Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Citizen reporter Joel Johnson documenting some of his hair raising experiences in San Francisco robot taxicabs. Includes video.
Waymo self-driving robotaxi goes rogue with passenger inside, escapes support staff
We speak to man who experienced and recorded wild ride first hand
Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Mon 17 May 2021 // 20:51 UTC
A Waymo self-driving car got stuck several times, held up traffic intermittently, and departed unexpectedly when assistance arrived. The wayward autonomous vehicle was finally commandeered by a support driver.
Joel Johnson has recorded several dozen videos documenting his rides in Waymo robotaxis which he posts to his website and YouTube Channel.
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Johnson is advised to remain seated with his seat belt fastened in case the car starts moving again, which it does: about four minutes later, the car decides to turn into the unblocked lefthand southbound land, only to swerve back into the right hand lane between two traffic cones after passing the “Keep Left” sign that directs drivers not to be in that lane.
“Oh, I don’t think it was supposed to do that,” Johnson said to the Waymo operator, still on the line. “…Oh now, it’s blocking the entire road.”
A few minutes later, the car reverses into the open left-hand lane.
“Okay, so we ‘re backing out,” said Johnson. “Very interesting.”
“So it backed out…,” the operator said.
“And then now it’s blocking the whole lane instead of half of it,” Johnson replied.
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Read more: https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/17/waymo_robotaxi_malfunction/
The video;
Note the video contains a section of annoying corporate voiceover, you can skip forward a bit if you get tired of listening to Waymo’s excuses explanation.
This incident brings back memories of many years ago, when my mum tried to teach me to drive. She turned up unexpectedly to give me a lesson the day after a big night. It didn’t work out.
Lets just say that if my impression that autonomous cabs struggle to match my driving skills on the day of my first driving lesson is correct, I’m going to wait a few years before trusting my life to a robot driver.
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These cars will cause total gridlock. Main reason is that they are programmed to be very cautious, so default behavior is to stop or not proceed unless absolutely sure.
I do not think that AI can deal with matters of courtesy in a traffic situation as this requires Access to a means of communication outside the ability of AI to comprehend, such as a flashing light, a waved or pointing hand or even a smile in agreement and a thank you.
Traffic in the U.K. relies on this courtesy to keep things moving in many situations.
What worries me amongst other things, is meeting up with an AI vehicle with right of way firmly built into its system which prevents it doing the sensible thing to get things moving. The more there are the worse it will get.
I wish some one would look at the advances in Lidar, video, and other sensors and apply them to a much simpler system. Stoplights. Could we stop making cars idle at red lights when there are no cars visible in the crossing road? There are all kinds of traffic control optimizations possible while maintaining some minimum timing changes. When traffic is backing up in a cross street, increase the green light time for the cross street. This is possible without reducing safety. Image a system that is always trying to optimize traffic flow and synchronizing the lights to minimize idling time.