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Comment by mattzito | Hacker News Reader

> The vehicle and the test driver "believed the bus would slow or allow the Google (autonomous vehicle) to continue."

Clearly the algorithm does not take into account the classic attitudes of bus drivers.

It's probably one of the interesting social outcomes of a mixed self-driving / human-driven traffic that all the assholes will have more opportunities to behave like assholes, because they will be able to rely on the programmed friendlyness of self-driving cars. Eventually, tuning that friendlyness factor will become the new car pimping.

Every time an asshole recklessly endangers the occupants of a self driving car, the car will have recorded the entire event. They should send these to a central clearinghouse and after a certain threshold hand them over to the appropriate prosecutor for charging and conviction. We'll all be safer.

If the asshole can't bring himself to drive civilly, eventually he'll lose his license on points and have to ride around in a self driving car!

You essentially want to turn traffic enforcement over to a pervasive surveillance state? Yeah, not a good idea...

No, (s)he wants to turn traffic safety violation reporting over to crowd-sourcing. There is a large difference. I am in favor of the same thing myself since humans drivers prove every day (look at the number of preventable accidents on roads) that they should not be trusted with operating large motor vehicles, especially if alternatives exist in the way of autonomous vehicles. If driving behavior is accountable in the same way as, say, banking transactions, then that seems like a good thing.

ATMs are good comparison. They are left unattended but photo document themselves and their environment. If you attack an ATM it will provide the evidence for a prosecutor to charge you.

Same argument that gets made against red-light cameras, if "things" are accusing you of a crime how do you get to face your accuser?

Yeah, I kind of do. This is not a privacy issue, you're on the road and behaving in a way that's directly endangering me.

You're out in public, operating heavy machinery. Better enforcement of traffic laws would save lives [citation needed].

I think it'll be great when road ragers can't count on anonymity to protect their reckless, unsafe and illegal habits. Think how pleasant it will be to drive when everyone actually drives safely.

Surveillance state seems like a real stretch in this case. There is no right to privacy when you're driving on public roads, you can now and will continue to be photographed while driving. It's already happening anyway, highways have road cams, people have dash cams. If there's a problem, it's already here.

This is the most interesting part of this story to me. That the test driver believed the bus would let the vehicle continue indicates to me that the human driver would probably not have done any better than the automated car in this case.

Even more lucky it wasn't a BMW.

Here in Europe the attitudes of BMW drivers are not highly regarded.

Here in the US we stand with you on the issue of BMW drivers.

Not even in Germany?

Depends on the model / style and how old it is.

I guess old BMW's get more cred, while with newer ones you swear "tax evader" under you breath as it overtakes you in the left lane?

This is their lair. They are the worst here.

What is the German ranking in terms of obnoxiousness like?

E.g. based on BMW, Porsche, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Opel, <foreign invaders>?

Pretty much that exact order.

I would guess Mercedes owners would be more obnoxious than Audi owners though? :)

Not around here... Lexus and Escalades beat out Mercedes. I haven't seen a lot of difference between BMWs and Audi drivers either.

Mercedes are a special problem. Often driven by older male drivers who sometimes remember that their car can drive fast but not caring most of the time. Even while on the left lane.

I'd rank Mercedes higher. They even install a cross-hair for better targetting.

It feels like BMW, Porsche, Audi and then the rest

Not just Europe - BMW drivers are the same around the world.

Oh yes. Even in Germany. When some nutcase whizzed past you on the autobahn doing 200kph, it was pretty much always a BMW.

My standard comment to a new BMW owner: "So, do you have to prove you are an asshole to buy a BMW, or do they force you to take a class after you buy one?"

They should invite a bunch of Prius drivers to MV to "test" with the self-driving cars on the road with them "driving normally". I'm sure they'd get some great test data out of it and help prevent lots of future incidents :)

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