Source: Haven't been run over yet by one, and I live in one of their current markets.
This has only introduced more novel problems. People can completely immobilize the vehicles by standing in front of them, or placing a traffic cone. (And while this is kind of funny when done to unused vehicles to bother a multi-trillion dollar corporation. It is not funny when it's done to harass women.)
This in turn spirals into a whole new set of political problems, because drivers are collectively quite intolerant of the pedestrians and especially cyclists they share the road with. There is a lot of pedestrian and cyclist behaviour that is curtailed by motorist bullying, which autonomous cars don't really do. (Your walking in front of them being a fine example)
Things like cyclists "taking the lane" are deeply unpopular despite being entirely legal and good road safety practice. Increased rollout of AVs will only make this more prevalent and then you'll have a whole new demographic of angry people mad that their waymo is slow because it's behind a cyclist.
This is true of any vehicle lmao. Someone can stand in front of your vehicle and prevent you from proceeding and there's not a thing you can do about it.
I certainly wouldn't. I'm a short gay guy, plus even if I was big I don't want an assault charge; standing in front of my car doesn't give me a legal right to assault someone. From a legal standpoint (in most places) it's a deadlock.
Not every guy is big and strong and capable of or wanting to do violence.
Say it's 5% of drivers who are maniacs, one encounters many many cars, and the cost of misjudging this situation is "grievous injury". So the end result is people will give way to cars even when they don't have to.
> Not every guy is big and strong and capable of or wanting to do violence.
This is structurally comparable to the way women treat "all men" as "potentially violent". It's not about you per-se, just a consequence of the group you cannot be immediately separated from.
Speaking of, that's the other half. Sure you're a normal guy. You don't want an assault change. The tradeoff changes when you are at risk, when violence is being done to you. (Hence the harassment-of-women example)
Sure you're not gonna try to murder the person outside like the road-raging maniacs, but when your safety is on the line, driving dangerously close past them is on the table.
"Increase the speed limits" is a classic populist policy that keeps being reimplemented (and walked back for it's impracticality) all across the world. Policies to ban cyclists are uncommon, but certainly not unheard of. One imagines the self-driving car companies won't be too bothered to fight against laws that hurt everyone but them.
Eye contact matters for humans because they might be looking at their phones, or their McDonald's fries, or staring straight into the sun. None of these things happen with self-driving cars. It's a non-issue.
If you can see it, it sees you. Period. I guarantee it.
It can see and gives special priority to humans. I have watched it mark people at night that I couldn't see at all.
Doing weird shit on the road? Certainly possible. Missing seeing a human? Definitely not happening.