Las Vegas' self-driving bus crashes in first hour of service
engadget.com
engadget.com
ftfy
> literally first sentence of the article: "getting into a minor collision"
Clickbait aside, here's the concerning part: "It's designed to stop.. and yield to the moving object..."
So basically it wasn't designed to avoid or back up, it was just designed to give way, which confused it when the trailer continued backing it up
There is so much complexity that needs to be modeled that the fact that these cars need to mimic humans in all conditions gets forgotten sometimes.
Legally, I don't think there's a rule on the books for offering right-of-way via body language. If you misinterpret them and they drive out and hit you, then you would be at fault. Yet, growing up it seemed like an an unwritten rule that, at an otherwise empty rural intersection, if you have right of way, you should offer it up as a kind of generosity to the other driver.
It's a cultural norm that I would dearly miss and would definitely vary from state-to-state and even from urban-to-rural driving inside the same state.
Except for signalling. Hand signals are still permitted, with many jurisdictions still teaching them. Motorcyclists use very casual hand signals, in combination with eye contact. These convey more intention than a sterile blinking light.
Was hardly a crash....
What would a human bus driver have done in that situation?
It isn't enough to make an automated vehicle that meets the minimal legal requirements for interacting with other road users. Real drivers have to deal with the fact that other drivers often don't drive lawfully, or rationally: automated drivers have to do the same.