteries is not a solution when millions of cars ae getting sold."
How many Model Ts were recycled between 1908 and 1915... because that's the question you're asking.
You need to ask the question "how many BEVs were taken off the road" and compare *that* answer with the the "how many batteries were recycled"
At the point where we have a saturated and mature market for EVs (which we don't, not even close) then you can make the sales/recycling comparison - it's valid for lead acid batteries, but not yet for EV batteries, since the active fleet is increasing.
I didn't write that EVs result in *no* pollution; merely that they result in *less* pollution.
Gas cars produce pollution where they are being used. In contrast, electric cars don't (technically, wear and tear on the types produces a tiny amount of pollution, but there is no tail pipe pollution caused). As for pollution to produce electricity to run EVs... Even if such electricity is produced by burning coal (the dirtiest form of power station fuel), there will still be less pollution to make electricity for an EV to travel, say, 100 miles than for a gas car to travel the same distance. As the world slowly-but-exponentially moves towards sustainable energy (solar/wind power plus grid scale battery storage), the amount of pollution from generating electricity to power EVs decreases, so existing EVs will get greener over time.
There are some tentative moves to power some mining industry-related equipment by electricity rather than diesel (sorry, I don't have any sources to hand), so pollution from mining will decrease over time.
One of the traditional auto makers (I *think* it was Volvo, but my memory is hazy) compared the CO2 emissions for making a gas car plus the electric version of the same car. They reported that the CO2 emissions were (if memory serves me right) about 70% higher for the EV, and it would take about 70,000 miles of driving to reach a breakeven point on CO2 emissions. However, Tesla has been optimizing its manufacturing process for many years and claims the CO2 breakeven point for a Tesla Model 3 will be reached after only 6,500 miles (about 7 months for an average driver). You can see this claim on page 57 of Tesla's "Impact Report 2021", which you can find easily via an internet search.
As for recycling EV batteries... Because the battery in a smart phone lasts only 2 or 3 years, many people assumed the same would be true of EV batteries. However, historical data shows EV batteries can be expected to have a lifetime of 10+ years (Tesla claims 15+ years). And because there was a relatively small number of EVs being manufactured 10 years ago, today there are relatively few end-of-life EV batteries for recycling. However, I know that Tesla has its own in-house recycling capability for Tesla batteries, and JB Straubel (one of the co-founders of Tesla) started a battery recycling company called Redwood Materials a few years ago. Redwood recycles batteries from all brands of EVs and other devices (smartphones, laptops and so on). The company claims to be able to recycle about 95% of battery materials, and has been up-and-running for a few years in America. Battery recycling isn't a big interest of mine, so I don't recall the names and locations of other battery recycling companies.
The amount of mining and environmental destruction caused by a sustainable energy+transport society will be much smaller than that of a fossil-fuel based society. The first half hour of presentations in Tesla's Investor Day discuss this (search for "Tesla 2023 Investor Day" on YouTube). A few weeks after that event, Tesla released a white paper that provides details to support its thesis. You can find this paper at https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf. In addition, if you do a search for "Tesla Impact Report 2021" and "Tesla Impact Report 2022", you will find additional details.
But before getting bogged down in reading lots of documents, I suggest you watch the following 13-minute video, which I think does a good job of discussing the relative amounts of pollution caused by gas and electric cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-LnUYEXuM&t=96s
ciaran:
However, Tesla has been optimizing its manufacturing process for many years and claims the CO2 breakeven point for a Tesla Model 3 will be reached after only 6,500 miles (about 7 months for an average driver). You can see this claim on page 57 of Tesla's "Impact Report 2021", which you can find easily via an internet search.
cow:
On page 95 is th eonly mention of the word "mine", where they show some graphics of 12T of rocks etc to manufacture the battery.
Did you know the carbon cost of this is not mentioned and never shown in any graph about the carbon cost of any car ?
Im going to ask you is that honest ?
You are being disingenuous by pointing out that the environmental cost of mining to produce car batteries, but not comparing that to the environmental cost of drilling for, and refining oil, for the entire lifetime of running a car.
Also, what makes you think the CO2 cost of mining and refining to make a battery pack is not included in the 6,500 miles breakeven figure on page 57 of the report?
ciaran As for recycling EV batteries... Because the battery in a smart phone lasts only 2 or 3 years, many people assumed the same would be true of EV batteries. However, historical data shows EV batteries can be expected to have a lifetime of 10+ years (Tesla claims 15+ years). And because there was a relatively small number of EVs being manufactured 10 years ago, today there are relatively few end-of-life EV batteries for recycling.
cow:
Thanks for writing lots of words that have nothing to do with answering my question.
I never stated anything about EV car batteries lasting any period of time, im simply asking where are they going to be recycled.
ciaran:
However, I know that Tesla has its own in-house recycling capability for Tesla batteries,
cow:
No it doesnt. This is not advertised as an option anywhere on their website.
ciaran:
and JB Straubel (one of the co-founders of Tesla) started a battery recycling company called Redwood Materials a few years ago
cow:
Starting a company doesnt mean theres a solution. ANyone can start a company and make promises, it happens all the time on kickstarter.
"Thanks for writing lots of words that have nothing to do with answering my question." The wording of your question contained an assumption that there was an existing (rather than future) requirement for lots of battery recycling. My answer explained how that assumption was incorrect. I then went on to mention Redwood Materials and Tesla as two examples of companies currently engaged in battery recycling. So, yes, I did answer your question.
You claim that Tesla does not have an in-house battery recycling facility, because "This is not advertised as an option anywhere on their website."
An internet search for "tesla battery recycling" yielded this as the first search result: https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling
You dismiss Redwood Materials as being akin to a "promise lots but deliver nothing" kickstarter campaign. I found the following in the first page of results for an internet search for "how much batteries does redwood materials recycle", and each of them refute your baseless assumption:
https://www.energy-storage.news/redwood-materials-already-gets-6gwh-of-lithium-batteries-per-year-for-recycling/
https://eepower.com/news/redwood-materials-recycles-500k-pounds-of-ev-batteries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_Materials,_Inc.
Your behaviour in this thread of discussion suggests you want to engage in a "I'm right and you're wrong" argument rather than a "let's ask questions and share information so one or both of us might learn" discussion. Such behaviour reflects badly on you.
Ciaran: Rather than a "let's ask questions and share information so one or both of us might learn" discussion. Such behaviour reflects badly on you.
cow: My initial post did ask a few question, heres the last one quoted on the line immediately below.
> Can you also point me to any country that has a major network to recycle EV batteries ? REAL links to real networks with real recycling numbers ?
Ciaran: https://eepower.com/news/redwood-materials-recycles-500k-pounds-of-ev-batteries
> A year after launching its first electric vehicle battery recycling program in California, Redwood Materials now reveals that it collected 1,268 battery packs and recycled around 500,000 pounds of material at its Nevada facility. Starting in February 2022 with Ford and Volvo as partners, the pilot expanded over the last 12 months to collect batteries from Toyota and Volkswagen/Audi EVs.
1268 out of 1 million+ cars thats less than 1%.
Why didnt you also point out that RM is losing millions of dollars because it costs them significantly more to recycle the EV battery than the value of components they can recover ?
Do you know what happens when you scale this same loss making factors up by a million ?
Nobody is going to take a business that loses on every transaction and scale it by million or more ?
Ciaran:
> You dismiss Redwood Materials as being akin to a "promise lots but deliver nothing" kickstarter campaign. I found the following in the first page of results for an internet search for "how much batteries does redwood materials recycle", and each of them refute your baseless assumption
cow: I dismiss them because they are not able to scale their business to the numbers required to match EV sales.
Recycling 1 in 1000 batteries is not a solution, that still leaves 999 toxic batteries out there.
Is that honest to pretend that 1 in 1000 is a good solution ?
Ciaran: please quote using names before statements....
But you haven't recycled any of the petrol that you've used - which is far more damaging to extract refine and burn
And why would you recycle something that's still in use?
Where are you getting your 1% from? The fact that they have processed more than a thousand battery packs, and are investing to scale up to the size that they can do a million over the next few years?
John: But you haven't recycled any of the petrol that you've used -
cow: Discussing whether i like ice cream or chestnuts is not the topic at hand. Yes petrol is bad, but EV batteries are worse.
John: which is far more damaging to extract refine and burn
cow: says who ?
Go ask a chemist what happens when you dump a tonne of battery in any environment. It dies for a very long time, these are forever chemicals. Dont believe me, go take a look at any salt flat where they mine lithium and similar salts. They are dead.
~
John: And why would you recycle something that's still in use?
cow: Because ALL batteries die eventually. Each time they are used and recharged they hold a little less. It happens to phones and all batteries including cars.
~
John: Where are you getting your 1% from? The fact that they have processed more than a thousand battery packs,
Cow: Can you do math ? Tesla sold a million cars last year, and this company recycled just over 1000,if you can do basic maths thats 1%.
John: and are investing to scale up to the size that they can do a million over the next few years?
cow: No, the reason they only recycled 1000 is recycling is a very costly and slow process and the cost of recycling each battery is far more than the value of the materials.
Nobody is going to recycle a battery when it costs 10x more than the value of the components. The reason after many years they are still only doing small numbers is they havent ffigure out how to get the cost down.
Its the same reason why basically nobody recycles plastics and foam - and yes before you reply do a basic search, most plastic is never recycled. its a big con.
"Yes petrol is bad, but EV batteries are worse."
Citation needed - because that's not what any peer reviewed research shows - and it's exactly the point at hand because EVs are replacing fossil fuel vehicles.
"Tesla sold a million cars last year, and this company recycled just over 1000,if you can do basic maths thats 1%."
Erm - you might want to look at your maths again: thousand/million is 0.1%
So you expect them to recycle batteries as they sell them, rather than after the 15+ years of useful life they have?
Tesla sales weren't a million units 15-20 years ago - 15 years ago they sold 500 roadsters in 18 months. I would expect those to be relatively low mileage vehicles, so their batteries are probably still fine.
"Nobody is going to recycle a battery when it costs 10x more than the value of the components. The reason after many years they are still only doing small numbers is they havent ffigure out how to get the cost down."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1246828/value-of-recycled-ev-batteries-by-battery-type/
NMC batteries earnt recyclers 42USD/kWh
The lowest value was LFP at just 15USD/kWh
None of the numbers are negative - in fact the recyclers are already earning from their recycling activities.
They are also investing heavily to allow them to expand, which is why they aren't yet declaring profit.
cow:
No where on that page does it say Tesla accepts batteries for recycling. The ONLY service they mention is to SERVICE batteries it does not say they ACCEPT batteries back.
BIG DIFFERENCE!
I will show this by quoting line by line...
https://www.tesla.com/support/sustainability-recycling
> Tesla vehicles are designed to last, but if needed, Tesla Service Centers can help get you back on the road.
Nothing about recycling...
> Unlike fossil fuels, which release harmful emissions into the atmosphere that are not recovered for reuse, materials in a Tesla lithium-ion battery are recoverable and recyclable. Battery materials are refined and put into a cell, and will still remain in the cell at the end of their life, when they can be recycled to recover its valuable materials for reuse over and over again.
Yes they are recyclable, but this doesnt say that Tesla accepts batteries back either for free or for payment.
> Extending the life of a battery pack is a superior option to recycling for both environmental and business reasons. For those reasons, before decommissioning a consumer battery pack and sending it for recycling, Tesla does everything it can to extend the useful life of each battery pac
Again the only service mentioned here is that tesla offers SERVICING not RECYCLING.
> Any battery that is no longer meeting a customer’s needs can be serviced by Tesla at one of our Service Centers around the world.
and they repeat they SERVICE again like i said.. nothing about recycling.
> None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfilling, and 100% are recycled.
Notice the world OUR. They dont say they ACCEPT YOUR or the PUBLIC or customer batteries.
> Lithium-ion battery packs should only be handled by qualified professionals at specifically designated facilities. The applicable rules and regulations for battery management vary by region and must always be followed.
Yes no recycling here.
So where are the figures for the numbers of recycled batteries by Tesla ?
Do you know why Tesla doesnt want to accept any significant fraction of batteries back ? BEcause as ai said previously it costs MORE to recycle than to MAKE from raw materials...
Simple answer recyling a MILLION batteries at a massive lost means BILLIONS in losses which again Tesla isnt interesed in.
I await your research and reply.
> None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfilling, and 100% are recycled.
Notice the world OUR. They dont say they ACCEPT YOUR or the PUBLIC or customer batteries.
Oh my goodness, you really are grasping at straws aren't you:
"Recycling
We observe the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009.
As a producer of industrial Lithium-Ion batteries, we take back waste industrial batteries supplied to an end user for treatment and recycling at no cost. As Tesla sells Lead-Acid batteries, Tesla is also considered a producer of Lead-Acid batteries in the UK. We collect waste automotive batteries for treatment and recycling—free of charge and within a reasonable time.
You can return end-of-life products, such as electronics with a size of up to 25 cm, to Tesla locations during working hours at no cost. To return industrial or automotive batteries, contact us and we’ll schedule an appointment with you."
@John
Im sure you are a big boy and have read a few newspapers both paper and online.
Learn to quote, hard to believe but a going back a few times it gets confusing very fast when there are no names before quotations.
~
john: Notice the world OUR. They dont say they ACCEPT YOUR or the PUBLIC or customer batteries.
cow: Thats exactly what i said... SO why arent they Accepting the very same batteries they sold ?
~
john: Oh my goodness, you really are grasping at straws aren't you:
cow: Stay classy...
john:
"Recycling
We observe the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009.
As a producer of industrial Lithium-Ion batteries, we take back waste industrial batteries supplied to an end user for treatment and recycling at no cost.
cow:
No link or is that too difficult ?
Two counts of not knowing how to include names before quotes and sharing links. Any ideas why these two might be useful ?
First of all UK law does not apply to all countries, hard to believe i know.
So what happens to the other 199 countries around the world ?
Why doesnt Tesla put this on the main page so every body knows this, regulations or not so everyone in all countries that buy Tesla's can take advantage of this ?
The answer is very obvious, while it may be the law in the UK, they dont actually want UK subject to know about this because they lose money on each return.
Feel free to show me some stats how many batteries they actually have accepted back over the past 5 or 10 years. Bullshit or not, if people dont know they wont be returning them which is bad for the planet.
"cow: Thats exactly what i said"
That's because it was a quote...
No I didn't include a link - but then neither have you managed to provide any evidence to back up your claims... if you'd used google and searched for a snippet of the text I quoted then you'd have found the page pretty fast.
I don't know what happens in other countries - you claimed they didn't accept end user batteries, I demonstrated that to be false.
Have you worked out that there isn't any point in recycling batteries as they are sold?
And you appear to think that people just put EV batteries in landfill - something I have not seen any evidence for... partly because they are still in use, and partly because they're expensive and recycling companies can turn a substantial profit.
In 2020 Tesla reported that it achieved 92% battery cell material recovery in its new recycling process, and it recycled 1,300 tons of nickel, 400 tons of copper, and 80 tons of cobalt in 2020.
In the 2021 Impact Report, Tesla increased its battery material recycling to 1,500 tons of nickel, 300 tons of copper, and 200 tons of cobalt.
Now you need to find out how many Teslas have left the road... because the above stats are completely meaningless without that information.
Nah, the opposite. People will be seing their time and money actually being spent each time they use the taxi, so they will limit the number of trips they make. Owning a car, on the other hand, means go at your convenience without physically reaching into your pocket to pay for it every single trip. I have a full tank right now, so Incould take a joyride right now and come back home without spending a dime. Yes, I'd actually be using money to do so but the point is, I would not be reaching into my pocket to pay for it right this minute like I would with a cab.
We don't know that it didn't. If it was an EV, there are plenty of reports that insurance companies are totaling EVs with minor impacts because these minor impacts are causing internal battery damage and they have no way to verify the batteries. A week or a month later, the car goes up in flames due to the damage caused, usually while in use or being recharged so in some cases they are burning down houses as well. During use and during recharge is when a high resistance point is likely to cause the fire. I seriously doubt Waymo will let anyone know if the car involved suddenly catches fire next week.
It seems that the law (in the US at least) allows the operators of autonomous vehicles do their own RTI investigation. Unsurprisingly they always seem to find that their software wasn't too blame.
Presumably these vehicles are bristling with cameras and other sensors and log absolutely everything, otherwise how would they learn and improve their software? As such it would make sense if after each and every RTI involving an autonomous vehicle all of those logs were handed over to law enforcement and indeed insurance companies.
It's a real shame that every vehicle doesn't have the same cameras and sensors and that it doesn't log all those inputs and control inputs too. It would be incredibly useful in both determining if any laws had been broken and who was liable for insurance purposes.
With the rise of autonomous vehicles I think it's important that legislators should get on this straight away and ensure that it is a legal requirement that all such evidence must be handed over complete and untampered. I suspect that would do a lot more to improve road safety than the operators and/or manufacturers carrying out their own investigations. After all if manufacturers and operators knew that they could end up being found liable then I'm sure they would make sure their software was infallible.
> It's a real shame that every vehicle doesn't have the same cameras and sensors and that it doesn't log all those inputs and control inputs too. It would be incredibly useful in both determining if any laws had been broken and who was liable for insurance purposes.
Giving that much data to the insurers (and you know they'll get it) could lead to some interesting results:
* BMW drivers see their insurance go up because the insurers can no longer pretend that they know how to use indicators.
* Audi drivers tailgating picked up by their own forwards parking monitors, insurance goes up.
* Everyone who loudly proclaims that they are "better than the average driver" gets the annual report that shows reality; insurance goes up
Of course, it won't all be such good outcomes.
If anyone ever tested the trolly problem with 100 people. vs 1 dog, 98% of respondents would save the dog.
(The same experiment with a cat instead of a dog would be fruitless: regardless of the choice made, the cat would survive and the 100 humans be sliced to pieces).
Under English law there's an interesting little wrinkle here. If you have a choice between hitting a dog or a cat which to you go for? Well apparently the law is such that hitting a dog must be reported, hitting a cat on the other hand does not. Apparently this is something to do with the fact that if you are involved in an RTI that results in damage to property you must report it. Dogs count as property, cats do not.
This presumably means that if a dog causes you to have an accident then the owner could be found liable, if on the other hand a cat causes an accident then the owner would not be liable.
So imagine a dog and cat run into the road and you have to choose between hitting one or the other. Do you choose the cat because it's not property and therefore legally hiring the dog would be worse. Or do you choose to hit the dog because the owner could then be found liable for the damage to your vehicle.
The cat has nine lives of course...
I prefer not to injure animals in my use of transportation, but if it's a choice of endangering a non-human animal or endangering myself or other humans, then the non-human animal has a bad day. Mainly when either my vehicle could be put out of control by trying to avoid the animal, or another vehicle behind or around mine is not allowing for my emergency stop or swerve, and they crash into me because of it.
At least one of my neighbour's cats likes to lurk under a car parked in the street, which I know because the angle I approach from lets me see the critter.
On the other hand, ants are frequently seen on the same street, but probably not in time to brake the vehicle and avoid an antastrophe.
May be nothing, but I went into Google maps and looked around that area (being a SF Bay Area denizen and SF Native-born I got curious)... two things about that location:
1) Waymo has a major depot (Waymo Toland Depot) at 201 Toland.
2) A little way down Toland, where it intersects Toland Place (at 700 Toland) is a building that houses, at least in part, "Ace Dog Sports", a facility that appears to provide agility training.
So sure, some random mutt from a homeless encampment, not some expensive nob's little Jack Russell who bolted after their session in the gym.
(Getting more and more cynical the older I get and the more time I spend on social media).
Given the human mentioned poor visibility, would be interesting to know how fast the vehicle was travelling.
Often areas with lots of parked cars causing visibility hassle also tend to have people (with the scope for unpredictable child / dog behaviour, not to mention adults who like to cross roads with a pram / pushchair and the pushchair is always the thing they push into the road first whilst not paying much attention to traffic!
Any halfway sensible & considerate human driver will be driving slowly & defensively (e.g. as far from the kerb as safely possible to give better chance to spot any pedestrian "incursions" & be more distant from them so better stopping chance) just in case
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