San Francisco robotaxis are causing false 911 calls and other chaos | Hacker News Reader

San Francisco robotaxis are causing false 911 calls and other chaos

techspot.com

52 pointsTempest198141 comments

Fine the companies for any false alert, problem will solve itself right quick.

> It appears that robotaxi passengers are starting to behave similarly to how they would on buses, trains, or airplanes, using trips as an opportunity to get some sleep.

That's the entire point isn't it ? Why wouldn't someone treat them same?

Sleeping is the number one reason I would get a self driving car (would have to be level 4+ of course).

If I’m going to sit there and watch it drive I might as well do it myself.

> Fine the companies for any false alert, problem will solve itself right quick.

Would be better to fine the passenger. If a customer refuses to get out of a taxi then wouldn't it be reasonable for the driver to call the police?

They’re not the one who dialed 911 to solve a business problem. People sleep in cars when they’re not driving.

Barricaded in taxi and refused to leave, maybe. Fell asleep, maybe not, just put an louder buzzer if that really is a problem you're regularly having as company.

Most cars are equipped with a “stereo” - you’d think they could dedicate a tiny bit of the expensive self driving equipment to an audio out line.

> Fine the companies for any false alert, problem will solve itself right quick.

Fine everyone who calls in a non-event. "The help doesn't come on Sundays" calls are equally deserving of a fine.

Napping riders is one thing (wait til they start having sex in there), but running over fire hoses is the bigger signal: no awareness of human signaling and no awareness of an emergency scene.

Humans gesture, nod, and make eye contact on the road to communicate at intersections and especially directing traffic around some emergent activity. Simply the presence of emergency vehicles or road workers needs a different behavior from the driver.

Perhaps we need to develop a new beacon that is installed in sirens and emergency lights - something short range of perhaps a block that signals: abandon all self-driving ye who enter here and forces the car into manual override (I assume they have a central control area or can give it back to the ‘driver’).

Why do we need to do anything to solve a problem being created by a solution to a non-existent problem, rather than just removing the self driving cars themselves.

I’m still not convinced that self driving cars are something we as a society on the whole need. Maybe in 100 years, but definitely not now and they definitely should not be rushed into production yet, they are just not ready. They are still a science project.

Only had to call the police (non-emergency number) once for a “napping” customer in the nine years I drove a cab.

They were full on passed out and I wasn’t about to drag them out of the back seat and leave them on the curb so made it the cop’s problem.

I do know you never, ever, 100% of the time, never reach into the back seat to rouse a passed out female passenger if you’re a male driver. Even the cops will call out a female officer if they’re down for the count.

Yeah there’s a real difference between “fell asleep” and “passed the F out probably drunk or on drugs” and the second I’d definitely call on.

"On three occasions, passengers decided to nap during their trip, and Cruise staff called 911 when they became unresponsive."

"Last week, firefighters had to spend over two minutes stopping an approaching robotaxi from running over their hose. The letter claims they eventually had to shatter its front window to force it to halt, but Cruise says it had already stopped the car by then."

Their staffing model includes using someone else's employees to wake up sleeping customers? Brilliant.

'Unresponsive' has a specific meaning in emergency care. It means the person does not respond to painful stimulus. The company seems to mean 'didn't wake up when we talked to them via a speaker'.

>'Unresponsive' has a specific meaning in emergency care

Sure but in general conversation if you shout at someone and they don't wake up that's "unresponsive".

Yes, but this isn't general conversation, this is a 911 call, so the emergency care definition is appropriate. You don't call 911 saying a customer is "unresponsive" when what you really mean is "the volume of our speakers isn't loud enough to wake someone up from a nap".

The people who call 911 are not supposed to talk like emergency services or know their interpretations. The person in call center is supposed to understand.

The company is in the wrong here, because they are attempting to offload ordinary business situation to public services. But the specific word is not supposed to be professional when you call 911.

911 is an “oh shit” button that in general you don’t want people to be afraid to call when they’re in a situation that they don’t understand.

But it shouldn’t be company policy (even if they do make a deal with the cops they should call a non emergency line - unless they really believe the passenger needs medical resistance immediately).

You're right, to a point, but 911 is the emergency number and that will affect the way dispatcher treats a call. They can't afford to underestimate a situation, so they will interpret words in their most severe possible connotations if there's any ambiguity.

I think what's needed here is the vehicle should have a robot arm that can give the passenger a sharp prod. That way the service operator can avoid calling 911 in most cases. ;)

Much like the firefighter override in an elevator it could be practical to give emergency responders a way to force autonomous vehicles to safely pull over to the side.

One can easily find elevator override keys online. If this capability existed its use could not be limited to authorized emergency services.

The worst thing that happens in either situations is that the mode of transport is safely disabled.

What keeps people from doing this right now is that it is not worth the consequences for an obnoxious prank. While I’m sure some bored teenagers would love to sit on a highway overpass and watch cars come to a slow halt I’m not sure it would be much more than an inconvenience that is better than firefighters hacking away at robots with axes!

That is absolutely not the worst thing that can happen. Assume that at some point, a self driving car will have to deal with humans acting with actual intent to harm their passenger.

Ok, so here’s a scenario. Someone waits until an autonomous vehicle comes by with a specific person in it, then they disable the car, and kidnap the person.

Or for car-jackings.

So if you want to kidnap someone or rob them in a vehicle, is getting the firefighter key, which I assume has some PKE going on, and planning around that really worth the effort? Are the state-level actors with the know-how, capabilities and deeper motivations interested in disabling certain taxis?

The "fake undercover cop car" type of carjacking/robbery has existed since forever.

It's why "thou shalt never use unmarked cars for traffic enforcement and other 'officer chooses who to bother on a whim' duty" rules come and go from various jurisdictions over time.

People get carjacked/robbed -> policy created -> desire for revenue mounts -> nobody been carjacked/robbed in awhile -> policy rescinded -> go to beginning

I can disable nearly any vehicle that doesn’t have a model in World of Tanks by driving a large truck directly in front or into it. And elevator keys can be found online - you deal with abuse just like abuse of the emergency stop - by arresting the perpetrators.

It reduces the cost of said abuse. Nowadays you need to acquire a truck or weapons or whatever, in the future all you’d need is a keycard type of device.

It would be cool if they had EMPs like in video games. Point it at the car and disables it.

There’s been attempt to develop it - https://www.police1.com/police-products/pursuit-management-t...

But the physical means work too - https://stopstick.com/

Ideally it'd be as easy as carrying around a portable stop sign you can prop in front of the car. Of course, you'd have to be in front of the car for this to work.

This is the Rise of the Robot Axis!

If these are the biggest complaints then the program have been a phenomenal success.

It would be nice to find some newspaper articles from around the time cars were first starting to show on roads to keep things in perspective...

The auto industry mounted an oppressive PR campaign to convince the public that streets are for cars, not people. For example, by inventing the word "jaywalking" [1].

The way things are going, something very similar is going to happen with self-driving cars. For example: forcing pedestrians wear beacons for easier detection by self-driving vehicles [2].

I'd rather we go the other direction, instead, and revert to walkable, livable cities.

[1] https://marker.medium.com/the-invention-of-jaywalking-afd48f...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2021/11/06/bidens-1...

The government also funded a massive campaign - https://railroads.dot.gov/highway-rail-crossing-and-trespass...

I want Big Train to go back to meandering at 0.001 miles per hour so I can lolligag on the tracks again.

This seems to operate on the assumption that those concerns were incorrect, even misguided.

Of course they are.

People cannot be made to operate machinery safely. Just remember that half of people have below average intelligence...

The only way we will travel safely is if ALL cars are operated automatically.

AIs really only have problems driving because other road users are people. When all rode users are computers all those problems can be rather easily resolved.

I think the biggest mistake everybody is doing is to try to develop AIs in the first place.

An algorithmic solution that does not have to cope with other road users would be way easier to develop.

What they should be doing is taking parts of cities, banning non-automated traffic and replacing it with 100% self-driving network. Then extending the reach further and further. People wanting to get into the city have to park their cars and move to automated public transport and/or taxis. This actually is already reality in some highly congested cities so I don't want to hear it can't be done.

okay, but what if instead of making the cars self-driving, you got rid of the cars?

> An algorithmic solution that does not have to cope with other road users would be way easier to develop.

Heaven forbid humans would like to walk or cycle outside. Everyone better adjust to the supposedly inevitable "progress". Let's think of the consequences later, if at all.

Meanwhile, human drivers have killed one San Franciscan every week so far this year.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com