I think you underestimate how crazy and obnoxious people can be. Take San Francisco, as an example. There are people who are poor and disenfranchised, and mentally ill, who feel that it gives them some power to saunter out into traffic and make everybody stop. With an autonomous car, that deranged person can just sit down in front of the car, bringing everything to a halt. Take New York as another example. For years I only walked in NYC and I figured that all drivers were maniacs. Then I drove though Manhattan once and I realized the actual dynamic. If a driver doesn't put on a credible appearance of being willing to run down pedestrians, the pedestrians will never stop crossing the street. How does an autonomous car fit into that?

I think these cars are going to work brilliantly in very polite and orderly places like Zurich, where everybody takes their turn and neither pedestrians nor bicyclists nor drivers feel put upon by the system. I have no idea how they are going to work here in America where we dump our mentally ill on the streets, and then don't give them sidewalks and crosswalks or any sense of dignity. I have a feeling it's going to work quite poorly.

>that deranged person can just sit down in front of the car, bringing everything to a halt.

They can do that now unless you are suggesting running them over as a solution.

More likely are laws introduced against willfully and unconstructively obstructing autonomous vehicles with right of way and by way of facial recognition the autonomous vehicle turns in the perpetrator., else it summons its neighbors to swarm the offender till authorities come to resolve the impasse.

I think in most countries that's already illegal, regardless of whether a human or an AI is driving the vehicle.

No doubt we'll see people doing this, however. Because change is scary.

You can jump out of your car and either rationally debate with them the merits of allowing access to the right-of-way, or jump directly to violent threats. The problem with autonomous cars as they are being rationalized to the public is that half the time the car will have no occupants at all. There will be nobody in the car to leap out and shake their fist.

Then either the person in the car behind will jump out and tell the idiot to move or if all the cars waiting are autonomous then they can all collectively out-wait the deranged idiot blocking traffic since they have infinite patience unlike humans.

Make sure to take your GoPro, I want to see the upload of you, on a dark night, getting out of your car, into freezing winter temperatures in a lonely, isolated part of town, to negotiate with a violent drunk or two.

Just turn around? So the cars will be near spherical in design and with 4 wheel steering? Cool.

There are so many unresolved issues around self-driving cars, and the answer always seems to be "just do this", without any real solution to the problem as described. Self-driving vehicles may well be a good thing, but let's not stick our heads in the clouds and assume "it'll be okay".

Or just do what a driverless car would do: call the authorities or turn around and proceed by another route.

Edit: ellaboration. Stopping in traffic and calling the cops because of this is going to be a non-starter. If you're the cause of the blockage how are they going to get there? The GP is right, there are many situations where it's not going to well, and I can see lots of pranks by highschoolers that will completely mess with self driving cars.

Heck an accidental release of confetti would be an interesting experiment.

Why are you pretending to be stupid?

The cops would only be called if the car is blocked for several minutes or the passenger decides to do so. Nobody cares if the car has to brake for a few seconds and then continues driving as usual. We spend far more time at traffic lights anway.

"Why are you pretending to be stupid?" Is a rather abrasive tone for HN.

> How are they going to get there?

By motorcycle

Aren't they usually on bicycles when they do this now?

(I'm sorry, I could not resist. I tried.)

As someone that commutes to work via foot (for 20 years, 4 miles round trip), living across from SF, what you describe is by far the exception. The rule? Rude and dangerous drivers not yielding to legally crossing pedestrians.

I would put the ratio of bad pedestrians to bad drivers at 1:1000.

> Cars should yield to pedestrians and cyclists

The problem is if they don't and pedestrian gets killed there is not way to resurect the pedestrian, and start over. Therefore, pedestrian's goals is staying alive regardless of what laws are written in the books.

To put it another way, most countries out there have laws about "cars yield to pedestrians on crossings" but in a lot of places I wouldn't want to prove a point or rely on the drivers to obey the law vs just staying alive and in one piece.

> autonomous police cars who bringing reliable traffic enforcement to all road users.

Hmm. Now this is interesting. We are almost there -- red light cameras, speed camers, automated toll booths, cars are always recording and logging their speed, acceleration and hundres of other parameters, onstar system. Now we just need an incentive such as an insurance discount to have cars be remotely disabled and pulled over of they speed too much where it becomes unsafe, or if they run red light.

At first you'd think nobody would buy it, but maybe if car insurance goes from $500 a quarter to $150 there would be some takers. Then before you know it, it would become illegal to drive cars that don't have that feature.

I would be very happy if all taxis and other commercial vehicles (Uber, Lyft, etc.) would have their speed tracked and automatic citations issued for going more than 15 mph above the speed limit. As it is the taxis and Uber cars speed along my 25mph limit residential street at 50mph+ all night long.

Ask the city council to install some speed bumps. That's what they do here in Finland.

Why not just increase the speed limit by 15 mph and issue citations automatically at SL+1?

Well, personally I would prefer they drive 25 mph, as that’s the most reasonable speed on a residential street. But if they go 35 it’s at least not too insane. 55–60 on the other hand is pedestrian murder waiting to happen.

You know, in my country (Brazil), airbags were optional until last year, and this only after a lot of political fighting because of strong lobbying from the automakers. In a country with so many automobile related deaths (44,000 in 2010, more than gun related deaths, and there are a lot of gun deaths here) it's ridiculous that the bills were so hard to pass. Also, if you refuse a breathalyzer test, it can't be used agains you (the refusal), unlike what happens in many countries. So I'm all for regulation and logging, and penalties to speeding drivers. Sorry to the libertarians (I'm one on some issues) but, less regulation my ass.

That's already happening. There are also some laws/policies which state that insurance premiums won't be increased for anyone who chooses to abstain from such a tracking program, but we'll see how long that lasts.

You don't have to raise the rates of someone who doesn't use the tracking; you simply lower the rates of someone who does - that's how the current tracking systems work, several insurance companies already have them.

I'm guessing here (no numbers to back it up), but likely the reason you don't see more of this is safe drivers would sign up for it, and in insurance the safe/low risk drivers are the ones already subsidizing the crazies and making it work. I took part in something similar for my insurance company (Progressive) and received a whopping 6% discount for safe driving.

My bet is until automated driving reaches a point where it can become cheaper than the insurance premium otherwise. At that point lies the critical mass where so many will buy it to save money that the price plummets towards zero/fully integrated basic requirement.

You can't have controlled traffic flows with constant jaywalking. And traffic flows will be increasingly important in order to minimize power consumption by automobiles and keep our growing cities liveable.