California DMV hits brakes on Cruise's SF driverless fleet after series of fender benders

San Francisco Bay Area techies who want to hail a driverless Cruise robo-taxi have fewer to pick from after officials said it must reduce its fleet "immediately" in the wake of several incidents, just a day after a collision between an emergency vehicle and an AV on Thursday night. The California Department of Motor Vehicles ( …

[Pascal Monett]

Well forget the second accident

There is no programming in the world that can prevent a vehicle from being broadsided by a moron who runs a red light. I'm glad there were no injuries and I hope the careless driver will get what he deserves.

But a vehicle that can't handle an oncoming vehicle in the same lane ? I understand that avoidance maneuvers is a whole other set of abilities, but braking is still supposed to be on the cards, is it not ? The vehicle "initiated a braking maneuver". Nice to know. Why did it not stop entirely ? Or did it stop entirely and it's the ambulance that drove into it ? Not clear from the article.

Whatever the case, if driverless vehicles can't handle the antics of emergency vehicles - who are doing their duty as best they can - and become no better than roadblocks, then it's not 50% less that should be on the road, it's 100%, day and night, until the issue is solved.

Now I agree that, given the trouble it has been up to now to get anything near driverless actually working, this is probably a whole new load of trouble for the engineers concerned.

Still, if there is one type vehicle that should always get top priority on the road, it's emergency response vehicles.

And driverless cars should be the first to give way and clear the road for them.

[abend0c4]

Re: Well forget the second accident

no programming in the world that can prevent a vehicle from being broadsided by a moron

That's one of many reasons why, ultimately, we'll end up with fleets of these vehicles running on dedicated routes much as we always have in cities and dependent on common control and signalling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well forget the second accident

> fleets of [...] vehicles running on dedicated routes [...] and dependent on common control and signalling

That is a Revolutionary idea And I have Never Seen it before.

[Barrie Shepherd]

Re: Well forget the second accident

I can see the Lord Mayor of London rubbing his hands with glee.

"I'll put a new charge out there - the NAVZ charge - Not Autonomous Vehicle Zone - anyone in a vehicle will be charged £12.50 a day if they don't have fully autonomous driving controls fitted" "It's to save the children from being hit by these terrible manual drivers."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well forget the second accident

"There is no programming in the world that can prevent a vehicle from being broadsided by a moron who runs a red light."

An automated car could have 360 sensor awareness and faster reaction times than a puny human, so they might actually be able to handle this situation better than a meatsack.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Well forget the second accident

Experience says they can't. Cruise & the rest claim to have millions of miles of experience so far and yet they have the ability of an 18-year old who's had a few hours of instruction, passed a test and racked up maybe two or three hundred miles dirving experience. ITM that they don't have millions of miles of driving experience, they have a few miles a million times.

They might, of course counter that vehicles are developed in different ways to human drivers. Fair enough - develop them with the same rules as aircraft (not Boeing, obviously). When an accident occurs due to the operation of the vehicle suspend the entire fleet until the problem is identified, corrected and the correction tested.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Well forget the second accident

Downvoted because "actually" should read "eventually"

[Marty McFly]

Re: Well forget the second accident

The fundamental problem... The world we live in is NOT digital. It is analog.

For every IFTTT logical parameter coded in to driverless vehicles, there will be some sort of an exception. There is no way to account for all possibilities & permutations using only a sensory platform to analyze & determine the proper actions.

The only way this works is centrally controlled autonomous vehicles for everyone, and removing the human element from all driver's seats. Maybe society will accept that in a couple generations, but not today.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really how these things work

Sadly if it was it would be easier to fix, but the parts of these systems that run on digital processors aren't themselves very digital. They more like a digital simulation of a bunch of complex systems.

One of the big problems in this case is the emergency vehicle did exactly what it was supposed to. The Cruise car apparently wasn't adequately trained to either avoid a head on collision with an oncoming vehicle, or note it was EMS and pull aside to let it past. And this isn't an isolated incident. The city has been turned into a play pen for Tesla's, robot fridges delivering groceries, and multiple companies experimental vehicle fleets.

Central control won't magically fix all of this either. What will make a bigger difference is de-conflicting the roads so the machine driven vehicles operate in a simpler and lower risk environment, adding clearer machine readable road and vehicle markings, and giving EMS vehicles a dedicated control channel to make the vehicles stay the hell out of their way, or move them manually if they are "stuck"

The other bright idea is admitting that rolling them out in a chaotic mess like the SF bay isn't working, and they need to be kicked back out to the minor leagues in the mean time.

[Julz]

Re: Well forget the second accident

Are you sure about that? Quantum mechanics suggests otherwise.

[Stork]

Re: Well forget the second accident

I must also say that I find it a curious decision to take half of them off the road. Are they a problem or not?

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Well forget the second accident

My guess is that the same number of "back office" control and monitoring people will be required but have half the vehicles each to look after.

[druck]

Re: Well forget the second accident

But a vehicle that can't handle an oncoming vehicle in the same lane ? I understand that avoidance maneuvers is a whole other set of abilities, but braking is still supposed to be on the cards, is it not ? The vehicle "initiated a braking maneuver". Nice to know. Why did it not stop entirely ?

The AVs get so many false indications of on coming traffic from vehicles in the other lane on bends and at intersections, they have assume the other traffic isn't on a collision course most of the time to avoid having to continually brake. This seems to work right up to when it doesn't, when there is actually an oncoming vehicle in the same lane, it's too late to avoid.

[Stork]

Re: Well forget the second accident

On a smaller scale, I had a Cupra Leon as rental car recently.

It surprised us (my driving license holding son and yours truly) by slamming the brakes because it found I was getting too close to a parked trailer.

I am not having one of those.

[Lil Endian]

*Sniff Sniff*

The [California Public Utilities Commission] had been moving against vocal opposition from police, firefighters, and other city agencies when it voted to expand the hours of operation for GM Cruise and Waymo robo-taxis in San Francisco.

*Sniff Sniff*

What's that? It's the smell of dodgy lucre in brown envelopes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: *Sniff Sniff*

No kidding. One of the CPUC comissioners that approved these robohazards, John Reynolds, used to be a general counsel at Cruise. Corruption at its finest, right in the open.

[Flocke Kroes]

"it might take longer than anticipated to get driverless cars on our roads."

I hoped driverless cars would not be allowed on the roads before they could routinely do something safe in unusual circumstances. I anticipated them being let loose early. Clearly AI is being aimed at the wrong jobs. How about an LLM to replace a CEO? Anyone anticipate that happening this century?

[vistisen]

Problem is the LLM would have to be dummed down to react at the level of CEOs

about down to the level

"We must do something", "this is something", "we must do this".

"when is my next bonus paid out"?

[Lil Endian]

Hmmm... Perhaps deploying an LLM is overkill, or maybe dumb it down and just train it to play Leader Board. It's ancient and has been surpassed, so fits nicely.

[LybsterRoy]

Reading the news today - typical FTSE 100 CEO received 16% (ish) payrise whilst other struggle I think you may need to dumb it down a bit more

[DJ]

Does make one wonder

Just how rigorous their testing programme is - oh, wait - this IS the testing programme.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled corporate profits vs humanity battle now in progress.

[MachDiamond]

Failing the easy part

" "The AV's ability to successfully chart the emergency vehicle's path was complicated by the fact that the emergency vehicle was in the oncoming lane of traffic, which it had moved into to bypass the red light.""

This is what emergency vehicles often do and why people on both sides of the road are supposed to pull over until it has passed and no more are coming. I know people are anxious to get to their destinations and taxi rides are billed by time and distance, another 30 seconds for a bit of added caution isn't going to cause the sky to fall. Of all of the things an autonomous car needs to avoid, emergency vehicles should be right at the top. It's also one of the easiest since they have flashing lights of a certain color and even the noise of a siren should be able to be detected and localized to a direction.

[Lil Endian]

Re: Failing the easy part

...anxious to get to their destinations... -- not anywhere near as much as if they were in, or in need of, said emergency vehicle.

It's also one of the easiest since they have flashing lights of a certain color and even the noise of a siren should be able to be detected and localized to a direction.

Probably not as easy as we'd like. Reflections of sound and light would be a huge problem for determination of direction. However, direction may not matter - detection of either could force a pull-over until further data is gleaned. Yeah, so the siren is heard across the town and you stopped, tough titties, you wanted to be in an AV.

[Anonymous Coward]

Siren detections not easy, but probably not impossible either

Though the intended logic of the reaction bears consideration if you can/do. The car obviously shouldn't just stop whenever it hears something, or a passenger with a recording on their phone could troll it.

But it's one of the ways it should know to switch it's driving personality to favor "get out of the way" when it see's emergency lights/hears a siren. Regardless of the flashing lights, it should be programmed to avoid head-on collisions with a wrong way driver, or in the event it's mistaken about the direction traffic is supposed to be going on a one way for example.

The more we see the level of training and preparation of these systems, the more it looks like a rush to get them on the streets before the projects get cancelled by management. The annoying thing is that the companies seem to refuse to consider anything other than unrestricted operation.

These things plainly aren't ready to be turned loose in an average residential neighborhood, let alone the hills and one-ways of SF or NYC. Maybe lets slow down and let them try parking themselves in a no-customers dedicated parking structure first, or on marked and dedicated side streets with limited pedestrian crossings.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Siren detections not easy, but probably not impossible either

"The car obviously shouldn't just stop whenever it hears something, or a passenger with a recording on their phone could troll it."

Of course not, but it's one piece of information that's useful and can be localized.

If I rhino sees something, it tells them to sniff the air to find out what it is. Humans will smell something that might cause them to look for something. When I worked on rocket landers there was GPS and an IMU that were weighted differently as inputs to the navigation system. We had also done work with outside entities that were working on vision systems to be able to 'see' potential landing sites using several bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.

[Kurt 5]

Re: Failing the easy part

They single out the AV but let's get the stats of how many vehicles with meatsacks behind the wheel manage to hit or get hit by emergency vehicles. Happens a lot!

[Lil Endian]

Re: Failing the easy part

That's true, but with skinbags: liability is clear; humans have been tested prior to going on the road lawfully; with all human drivers, it's a level playing field; there's tonnes....

Take AVs off of the roads until they pass a driving test. Every. Single. One. Must. Pass. Individually. One failure, they can all fuck off. Why? Each human carries individual faults, but the systemic faults in AVs are shared across the range.

[Anonymous Coward]

I’ll take the bus

Thanks.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: I’ll take the bus

Don't come to Scotland then - they're trialing AV buses. Currently with an alert driver installed but the SNP will soon get rid of that.

[Craig 2]

This is novel situation #24863 - I'm sure it will be added to the database for the AV to deal with next time. Unfortunately there are millions more novel situations out there waiting to be discovered and each is subtly different.

I've said for years that trains* will be the first widespread automated mode of transport. Until that happens, automated cars are a distant dream.

*Or maybe ships, or planes, or spaceships, or whatever. But not cars.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

CPUC vs DMV

The California Public Utilities Commission started warning cities that they may be next for robotaxi testing and those cities can do nothing to stop it, even as SF is having a bad time with them. One problem is that cities have no way yet to ticket robotaxis because tickets are for drivers. I'm glad the DMV is stepping in to pause this for a while.

If Comcast sold used cars, you'd have the feel of the CPUC.

[Lil Endian]

Re: CPUC vs DMV

...tickets are for drivers.

If we substitute "drivers" with "vehicle operators" we can move forwards. An individual, as a driver, is limited to operating one vehicle at a time. Software controlling AVs is equivalent to a single driver operating multiple vehicles concurrently. The systems used can be awarded penalty points per transgression, as with drivers^[1], with any fines or other penalties being applied to those deploying the systems. The points would be cumulative with regards to the system, not individual vehicles. Enough points accrued, and it's off the road for all vehicles using that system, with any criminal negligence sending the responsible meatware to prison.

It raises the question: how are these vehicles allowed on the road without passing a driving test?

[1] In the UK at least.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: CPUC vs DMV

Or take the aircraft industry approach. If there's a systemic problem ground the entire fleet until it's fixed.

[Lil Endian]

Re: CPUC vs DMV

Maybe I wasn't clear, but that is what I was saying:

The points would be cumulative with regards to the system, not individual vehicles. Enough points accrued, and it's off the road for all vehicles using that system...

The idea being that the entire fleet, operating the same system, uses a shared licence - regardless of operator. So, if 12 points are needed to revoke operational licences, and a fatal incident gets 12 points, one fatal incident and they're all "grounded". Pranging a bollard may be 1 point; speeding 6 etc etc

Really though, they just shouldn't be operational at this time - they're not ready.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: CPUC vs DMV

-- It raises the question: how are these vehicles allowed on the road without passing a driving test? --

Sort of a brilliant idea unless the examiner is also automated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: CPUC vs DMV

Hit them through their PSV operating licences, remove licence they can't operate.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Emergency Vehicles...

Should have equipment on board them which signals to autonomous vehicles that they are to, not exactly shut down (because there is nothing worse than an ambulance being impeded by a stationary vehicle with no means to get past), but to behave in 'clearly defined and signalled ways' to enable the emergency vehicle to be aware of its presence and be certain of its safe navigation past it.

If this isn't viable (why not?), I'm sure autonomous vehicles can detect the sounds emitted by emergency vehicles and even sense direction of travel via filtering doppler effect (speculation on my part, but surely not rocket science?).

As I've said many times here (and Craig 2 has mentioned above), trains are the perfect subjects for automatic operation, and have been proven so for many, many years. Even then, accidents still happen but the reasons for them are analysed in forensic detail and lessons learned. When I worked for London Underground's Signal Engineering Department a question I was asked at interview was the approximate number of "wrong-side" failures per year that occurred. My answer of one or two seemed to be an acceptable response. I've seen at first hand how such a failure is treated by them. There was a case where the vane on a safety relay had a burr on it which caused the vane to stick in the wrong position. Every single such relay on the Underground system was marked for checking, which I think took a year to accomplish.

Such analysis is not possible with road transport as there's too many parameters, too little regulation and no transparency with proprietary interests involved. In the above example of a failing relay just think of the expense involved in that recall and how easy it would be to sweep under the carpet with no regulatory oversight in place.

[Lil Endian]

Re: Emergency Vehicles...

I wanted to suggest using LoJack as the signal source. But if emergency vehicles emitted such a signal it would give away the vehicle's location to anyone wanting to know it, and I'm pretty sure that would be abused.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: LoJack

I see your point about abuse. It could be that LoJack detection is switched on only when the sirens and flashing lights are switched on (when it is already clearly advertising where the vehicle is).

[Lil Endian]

Re: LoJack

I like that.

It could still be a bit awkward for the cops en route to that 'bank robbery in progress'. I'm not doing the maths, but limiting the transmission field to X metres might work, considering the vehicle speeds and reaction times etc.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Emergency Vehicles...

To expensive? How about using Apple AirTags?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Emergency Vehicles...

"Should have equipment on board them which signals to autonomous vehicles that they are to, not exactly shut down (because there is nothing worse than an ambulance being impeded by a stationary vehicle with no means to get past), but to behave in 'clearly defined and signalled ways' to enable the emergency vehicle to be aware of its presence and be certain of its safe navigation past it."

They do. They have flashing lights and sirens. If the AV doesn't respond properly the blame's on the AV, not the EV.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Emergency Vehicles...

"They do. They have flashing lights and sirens. If the AV doesn't respond properly the blame's on the AV, not the EV."

Those should be the two items with the most weighting. A radio signal in conjunction could be added if people use lights and sirens to fool AV vehicles. Honestly, I don't see free roaming AV transportation to be a huge boon. I'd rather see systems such as trains to be using it first.

[Joe W]

Re: Emergency Vehicles...

My opinion exactly. De facto trains are controlled remotely through the signal boxes already. But since they do run on rails and there is usually no erratic other traffic veering from side to side it should be quite a bit simpler to automate.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Are these "robotaxis" really operating without anyone behind the wheel?

I can't count the times I've seen articles explaining how Tesla's "Full Self Driving" and similar tech is nothing more than adaptive cruise control with lane-assist, and how we are still quite a few years away from having truly self driving cars, but then I see things like this. Are the robotaxis really operating with nobody behind the wheel? If so, then either the tech must be much further along than I've been led to believe, or allowing these AVs on the roads was a gigantic blunder that should be career ending for somebody.

I guess both could be true...

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Are these "robotaxis" really operating without anyone behind the wheel?

Should be career ending but probably won't be. Not until somebody starts suing the blunderers.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Are these "robotaxis" really operating without anyone behind the wheel?

"Are the robotaxis really operating with nobody behind the wheel?"

They are, but they aren't as autonomous as people think they are. This is why they came to a halt when AT&T went down and they lost their link with the home office in San Francisco.

[John Brown (no body)]

How do they stay in lane anyway?

Dunno what the road marking in SF are like, but my wife just pointed me Las Vega Blvd Sth webcam[*]. That's an 8 lane road through the main "sights" of Vegas and there's barely any lane markings at all. I wonder if any of these AV operators have tested out on roads like that yet?

[*] It's a live stream. You may need to scroll back in time to find daylight hours depending when you open the page. The camera follows a pre-programmed path, watch for the zoom in on the junction under the bridge. As far as I can see the visible lane marking are the stop lines and the separation between the 4 main lanes and the two left turn lanes. Having said that, I hear there's no lane marking on the 6(?) lanes around the Arc De Triomphe in Paris too. I need to see AVs handle situations like those before I'll even start have an inkling of trust in them.

[Orv]

Re: How do they stay in lane anyway?

Yesterday I was driving on US-101 and noticing that my car was unable to provide lane assistance because of the lighting conditions -- the light reflecting off the lane striping was just right to make it blend into the concrete road surface. I could tell where the lanes were because of the catseye reflectors, but the car couldn't.

Interestingly, California used to use *only* catseyes or Botts' Dots as lane markings; they started painting them as a way to accommodate self-driving cars.

[lowwall]

Re: How do they stay in lane anyway?

They know the lanes because they only operate in areas that have been precisely mapped out. This is how Waymo puts in in one of their blog posts:

"To create a map for a new location, our team starts by manually driving our sensor equipped vehicles down each street, so our custom lidar can paint a 3D picture of the new environment. This data is then processed to form a map that provides meaningful context for the Waymo Driver, such as speed limits and where lane lines and traffic signals are located. Then finally, before a map gets shared with the rest of the self-driving fleet, we test and verify it so it’s ready to be deployed."

The requirement for extensive and expensive custom mapping means that this approach is currently practical only for taxi-type services even if they get the bugs worked out.

Tesla is trying to get around this limitation by using much less detailed maps which already exist and having the software figure out the exact details as you go. This fails to work quite often which is why Tesla's legal department warns drivers and regulators that it is level 1 or 2 automation only (i.e., the driver has to watch and be ready to take over at any time). Of course, their CEO and marketing departments pretend otherwise, no doubt contributing to several fatalities and many crashes.

[Alumoi]

Re: How do they stay in lane anyway?

I think I see the problem. Waymo cars only know the initial road conditions, as they were mapped. Any kind of modification (pedestrians, other moving objects, potholes, etc.) will confuse them.

[MachDiamond]

Re: How do they stay in lane anyway?

"Waymo cars only know the initial road conditions, as they were mapped. Any kind of modification (pedestrians, other moving objects, potholes, etc.) will confuse them."

It's more like they can spend more time working out those variable targets that aren't already mapped and identified. Humans do that sort of thing too. A lot of what we see is from seeing it before so we can lose things like our keys in plain sight.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: How do they stay in lane anyway?

So, not much use if you want a robotaxi to take you home to that new housing development then? :-)

[MachDiamond]

Re: How do they stay in lane anyway?

"To create a map for a new location, our team starts by manually driving our sensor equipped vehicles down each street, so our custom lidar can paint a 3D picture of the new environment."

This is why the cars also have to be able to phone home. The amount of data is too much to load into the car at one time for the whole city so unless each car is only going to service a very limited area, it has to be able to load that detailed survey information on the fly. Cruise and Waymo also have to have GPS base stations deployed for differential signals so the car can be pinpointed with much more accuracy. I seem to recall that Waymo was even given permission to paint some calibration marks in a few places that the cars could use to really fix their position in case of drift.

[Lil Endian]

Ah! Paris!

Yeah, Paris would be a test for sure.

Going slightly out of lane, this reminded me of a time when I was with my then GF. She's French, from Lille, and a really nice person - not the kind to create problems or antagonise others, a safe driver. She was driving on a dual carriageway, somewhere around Lille. Not a lot of vehicles on the road, when she pulled out in to an overtaking position on the only car in front, which seemed odd as she'd been quite comfortable being behind the car and we weren't in a rush. I threw her a quizzical look.

"The car coming up behind," she said "is a 75 plate, that's Paris. When non-Parisians drive in Paris, the Parisians make driving really difficult for them. So, whenever a Parisian car is seen outside of Paris, we return the favour!". It took a quite a little while for her to slowly overtake and get back into the nearside lane.

A bit naughty, but at least the 75 plate slowed to a legal speed.

[MachDiamond]

Re: How do they stay in lane anyway?

"Dunno what the road marking in SF are like, but my wife just pointed me Las Vega Blvd Sth webcam[*]"

It gets so hot in LV during the summer that car tyres pick up the asphalt and coat the painted lane markings. You mainly have to go by the texture more than color.

[A. Coatsworth]

>> from Lille, and a really nice person

I just know there is an extremely french joke lurking there. I just can't grasp it.