<story><title>Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/uber-vehicle-reportedly-saw-but-ignored-woman-it-struck/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ksenzee</author><text>My theory is that people act like jerks behind the wheel, and come across as jerks even when they&amp;#x27;re not, because drivers have no way to apologize or ask please or do any other polite thing. All they can do is honk the horn, which is like yelling &amp;quot;HEY!!&amp;quot; If there were a communication mechanism for &amp;quot;excuse me, the light is green now&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;oops, so sorry, didn&amp;#x27;t see you there&amp;quot; driving would be easier and more pleasant.</text></item><item><author>bryanlarsen</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s a very good argument but I don&amp;#x27;t think it will come to pass, for this reason:  &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theoatmeal.com&amp;#x2F;pl&amp;#x2F;minor_differences&amp;#x2F;cutting_off&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theoatmeal.com&amp;#x2F;pl&amp;#x2F;minor_differences&amp;#x2F;cutting_off&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s something about driving that turns ordinary people into assholes.  I&amp;#x27;ve observed it in myself.   Bus passengers are much more considerate, and I think that passengers in self-driving vehicles will behave like passengers, not like drivers.  So if a pedestrian cuts them off they&amp;#x27;ll just shrug and keep playing their game or whatever they&amp;#x27;re doing.&lt;p&gt;I hope.</text></item><item><author>splouk</author><text>Or jaywalking will become more strictly enforced with policing or physical barriers.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.strongtowns.org&amp;#x2F;journal&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;automated-vehicles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.strongtowns.org&amp;#x2F;journal&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;automated-vehic...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>joncrane</author><text>&amp;gt; And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also possible that human&amp;#x2F;pedestrian behavior will adapt to the consistent behavior of driverless cars.</text></item><item><author>GenerocUsername</author><text>And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away.&lt;p&gt;I think we should be targeting self driving for long-haul freeway scenarios where the rules are relatively simple and predictable. Trying to control for the infinite number of scenarios in cities is a nightmare which will ultimately bog down the development of any company which makes that its goal.</text></item><item><author>freditup</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m curious what degree of &amp;quot;cultural context&amp;quot; is built into automated cars - I feel that there has to be a lot of locale-specific techniques for driving.&lt;p&gt;For example, in NYC, there&amp;#x27;s nothing at all uncommon about a pedestrian beginning to cross the street in front of you and approaching the area of your lane where you will shortly be. Pedestrians typically then stop about a foot away from your lane, let you drive past them, and then continue walking. If a car slammed on the brakes in this situation, it would likely cause more accidents than not braking would cause.&lt;p&gt;On the contrary, in Tempe, a pedestrian starting to do the exact same thing as above is likely much more a case of them not realizing your car is coming at all, in which case slamming on the brakes is appropriate.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t to defend Uber, clearly their car did do the wrong thing in the Tempe situation (though I make no judgment on who was at fault). And clearly cars need to be able to handle the variety of unwritten, localized driving quirks different regions have. But it seems like a very non-trivial problem to do this correctly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rhacker</author><text>I feel like in large cities the majority of drivers actually practice &amp;quot;mean&amp;quot; driving techniques - tailgating, lane protection (preventing people from merging-in when they have to), zoom-ups near contest areas, loud-music in communities, lane weaving.. I&amp;#x27;ve left the bay area a long time ago now, but it&amp;#x27;s amazing when you live outside of that a couple years how awful people are behind the wheel. I would call it passive-aggressive behavior and it is really really bad to ones mental health. Bay area, Denver, Portland, Seattle there&amp;#x27;s a few others out west here - but make no mistake, the actions people take while driving is 100% actual jerk, not mistaken jerk.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber vehicle reportedly saw but ignored woman it struck</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/07/uber-vehicle-reportedly-saw-but-ignored-woman-it-struck/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ksenzee</author><text>My theory is that people act like jerks behind the wheel, and come across as jerks even when they&amp;#x27;re not, because drivers have no way to apologize or ask please or do any other polite thing. All they can do is honk the horn, which is like yelling &amp;quot;HEY!!&amp;quot; If there were a communication mechanism for &amp;quot;excuse me, the light is green now&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;oops, so sorry, didn&amp;#x27;t see you there&amp;quot; driving would be easier and more pleasant.</text></item><item><author>bryanlarsen</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s a very good argument but I don&amp;#x27;t think it will come to pass, for this reason:  &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theoatmeal.com&amp;#x2F;pl&amp;#x2F;minor_differences&amp;#x2F;cutting_off&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;theoatmeal.com&amp;#x2F;pl&amp;#x2F;minor_differences&amp;#x2F;cutting_off&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s something about driving that turns ordinary people into assholes.  I&amp;#x27;ve observed it in myself.   Bus passengers are much more considerate, and I think that passengers in self-driving vehicles will behave like passengers, not like drivers.  So if a pedestrian cuts them off they&amp;#x27;ll just shrug and keep playing their game or whatever they&amp;#x27;re doing.&lt;p&gt;I hope.</text></item><item><author>splouk</author><text>Or jaywalking will become more strictly enforced with policing or physical barriers.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.strongtowns.org&amp;#x2F;journal&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;automated-vehicles&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.strongtowns.org&amp;#x2F;journal&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;automated-vehic...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>joncrane</author><text>&amp;gt; And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also possible that human&amp;#x2F;pedestrian behavior will adapt to the consistent behavior of driverless cars.</text></item><item><author>GenerocUsername</author><text>And welcome to why self-driving cars will always be 3 years away.&lt;p&gt;I think we should be targeting self driving for long-haul freeway scenarios where the rules are relatively simple and predictable. Trying to control for the infinite number of scenarios in cities is a nightmare which will ultimately bog down the development of any company which makes that its goal.</text></item><item><author>freditup</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m curious what degree of &amp;quot;cultural context&amp;quot; is built into automated cars - I feel that there has to be a lot of locale-specific techniques for driving.&lt;p&gt;For example, in NYC, there&amp;#x27;s nothing at all uncommon about a pedestrian beginning to cross the street in front of you and approaching the area of your lane where you will shortly be. Pedestrians typically then stop about a foot away from your lane, let you drive past them, and then continue walking. If a car slammed on the brakes in this situation, it would likely cause more accidents than not braking would cause.&lt;p&gt;On the contrary, in Tempe, a pedestrian starting to do the exact same thing as above is likely much more a case of them not realizing your car is coming at all, in which case slamming on the brakes is appropriate.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t to defend Uber, clearly their car did do the wrong thing in the Tempe situation (though I make no judgment on who was at fault). And clearly cars need to be able to handle the variety of unwritten, localized driving quirks different regions have. But it seems like a very non-trivial problem to do this correctly.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>panic</author><text>Exactly!  Every communication you try to make in a car can be interpreted as aggressiveness, which escalates anger on both sides.  You need a way to de-escalate.</text></comment>