Men Harassed a Woman in a Driverless Waymo, Trapping Her in Traffic | Hacker News Reader

Men Harassed a Woman in a Driverless Waymo, Trapping Her in Traffic

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4 pointsMattGrommes13 comments

These cars dont need windows people can see into from the outside, or their side mirrors, or the steering wheel and pedals etc etc.

In time these hardware and probably legal solutions should solve these types of problems I would think.

In fact they do need all those things.

There are laws around window tinting that require some level of visibility from inside and outside the vehicle. It depends on whether it's the windshield, front windows, rear windows.

At this point, Waymos are still human-drivable, and must be street-legal in every way. And it seems like all the Waymos I've met have CA plates, so they would need to adhere to the most strict regulations according to where they're registered, insured, and operated.

Right, hence the point about legal solutions. Laws will eventually change when more robots are driving.

Not sure this is a technology-specific problem. You can block a non-self-driving car by simply standing in front of it, too, as long as there is nowhere to reverse to. In both cases, there's not much that the occupant can do without bringing unpleasant consequences onto themselves. What are you going to do? Drive over the person? Do it and you'll be in bigger trouble than the blocker. This is what makes those Just Stop Oil protests do-able: Because a law abiding motorist is largely helpless if a human is in front of their car and won't move.

At some point, sure, run the person threatening your safety over.

Running over a protester isn't entirely comparable.

> Running over a protester isn't entirely comparable.

What if they’re blocking emergency vehicles? Seems to me it’s very possible that they could be a few dozen cars back in heavy traffic.

In the USA we don’t have good laws for this.

> In the USA we don’t have good laws for this.

hence why it's a current go-to in the protestors playbook. If/When such laws are introduced, different tactics will be used instead, I predict.

I haven't had to deal with this yet, but wouldn't moving slowly just push someone out of the way? If they are lying down I suppose that'll be a problem, but at least they can't spray-paint you.

I disagree. Blocking vehicles as a pedestrian is a nuisance regardless of motivation and ideology, but no one deserves to be run over unless they are presenting a threat that legally and morally justifies lethal force.

At some point ... threatening your safety

I guess that isn't overly specific, but what the hell else do you think I meant?

Cue the trolley problem, like I'm trying to get my wife to the hospital.

The South African cars outfitted with flamethrowers come to mind.

The key problem is that there’s no threat of being run over with the self-driving car. With a human driver, there’s always a chance that the driver will choose to plow through you. Especially if it’s just one person, by moving forward slowly but deliberately a driver can create a distinct “if you don’t step aside you might be run over” type threat.

With a robotaxi, you can be assured that a big company will never permit one of their cars to drive over you.

Nightmare scenario for a woman or anyone unable to mount a physical response. And for those of us who can fight back, the makings of a life-altering lawsuit. Fucking barbaric. Obviously this was the best outcome of such a scenario but it’s going to get very dark.

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