The NHTSA is probing Google-supported Waymo regarding crashes caused by its driverless taxi program and underperforming self-driving tech.
As expected, Waymo deflects responsibility for the crash, as if no human driver has ever encountered a car being towed.
The company says one of its vehicles encountered a tow truck improperly pulling a pickup, which was facing rearward and askew across a center turn lane and regular traffic lane.
A situation a human would have easily navigated.
This whole alpha testing driverless vehicles on the public road is bullshit.
I mean, Waymo should definitely be held accountable and take responsibility for this accident, as it is something most human drivers would easily drive around. Them trying to blame it on other things is bullshit.
That being said, Waymos’ driverless cars are already much safer than the average human driver.
The alpha testing on public roads is a bit iffy, but idk how well they would be able to really QA test in a closed environment. Personally, I’m more concerned with sharing the road with many terrible human drivers that we already are forced to do. The faster we can get the driverless thing going, the better off we will be.
If there are tests on public roads, there should be independent government oversight financed by a fee on the company testing. Not to mention there should be special insurance by the company.
The government should mandate telemetry, reporting and safety precaution standards that have to be followed. This will allow the government to also learn as these systems become more commonplace.
But that is my opinion.
There is independent government oversight. That’s NHTSA, the agency doing these investigations. The companies operating these vehicles also have insurance as a requirement of public operating permits (managed by the states). NHTSA also requires mandatory reporting of accidents involving these vehicles and has safety standards.
The only thing missing is the fee, and I’m not sure what purpose that’s supposed to serve. Regulators shouldn’t be directly paid by the organizations they’re regulating.
Nah, these organizations have been gutted over the years in the name of small government. To the point that they do not have the Manpower to actually properly regulate or oversee.
I’m talking about a dedicated team of specialists that oversee these kind of processes. These specialists don’t come cheap.
The fee is paid to the federal government and should be sufficient for the government to finance the oversight of innovation like this.
Sounds like we should be using Waymo way less.
I’m still waiting for more people to burn them.