From the article it sort-of seems like that error is actually in the mapping software that didn't mark that intersection as having traffic lights, so the car didn't look for them.
I mean, take a school bus for instance. They don't have permanent red-light fixtures, but if you're behind them they could enable the red light sign at any moment. If the self-driving car isn't always looking wouldn't that be an issue?
And yes, I think they are doomed. At least for city streets - I expect them on specially instrumented freeways though.
Do you work in the field? I'm a bit skeptical about that. Waymo's self-driving car seems to do pretty well with things that aren't encoded in maps like road works and unexpected obstacles. I don't see why red lights would be exceptionally challenging to detect.
There are also pranksters that turn traffic lights by 90° to make them face the wrong direction.
Those are hard to map.
Self driving cars are probably just going to have to recognize hand signals. That's simply the reality.
The car needs to be able to communicate with people outside of it, or it needs to have a human inside who can drive it.
This seems to be a decision on par with "depend on left-pad". reliability wise
In Florida, the rule is that all traffic going in either direction must stop, except when the road is "a divided highway with an unpaved space of at least 5 feet, a raised median, or a physical barrier"[0], in which case the opposing traffic does not have to stop. It's interesting to me to see how little things like this change from place to place, and how these localized rules will be handled by self-driving vehicles.
[0]http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...