The NHTSA website also includes a letter from the Austin Independent School District, saying the district has documented 19 instances of Waymo vehicles "illegally and dangerously" passing the district's school buses.
They're refusing to stop operations in Austin. If a dude is waving a sword outside a school but doesn't hit anyone, will we just keep letting him swing a sword around even if he said he's not hitting any kids?
Is the dude a billionaire? Because modern society is perfectly comfortable with billionaire's killing children as long as it generates economic activity (and the politicians get their cut)
What question? About the guy waving a sword around by a school? That was obviously a rhetorical question to illustrate how ridiculous it is for Waymo to continue operating here.
I don’t trust self driving cars yet either, but I trust human drivers even less. Many of us aren’t putting in our best efforts in staying focused on task when driving.
At least AI doesn’t get bored and start checking their phone.
Have you ever been in one, or do you live in a city with them? All over SF we take them all the time and they're far superior to any human that gets distracted, tired, or drives like a complete maniac on a daily basis. Don't shun progress in pursuit of perfection.
This was my thought went for the first time in August and at first surprised seeing the amount of Waymo’s but they didn’t seem that bad I tried it out 1 night and felt fine
I think there are fair concerns. Like what happens if people cant afford a new self driving car, will we do a phased situation where it new cars have it so it just slowly phases out non self driving cars?
Personally my main gripe is my job brings me to bfe dirt roads and unmarked areas so just want to be able to manually drive those locations.
I mean they still make manual cars when automatics surpassed them in all aspects these days. So I doubt normal cars would be going anywhere anytime soon
I agree with your last statement but in this case the pursuit of perfection is not wanting a self driving car to run over a kindergartner. If I passed a stopped school bus what would happen? I'd probably lose my license. What happens when a self driving car does it? The trillion dollar company gets fined 500 bucks? You see there is no incentive to make it better. There is the problem.
A single person doesn't want to hit a human because it would probably ruin their entire life. A corporation doesn't want to hit a person because of the bottom line. These are not equal.
Hitting a person with your car actually very rarely comes with consequences that could be considered life ruining if you were sober when it happens. It’s just considered an accident and the system essentially shrugs and says “it could happen to anyone”, usually you do not even serve time and often you aren’t charged with a crime if you stay at the scene after the incident.
Basically drunk driving, hit and run, and street racing are the only things that really get the book thrown at you. Everything else is a slap on the wrist territory, even if someone dies.
Yes and we are somehow comfortable with the high percentage of accidents that humans tend to cause, but up in arms about the hypothetical accident that a self-driving car might cause some day but hasn’t yet. Irrational.
Depending on the fines and cost it could just become a business expense for them or companies like them. Like parking tickets for the rich. There is no harm in making sure they are safe and wont runover pedestrians.
Although I generally don't like AI taking over everything, truth be told self driving cars are much safer than human drivers at this point. Even my dad's Tesla, years ago the full self driving terrified me but now? It hardly ever makes a mistake and when it does, it's minor compared to the mistakes human drivers make constantly. Maybe it'll fail to give someone adequate space to merge in or something, but humans do that to me constantly when I try to merge. I live in SF too and never had a problem with Waymo's on the road. The people in this city though, they're maniacs sometimes.
I am on the other end of the spectrum. I have 0 trust in any human driver, even the ones that have driving as a profession. Driving software will never not pay attention and any issue/limitation it has can be fixed and upgraded.
The trucking company thing…omg people are worried about self driving cars when we have self driving semis. I think they test between Dallas and Houston iirc.
I mean, I think the actual way we should be preventing road deaths is by using bikes/buses/trains or by walking. I guess that falls under “never drive”?
Yeah I've never had a waymo do something that terrifies me but I've had Uber drivers do the most insane shit including weaving through people on a sidewalk.
Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? The alternative is human drivers. We're all wary of self-driving cars, as we should be, but they haven't done a fraction of the shit human drivers have. I think they're already statistically speaking safer than human drivers within the scope they're currently used. There are issues and concerns, but ultimately I do think these technologies will lead to safer roads.
This study validated that Waymo’s other published data and methodologies are valid and correct. They show that the claims Waymo makes hold water from an independent source.
It’s leaps and bounds beyond what they are required to do, and a huge proof point of their safety case.
It may be leaps and bounds beyond what they're required to do, but that in itself is problematic.
There should be government oversight and independent third party safety studies that aren't conducted by the companies who stand to materially benefit from the outcomes.
Tobacco companies had studies that showed their products were safe too.
Again, I'm open to the idea that it may be factually accurate that driverless cars are more safe than humans, but I want data from independent sources.
The link you sent seems to say that Waymo conducted the studies and that they were audited by a third party. That's not the same thing as an independent third party conducting studies.
Waymos have been far safer than human drivers here in Austin. One incident (if anyone’s fault) every 96k miles. Again that’s of any type and is reported even if they were at a stop light and someone rammed into the waymo.
I switched to Waymo because I got tired of my Uber drivers being creeps. I’ll trust the machine over the guy writing about a modern US civil war on sticky notes pasted all over his car every time we hit a red light.
This is the issue isn’t not? Humans can at least provide instant feedback or be penalized to the point of losing their car privileges, money, and eventual freedom.
This is just more liability hiding behind corporate anonymity due to feckless and greedy politicians that let them get away with it because it’s profitable.
These same jerks are trying to get everyone on the hook for their over leveraged data centers and AI marketing scams. They so want to be too big to fail, because the bubble, they know it’s about to burst, and most people hate their sloppy AI-addled second offerings.
Agreed. I almost got a felony because a bus driver said I ran it when I didn't. I won in court luckily. It is lame that Waymo and corporations can get off with nothing.
A big issue with AI is they are legally treated as unthinking machines but are making decisions that would normally require a person. Who do you charge when an AI endangers children?
The answer is giant fines. I'm surprised towns aren't already doing it tbh. Fine them like 1 million per violation and treat it like those small towns where 98% of the local town revenue is from ticketing drivers on the nearby highway. Either the companies pay a ton of money to local governments, or they make the self driving cars follow the law more strictly. We win either way
Companies are people too. They can go to trial, be judged by a jury of people, and sentenced to hard time. We should put the companies in jail where they can’t do business until their time is up.
I was with you until you said purge the machines now.
How far back should we go? Get rid of self driving cars? Get rid of cars? Get rid of the wheel?
I’d rather move forward - let’s focus on making AI low resource consumptive. There’s a giant financial incentive to do this, so it is very likely to happen. We are already running smaller models on raspberry pi, so we know it can be done at some point.
You bring a really good point about feedback. Fortunately it’s easier to train millions of self driving cars with one software update. People are much harder to retrain. We absolutely need those feedback loops in place and regulations to make sure they are implemented, even when doing so is not the most profitable path.
your equivalency doesn't work. The answer is meat in seat. Even if the car is automated, you stick a hump in the driver seat to hit the brakes when the computer doesn't.
Sorry you don’t ascribe to my extremist Luddite view, but I’ll never not be throwing wrenches in the works.
I also completely disagree with it you about humans, because you can get instant feedback and even directly communicate and that often has the immediate impact.
People can learn I the blink an eye, all they have to do is be cognizant and respond to a nod, a wave, a horn honk, even a middle finger.
That level of interaction is often essential for defensive driving I find, and it’s never going to happen with a machine.
There was a news article a few days ago about a Waymo vehicle hitting and killing a dog, which illustrates the problem. Regardless of how I feel about pets (I am a very sentimental dog lover) the prospect of jail or a large fine would motivate me to avoid hitting a dog, whether it was someone's pet or a feral coyote.
But with Waymo/Google, there's no one to send to jail if it WERE adjudged a crime, and a fine that would bankrupt me would be insignificant to them. It's literally just a cost of doing business.
I feel like there are several reasons that self-driving taxis would be a good thing. But without significant consequences, (aside from possible negative publicity) it's hard to see how they will be motivated to focus on safety, rather than efficiency and growth.
But in the case of this report, and the commentor's reference (19 instances of passing a stopped school bus in Austin TX), no. It would be a misdemeanor, or a Class A misdemeanor if serious bodily injury were caused.
It would become a state felony upon the second occurrence of serious bodily injury, if that got to be the case.
Its been 10 years since it happened, and I was wrong - its a gross misdemeanor - which I got confused because they were threatening me with jail, fines and other crazy things. Scared the shit out of me.
"Gross misdemeanor" isn't a term used in Texas, and passing a school bus is a minor misdemeanor, between classes B & C. It's only a class A if you hit and really hurt someone.
Of course they didn't respond; because a response might infer guilt. Legal needs to evaluate to see if any humans were injured, and if humans were injured... Say hello to one heck of a lawsuit.
Glad you reported it
Might want to also report to better business bureau; and your states atty general.
The more established a paper trail becomes, corporations are less able to cover up their culpability and negligence.
when they stop to pick up or drop off children, a stop sign folds out and lights up. it is illegal to drive by a school bus with its stop sign out, coming from any direction. you have to wait until the sign is put away.
It's illegal to pass a stopped school bus that's letting kids on or off. Kids jump off the bus and behave unpredictably, and too many kids were going around the front of the bus and running into ongoing traffic. So now if a bus is indicating that kids are loading or unloading, all traffic on the street is required to stop and wait for the bus driver to indicate that it's safe.
I've seen videos of them blocking 1st responders, too. Its going to take them killing someone and getting sued, when we have evidence now to stop it from getting there. I dont know why government cant do anything until someone dies.
They've since installed emergency responder controls and other safety measures to fix that. Waymo is actually generally getting ahead of issues pretty quickly before they escalate.
If they didn't, they would just end up like Cruise and then lose the billions in investments. There is a fairly strong incentive for them to fix problems.
contrary view: here in LA i see Waymo robotaxis out & about every time i step out the door. I'm in bumper-to-bumper traffic with them as well ridden as a passenger a half dozen times. They're 100% better & more aware than most drivers in SoCal. They're not going to merge into you on the freeway or cut across 3 lanes to make a right turn. And they're super aware of the timing of signals. This is so important in stop and go grind where cars may not be able to make it through intersections without causing gridlock for cross-traffic when the light turns red. Yeah there are some annoyances like when they stop for pickups at corner intersections & wait for ppl to load/unload, but it's no worse than Uber drivers. And just from my obeservation, Waymo's have stopped in mid-block to allow parents with small kids to cross residential streets near schools. Most human drivers don't do that.
The bus driver honked at me and I realized too late that I was wrong. I’m still confused about why they were stopped there though. There are no residences in this area, and surely they weren’t going to make a student cross the street here?! Traffic was heavier than this at the time.
Some people are raging assholes and believe themselves to be the center of the universe and how dare some school bus have the audacity to delay their travels.
Others are so engrossed in whatever text conversation they are having or whatever video they are watching so that even something as big as a bus with flashing lights goes unnoticed.
I'm all for holding self-driving cars to a very high standard but let's be real here. The cars aren't trained to look for buses down side streets because nobody would stop in that situation. If a kid was in the crosswalk and it didn't stop, that would be one thing, but the only incident about which they've published any details only mentions the car passing perpendicularly near the intersection.
it really depends if the stop arm is out or not. Here in SoCal there are a lot of independent school buses that pick up/drop off kids from private schools in residential corners. They idle & wait for 15 to 20 minutes while parents arrive. Sure, technically & legally traffic on both sides of the street aren't allowed to pass that bus, but that means the whole street is literally cordoned off until the bus takes off.
Here guys, I vibe coded it for y’all, waymo. Just use this.
class SafeDriverProtocol:
def init(self):
self.current_speed = 50 # km/h
self.is_ticketed = False
def monitor_road(self, objects_detected):
for object in objects_detected:
# 1. If bus is seen
if object.type == "SCHOOL_BUS":
print(">> TARGET ACQUIRED: YELLOW BEHEMOTH")
# 2. Look for stop sign (pre-check)
bus_stop_sign = object.scan_component("STOP_ARM")
# 3. If bus slows, slow vehicle
if object.velocity < self.current_speed:
self.match_speed(object.velocity)
print(">> DECREASING VELOCITY. SYNCING...")
# 4. If yellow lights flashing, stop X meters behind
if object.lights.status == "FLASHING_YELLOW":
safety_buffer_meters = 20
self.hard_brake()
self.maintain_distance(object, safety_buffer_meters)
print(f">> HALTED. MAINTAINING {safety_buffer_meters}m GAP.")
# 5. Wait for stop sign to retract
# (Logic loop: Stay stopped while sign is OUT or lights are FLASHING)
while bus_stop_sign.is_extended() or object.lights.is_flashing():
self.wait()
# Optional: self.hum_jeopardy_theme_song()
# 6. Proceed normally again
print(">> THREAT NEUTRALIZED. RESUMING NORMAL NAVIGATION.")
self.accelerate_to_limit()
def match_speed(self, target_velocity):
self.current_speed = target_velocity
def wait(self):
pass # Do nothing. Just sit there.
Main execution
driver_ai = SafeDriverProtocol()
while True:
driver_ai.monitor_road(sensor_input)
Automated driving around school buses was always going to be a problem.
And if the buses they’re passing are anything like I have around my way it would be almost understandable. We have some who will come to a complete stop, with no indication it’s to drop off children, before ever switching on the lights and signage thus making a lot of people feel really awful unnecessarily when they do come on with the other driver already being halfway around the bus.
Seems like I’m the only one that thinks this is a nothing burger. No one was harmed. We as a society are training these cars to drive autonomously. Ultimately they will drive humans millions of miles for years to come with far far FAR less accidents that us humans have caused in our driving tenure.
We need to break a couple eggs to make an omelette , but this isn’t even a broken egg.
I don't get why Reddit is so anti-autonomous driving. Is it just an extension of hate for rich people that own the technology and will get more rich from it?
Problem isnt the future of all automated driving vehicles but how it meshes with not-automated entities like pedestrian traffic or even utility traffic
Ive no doubt these drive better than non automated entities but I doubt they work well in conjunction with them currently | IE in this case I do see it stopping just in time as a kid crosses and wont hit a kid but the case is why does it not yield right of way by default? It is creating risk scenarios even if it will mostly be "ok"
Like racing across a RR crossing- you'll mostly be ok but like why bother creating that risk?
Seems like they’ve taken action and addressing the situation. Clearly the company has a lot to lose if an accident occurs , a lot more in this specific context than even with adults.
This makes me wonder how robocars react to being pulled over by a cop. Would they kick the passenger out and tow the vehicle? Or what if it's not for a traffic violation, something like a DWI checkpoint.
Why don’t you just have proper bus operation with passenger entry and exit like every other country. This bus thing in the USA is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. At no point should any vehicle have to stop because a bus has stopped. No where else in the world does this. It’s ridiculous.
It's a school bus, not a regular passenger bus. We stop because kids cannot be expected to always follow the rules. We stop because we'd prefer a little wasted time over having to peel a 1st or 2nd grader off of our bumper.
I feel like instead of trying to insert self-driving cars into our current road system designed for human drivers, we need to create a new road system designed for self-driving cars.
We’re about to get more “click on the stopped school bus” captchas
They're refusing to stop operations in Austin. If a dude is waving a sword outside a school but doesn't hit anyone, will we just keep letting him swing a sword around even if he said he's not hitting any kids?
We're all just learning opportunities in a non-consensual traffic experiment.
A modern trolly problem
1 driver working or 5 dead children
Billionaires: oh that's an easy
onefiveTo darkly paraphrase...
"It's only five children, how much are they worth!?"
If they are not employed its actually a financial gain for society /s.
Is the dude a billionaire? Because modern society is perfectly comfortable with billionaire's killing children as long as it generates economic activity (and the politicians get their cut)
Waymo is owned by Alphabet (google).
well then what’s up with the question? nobody will stop them
What question? About the guy waving a sword around by a school? That was obviously a rhetorical question to illustrate how ridiculous it is for Waymo to continue operating here.
If I pass one school bus I lose my license for a year. Seems like they should lose their ability to operate for 19 years.
It Texas (or at least, Austin) it’s a $300 fine for first offense.
"So, that's 19 first offenses. Let's just call it one, suspended. (bangs gavel) Next case!"
--the judge, probably
19 cars 19 first offenses!
It sounds like they would just chalk it up as part of the cost of doing business unless there was a dramatics increase in the fines.
If the dude was a corporation...probably.
What a weird and useless analogy.
If these cars have a per mile record better than human drivers then yes. It will save lives.
Do machetes count? Because in Austin… yeah?
I don't really trust Waymo's self-driving, but I trust Tesla's even less.
I guess I rank AI on untrustworthiness, not trustworthiness.
I trust exactly zero self driving software.
I don’t trust self driving cars yet either, but I trust human drivers even less. Many of us aren’t putting in our best efforts in staying focused on task when driving.
At least AI doesn’t get bored and start checking their phone.
why dont we mix the two and then get tesla where the rate of deadly crashes is twice the national average
Well, this isn't about Teslas, is it?
Human driver fucks up and they will lose their license to operate. Self driving car fucks up and they add it to the corpus.
Have you ever been in one, or do you live in a city with them? All over SF we take them all the time and they're far superior to any human that gets distracted, tired, or drives like a complete maniac on a daily basis. Don't shun progress in pursuit of perfection.
This was my thought went for the first time in August and at first surprised seeing the amount of Waymo’s but they didn’t seem that bad I tried it out 1 night and felt fine
People hated when drunk driving laws were created. People hated when seatbelts were installed in all cars.
People hate change
I think there are fair concerns. Like what happens if people cant afford a new self driving car, will we do a phased situation where it new cars have it so it just slowly phases out non self driving cars?
Personally my main gripe is my job brings me to bfe dirt roads and unmarked areas so just want to be able to manually drive those locations.
I mean they still make manual cars when automatics surpassed them in all aspects these days. So I doubt normal cars would be going anywhere anytime soon
Good point, that's kind of how I think it will play out too.
They’ll probably have a hybrid model, with a few roads being self-driving only.
Over time, that number would likely go up.
I agree with your last statement but in this case the pursuit of perfection is not wanting a self driving car to run over a kindergartner. If I passed a stopped school bus what would happen? I'd probably lose my license. What happens when a self driving car does it? The trillion dollar company gets fined 500 bucks? You see there is no incentive to make it better. There is the problem.
You think there is no incentive for them to not have their cars hit humans? The literal point of this entire post is to make the car better.
A single person doesn't want to hit a human because it would probably ruin their entire life. A corporation doesn't want to hit a person because of the bottom line. These are not equal.
Hitting a person with your car actually very rarely comes with consequences that could be considered life ruining if you were sober when it happens. It’s just considered an accident and the system essentially shrugs and says “it could happen to anyone”, usually you do not even serve time and often you aren’t charged with a crime if you stay at the scene after the incident.
Basically drunk driving, hit and run, and street racing are the only things that really get the book thrown at you. Everything else is a slap on the wrist territory, even if someone dies.
Unfortunately that's because sometimes things are genuinely an accident too.
Yes and we are somehow comfortable with the high percentage of accidents that humans tend to cause, but up in arms about the hypothetical accident that a self-driving car might cause some day but hasn’t yet. Irrational.
And people hit humans with cars substantially more often than Waymos do.
Depending on the fines and cost it could just become a business expense for them or companies like them. Like parking tickets for the rich. There is no harm in making sure they are safe and wont runover pedestrians.
[deleted]
Although I generally don't like AI taking over everything, truth be told self driving cars are much safer than human drivers at this point. Even my dad's Tesla, years ago the full self driving terrified me but now? It hardly ever makes a mistake and when it does, it's minor compared to the mistakes human drivers make constantly. Maybe it'll fail to give someone adequate space to merge in or something, but humans do that to me constantly when I try to merge. I live in SF too and never had a problem with Waymo's on the road. The people in this city though, they're maniacs sometimes.
They should stop operating until they fix the issue. They would be more incentivized not to kill school kids that way.
How many were killed?
I am on the other end of the spectrum. I have 0 trust in any human driver, even the ones that have driving as a profession. Driving software will never not pay attention and any issue/limitation it has can be fixed and upgraded.
Do you honestly believe that these issues or limitations will be discovered in a controlled lab environment?
There will almost certainly be a blood price each time.
Same with humans, difference is humans have a high chance of repeating it.
Self driving cars might just be the next best thing to what we currently have.
But you trust a human? Silly.
I don’t trust human drivers either.
Gotta pick a lane or just never drive. I'm in the self-driving car one. Give it 5-10 years and the mistakes will drop to nearly zero.
Its always 5-10 years.
Waymos have been clearly better than humans (in the places they drive) for several years and for the whole time they’ve been operating.
The first self driving tesla was 10 years ago. Self driving trucking companies have been out of development stage for maybe 2 years.
The Phone 6 came out 10 years ago.
HBO max, Apple TV, Paramount, Disney plus all launched in the last 5 years.
The trucking company thing…omg people are worried about self driving cars when we have self driving semis. I think they test between Dallas and Houston iirc.
I mean, I think the actual way we should be preventing road deaths is by using bikes/buses/trains or by walking. I guess that falls under “never drive”?
i get it, you have trust issues but someone has to drive the bus/train, do you trust them?
I trust Waymo more than 99.283% of the drivers out there.
Yeah I've never had a waymo do something that terrifies me but I've had Uber drivers do the most insane shit including weaving through people on a sidewalk.
Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? The alternative is human drivers. We're all wary of self-driving cars, as we should be, but they haven't done a fraction of the shit human drivers have. I think they're already statistically speaking safer than human drivers within the scope they're currently used. There are issues and concerns, but ultimately I do think these technologies will lead to safer roads.
According to what statistics? Who measured them? The industry? independent scientists?
It may be factually accurate that waymo is safer. It may not be.
The only statistics I've seen have come from Waymo or Tesla, and I am sorry but I don't trust them as unbiased sources.
There should be some sort of government safety oversight and testing. We shouldn't use public roads for this purpose.
They’ve had independent studies from TUV SUD (which is basically the gold standard) that agreed.
https://waymo.com/blog/2025/11/independent-audits
Ok. I read through that blog post. I'm not sure what that certification means though.
Where are the independent studies showing that driverless vehicles cause less accidents than humans per mile driven?
This study validated that Waymo’s other published data and methodologies are valid and correct. They show that the claims Waymo makes hold water from an independent source.
It’s leaps and bounds beyond what they are required to do, and a huge proof point of their safety case.
It may be leaps and bounds beyond what they're required to do, but that in itself is problematic.
There should be government oversight and independent third party safety studies that aren't conducted by the companies who stand to materially benefit from the outcomes.
Tobacco companies had studies that showed their products were safe too.
Again, I'm open to the idea that it may be factually accurate that driverless cars are more safe than humans, but I want data from independent sources.
The link you sent seems to say that Waymo conducted the studies and that they were audited by a third party. That's not the same thing as an independent third party conducting studies.
I trust that Waymo will do everything humanly possible to escape culpability for incidents caused by their property.
I also trust Waymo more than road-rage drivers who let emotions take the wheel.
"As of October 2024, according to GVA data, 116 people have been killed in road rage "
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/20/what-the-data-says-about-dangerous-driving-and-road-rage-in-the-us/
Waymos have been far safer than human drivers here in Austin. One incident (if anyone’s fault) every 96k miles. Again that’s of any type and is reported even if they were at a stop light and someone rammed into the waymo.
I switched to Waymo because I got tired of my Uber drivers being creeps. I’ll trust the machine over the guy writing about a modern US civil war on sticky notes pasted all over his car every time we hit a red light.
Yes, this was a real experience.
I trust humans (excepting you, of course) far less
On a scale from Satan to Abraham Lincoln, how much do you trust Waymo to yield at a roundabout with poor visibility during a haboob?
About the same as I trust a human driver. So...Adam Smith?
Satan is probably a better driver than Abraham Lincoln, given that Lincoln died a quarter century before the invention of the automobile.
Now, whether Satan would actually yield is a different question that I do not have an answer to.
More than the average driver
So is Waymo going to get 19 felonies then? If not- what the heck.
edit: Sorry - it is a gross misdemeanor not felony. my bad.
edit 2: I guess the laws vary greatly state to state.
This is the issue isn’t not? Humans can at least provide instant feedback or be penalized to the point of losing their car privileges, money, and eventual freedom.
This is just more liability hiding behind corporate anonymity due to feckless and greedy politicians that let them get away with it because it’s profitable.
These same jerks are trying to get everyone on the hook for their over leveraged data centers and AI marketing scams. They so want to be too big to fail, because the bubble, they know it’s about to burst, and most people hate their sloppy AI-addled second offerings.
Purge the machines now.
Agreed. I almost got a felony because a bus driver said I ran it when I didn't. I won in court luckily. It is lame that Waymo and corporations can get off with nothing.
A big issue with AI is they are legally treated as unthinking machines but are making decisions that would normally require a person. Who do you charge when an AI endangers children?
We see it with the AI that helped or encouraged suicide. We see it with AI starting sexualized convos with kids.
Products liability.
The answer is giant fines. I'm surprised towns aren't already doing it tbh. Fine them like 1 million per violation and treat it like those small towns where 98% of the local town revenue is from ticketing drivers on the nearby highway. Either the companies pay a ton of money to local governments, or they make the self driving cars follow the law more strictly. We win either way
Companies are people too. They can go to trial, be judged by a jury of people, and sentenced to hard time. We should put the companies in jail where they can’t do business until their time is up.
I was with you until you said purge the machines now.
How far back should we go? Get rid of self driving cars? Get rid of cars? Get rid of the wheel?
I’d rather move forward - let’s focus on making AI low resource consumptive. There’s a giant financial incentive to do this, so it is very likely to happen. We are already running smaller models on raspberry pi, so we know it can be done at some point.
You bring a really good point about feedback. Fortunately it’s easier to train millions of self driving cars with one software update. People are much harder to retrain. We absolutely need those feedback loops in place and regulations to make sure they are implemented, even when doing so is not the most profitable path.
your equivalency doesn't work. The answer is meat in seat. Even if the car is automated, you stick a hump in the driver seat to hit the brakes when the computer doesn't.
Sorry you don’t ascribe to my extremist Luddite view, but I’ll never not be throwing wrenches in the works.
I also completely disagree with it you about humans, because you can get instant feedback and even directly communicate and that often has the immediate impact.
People can learn I the blink an eye, all they have to do is be cognizant and respond to a nod, a wave, a horn honk, even a middle finger. That level of interaction is often essential for defensive driving I find, and it’s never going to happen with a machine.
There was a news article a few days ago about a Waymo vehicle hitting and killing a dog, which illustrates the problem. Regardless of how I feel about pets (I am a very sentimental dog lover) the prospect of jail or a large fine would motivate me to avoid hitting a dog, whether it was someone's pet or a feral coyote.
But with Waymo/Google, there's no one to send to jail if it WERE adjudged a crime, and a fine that would bankrupt me would be insignificant to them. It's literally just a cost of doing business.
I feel like there are several reasons that self-driving taxis would be a good thing. But without significant consequences, (aside from possible negative publicity) it's hard to see how they will be motivated to focus on safety, rather than efficiency and growth.
Realistically no human faces legal consequences for accidentally hitting a dog with a car.
Passing a stopped school bus is a felony?
Varies by state.
But in the case of this report, and the commentor's reference (19 instances of passing a stopped school bus in Austin TX), no. It would be a misdemeanor, or a Class A misdemeanor if serious bodily injury were caused.
It would become a state felony upon the second occurrence of serious bodily injury, if that got to be the case.
Its been 10 years since it happened, and I was wrong - its a gross misdemeanor - which I got confused because they were threatening me with jail, fines and other crazy things. Scared the shit out of me.
"Gross misdemeanor" isn't a term used in Texas, and passing a school bus is a minor misdemeanor, between classes B & C. It's only a class A if you hit and really hurt someone.
And minor misdemeanor aren't really a crime, usually a traffic violation or a city ordinance and don't carry a criminal conviction.
In MN, I guess its a misdemeanor, unless kids are present - then its a gross misdemeanor.
This would be a minor misdemeanor in the state akin to a parking ticket or very slightly speeding.
It’s happened to my school bus in Los Angeles. I reported it to Waymo, no response
Of course they didn't respond; because a response might infer guilt. Legal needs to evaluate to see if any humans were injured, and if humans were injured... Say hello to one heck of a lawsuit.
Glad you reported it Might want to also report to better business bureau; and your states atty general. The more established a paper trail becomes, corporations are less able to cover up their culpability and negligence.
I'm confused, is it illegal to pass a school bus in America?
when they stop to pick up or drop off children, a stop sign folds out and lights up. it is illegal to drive by a school bus with its stop sign out, coming from any direction. you have to wait until the sign is put away.
It's illegal to pass a stopped school bus that's letting kids on or off. Kids jump off the bus and behave unpredictably, and too many kids were going around the front of the bus and running into ongoing traffic. So now if a bus is indicating that kids are loading or unloading, all traffic on the street is required to stop and wait for the bus driver to indicate that it's safe.
Shit used to happen when I worked for them years ago lmao
I saw a video earlier of one driving into a flooded area with a person in the back. Fuck all of that.
I've seen videos of them blocking 1st responders, too. Its going to take them killing someone and getting sued, when we have evidence now to stop it from getting there. I dont know why government cant do anything until someone dies.
We’re living in a corporatocracy
They've since installed emergency responder controls and other safety measures to fix that. Waymo is actually generally getting ahead of issues pretty quickly before they escalate.
If they didn't, they would just end up like Cruise and then lose the billions in investments. There is a fairly strong incentive for them to fix problems.
contrary view: here in LA i see Waymo robotaxis out & about every time i step out the door. I'm in bumper-to-bumper traffic with them as well ridden as a passenger a half dozen times. They're 100% better & more aware than most drivers in SoCal. They're not going to merge into you on the freeway or cut across 3 lanes to make a right turn. And they're super aware of the timing of signals. This is so important in stop and go grind where cars may not be able to make it through intersections without causing gridlock for cross-traffic when the light turns red. Yeah there are some annoyances like when they stop for pickups at corner intersections & wait for ppl to load/unload, but it's no worse than Uber drivers. And just from my obeservation, Waymo's have stopped in mid-block to allow parents with small kids to cross residential streets near schools. Most human drivers don't do that.
I love being a beta test for billionaires
I mean, who among us doesn’t occasionally pass a stopped school bus lol
/s (mostly)
AI is functionally a single driver. So even if you passed a stopped school bus, did you do it 20 times?
And I'd do it again 😤
In a day? No. In a month? Well maybe those kids could walk more than 5ft to the bus stop so it isn't stopping so frequently.
Hopefully none of us? Why would you pass a stopped school bus?
I passed a stopped school bus here once: https://imgur.com/a/aauCo4U
The bus driver honked at me and I realized too late that I was wrong. I’m still confused about why they were stopped there though. There are no residences in this area, and surely they weren’t going to make a student cross the street here?! Traffic was heavier than this at the time.
Look man, a lot of children live in a vast retail sprawl next to a major suburban mall, wedged between Interstate 5 and a light industrial zone.
Well there was a Toys R Us there at one point.
Some people are raging assholes and believe themselves to be the center of the universe and how dare some school bus have the audacity to delay their travels.
Others are so engrossed in whatever text conversation they are having or whatever video they are watching so that even something as big as a bus with flashing lights goes unnoticed.
So they go around the bus while its stopped
To get to where I need to go. I don't wanna back up traffic.
I'm all for holding self-driving cars to a very high standard but let's be real here. The cars aren't trained to look for buses down side streets because nobody would stop in that situation. If a kid was in the crosswalk and it didn't stop, that would be one thing, but the only incident about which they've published any details only mentions the car passing perpendicularly near the intersection.
A lot of people do because they're very impatient
Or because it's legal and normal where they live.
Do you live in the US? Because if so no its not legal where you live.
No I don't.
it really depends if the stop arm is out or not. Here in SoCal there are a lot of independent school buses that pick up/drop off kids from private schools in residential corners. They idle & wait for 15 to 20 minutes while parents arrive. Sure, technically & legally traffic on both sides of the street aren't allowed to pass that bus, but that means the whole street is literally cordoned off until the bus takes off.
I do that pretty often.
“If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver”
-Waymo, 2025
Here guys, I vibe coded it for y’all, waymo. Just use this.
class SafeDriverProtocol: def init(self): self.current_speed = 50 # km/h self.is_ticketed = False
Main execution
driver_ai = SafeDriverProtocol() while True: driver_ai.monitor_road(sensor_input)
Ayrton “Waymo” Senna
Meanwhile, self-driving Teslas keep driving through pedestrians like they were meaty puddles.
This is just not true.
Most jokes aren't.
Automated driving around school buses was always going to be a problem.
And if the buses they’re passing are anything like I have around my way it would be almost understandable. We have some who will come to a complete stop, with no indication it’s to drop off children, before ever switching on the lights and signage thus making a lot of people feel really awful unnecessarily when they do come on with the other driver already being halfway around the bus.
Won’t they receive any criminal penalties? Their cars broke the law. It’s on them. If nothing else their drivers insurance should go up.
Waymos in Atlanta are hilariously bad, running red lights and having no idea how to drive on the roads with tram lines.
You couldn't pay me to take one of those things.
I’ve ridden in one in San Francisco a couple times, and honestly found it safe then Ubers there.
But they spent a lot of time getting it to that point
San Francisco is also way more grid based, Atlanta not so much.
I'd love to see one of those things try to wiggle through Boston.
SF also has the insane hills that are hard for humans in the car to see over. Flatter areas don’t have that.
I’ve taken Waymos around in Atlanta without incident. Where did you run into issues?
Near Uber headquarters
The one that just stopped in the middle of an intersection was comically bad.
Seems like I’m the only one that thinks this is a nothing burger. No one was harmed. We as a society are training these cars to drive autonomously. Ultimately they will drive humans millions of miles for years to come with far far FAR less accidents that us humans have caused in our driving tenure. We need to break a couple eggs to make an omelette , but this isn’t even a broken egg.
I don't get why Reddit is so anti-autonomous driving. Is it just an extension of hate for rich people that own the technology and will get more rich from it?
Seems like it.
Like 20 years ago we would have shit all over Uber because they were taking taxi cab jobs.
Where I live, Uber drivers need the same education & license as actual taxi drivers, and must operate in the same way.
It's seen as an excuse to not improve public transport like train and bus routes as well as walkable / cycleable city design.
It's just feeding into the car hell.
Problem isnt the future of all automated driving vehicles but how it meshes with not-automated entities like pedestrian traffic or even utility traffic
Ive no doubt these drive better than non automated entities but I doubt they work well in conjunction with them currently | IE in this case I do see it stopping just in time as a kid crosses and wont hit a kid but the case is why does it not yield right of way by default? It is creating risk scenarios even if it will mostly be "ok"
Like racing across a RR crossing- you'll mostly be ok but like why bother creating that risk?
Seems like they’ve taken action and addressing the situation. Clearly the company has a lot to lose if an accident occurs , a lot more in this specific context than even with adults.
Remember guys, with AI, you are the ones testing it.
This makes me wonder how robocars react to being pulled over by a cop. Would they kick the passenger out and tow the vehicle? Or what if it's not for a traffic violation, something like a DWI checkpoint.
Recalling the software or the cars?
This doesn't make sense. Shouldn't they be releasing hellcat mode which intentionally mows children down around school busses?
The onboard AI probably didn't detect the little pop-out STOP sign that those busses use.
Why don’t you just have proper bus operation with passenger entry and exit like every other country. This bus thing in the USA is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. At no point should any vehicle have to stop because a bus has stopped. No where else in the world does this. It’s ridiculous.
It's a school bus, not a regular passenger bus. We stop because kids cannot be expected to always follow the rules. We stop because we'd prefer a little wasted time over having to peel a 1st or 2nd grader off of our bumper.
They got tickets right? Or is there zero accountability?
I feel like instead of trying to insert self-driving cars into our current road system designed for human drivers, we need to create a new road system designed for self-driving cars.
I hope Waymo has to pay a fine every time this happens.