Cruise will reduce robotaxi fleet by 50% in San Francisco | Hacker News Reader

Cruise will reduce robotaxi fleet by 50% in San Francisco

cnbc.com

15 pointscj23 comments

I’m always impressed when I see them cross a double yellow to go around something. How do they know if it’s a temporary stop or not? The other day we were in traffic and it crossed the double yellow to go around a bus as if the bus was parked. Ended up between both ways awkwardly when it saw that it was just traffic and there was nowhere to go.

I’ve followed several of these accidents.

Not one accident I saw was cruises fault.

I might not have the full information.

In a broad sense, this specific action doesn't really care whether they were Cruise's fault. This is simply opening an investigation to determine whether further action is needed. Cruise can still operate vehicles, they just have to cut down on the fleet size to reduce the incident rate.

Frankly, this is a good move by the DMV. Meaningful oversight with consequences for messing up the political balance is the best tool we have to ensure industry players properly self-regulate.

There are commentors on HN who seem to care enough about fault in order to say that it's Cruise's fault. In that setting it's not irrelevant to offer a different view.

You missed this,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37176393

Missed what?

>Driverless Cruise car collides with SF fire truck, injuring passenger

Come on man, it's the title of that article ...

You mean the article whose contents contradicted its title? Is that the one you're referring to?

>Not one accident I saw was cruises fault.

>Driverless Cruise car collides with SF fire truck, injuring passenger

Hmm ...

Try clicking the link to the actual article. In your defense it's a bit of a moving target because the article and its headline keep getting updated. There once was a time when the headline said just what you said, that the Cruise struck the firetruck, but the body of the article said the complete opposite, that the firetruck struck the Cruise. Now, the article and its headline have been almost completely rewritten, and now (until it changes again) the headline says:

"VIDEO: Driverless Cruise car struck by SF firetruck, injuring passenger, company says"

Like an automobile accident between humans, there's a flurry of fingerpointing and attempts by both parties to shift blame. Like an automobile accident between humans, this is an evolving situation and determining fault is an ongoing process of investigation. That's why it's prudent not to rush to judgment and not take at face value the assertions of one of the involved parties--in this case the fire department--who has an incentive to try to get out in front of the story and shape the narrative to protect its own image (just as Cruise has that same incentive).

"It was different when I read it", wut?

I had a good laugh, thanks for that.

Interestingly, the title on HN seems to match the title of the page, they probably changed it here as well amirite? :^)

I don't think you're following me but it's cool don't worry about it.

Was the cruise at fault in this accident?

Yes.

Also, from that same thread seems like you missed this one as well,

https://www.businessinsider.com/driverless-cruise-car-stuck-...

Now you are well informed :)

No, you're misinformed if you let this person persuade you that driving into wet cement is a mistake only a robot would make.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2021/0...

If they are safe they should be 100% preserved and if they are dangerous they should be 100% removed. What is the logic of reducing them by 50%? Seems obvious there is none on a practical level but I also fail to see it on a political level.

For one thing, safety is not a binary property. It's entirely possible these vehicles might be human-equivalent in broad metrics in some reasonable ODD that's not the ODD they're currently operating under. It might be that the vehicle software is fine, but the response processes are insufficient in some way. There's an infinite variety of possible issues (or nothing wrong at all) which the investigation will try to uncover.

As for the logic behind half rather than all:

1. Revoking a permit is a drastic action that could cause cruise to leave the DMVs regulatory area entirely and go to another state like Arizona with essentially no oversight.

2. It could open them up to legal action that would consume lots of money for essentially no purpose

3. It gets the incident rate down so the situation is less political while the investigation is ongoing.

@eduction argument still stands. A "low incident rate" shouldn't be tolerated.

Using this logic, nobody should be allowed to learn to drive because inexperienced drivers have a higher incident rate.

Of course, this is absurd. Instead, we slap on some caveats (time/passenger restrictions) and accept the risk with the knowledge the driver will improve with time.

This is exactly the same for self driving vehicles. The only way to make them safer for public roads is to drive them on public roads. So if we slap on some caveats, such as a reduced fleet, we can make them safer while keeping incidents down.

You changed my pov and I agree with what you say.

Although, I didn't mean that a zero incidence rate should be the rule, more like, if one knows a system is defective, also in such a dangerous context, it'd be negligent to still ship it under the pretense of a "low incidence rate".

If we had zero tolerance for risk, then cars and the roads they drive on wouldn't exist. Most things wouldn't!

Who appointed you in charge of what other people should or shouldn't do?

It was recently reported that a bunch of robotaxis occupying every lane all lost communication at once and therefore blocked all traffic.

It's easy to imagine that a 50% reduction in fleet size could make this 90% less likely, while they work on ways to prevent that from happening again.

It's not just about the behavior of any individual robotaxi, but it's also about their behavior collectively.

It's also not just about safety, but about being a public nuisance -- if they break down or get confused too often. We can tolerate a small overall amount of that in a city, but not a large overall amount. It's not binary.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com