Autonomous Cars Are Too Polite

As driverless taxis are being rolled out in various cities in the US, a new problem has emerged – “over-politeness induced traffic jams”. Cities like San Francisco in California and Austin, Texas allow larger numbers of “robo-taxis” on the streets out of normal business hours and dozens of these taxis are roaming the streets at night.

One of the GM Cruise business autonomous taxis

Apparently when these “polite” autonomous taxis arrive at an intersection without traffic lights, to dictate who has right of way, they can get confused and refuse to move, even though gaps exist in the traffic.

In Austin recently one robo-taxi stopped at an intersection and was unable to navigate itself out, and a queue of other robo-taxis quickly built up behind it, and in surrounding streets. Authorities report these traffic jams would have been avoided if a human was behind the wheel to make a “simple decision”.

Robo-taxis causing gridlock at intersection

The challenge for autonomous car designers is getting the balance right between achieving the main objective of providing efficient transport with giving safety the top priority, even if this means staying stationary indefinitely.

The programming for these cars is still a long way off us ordinary humans, who can quickly see a problem emerging and make alternate decisions for the circumstances. However, we expect programming for autonomous cars will learn from this experience and solutions will emerge.

 *Acknowledgement: Based on article by from drive.com.au web news 26 September 2023

Autonomous Taxi Permit Suspended

Since our article above was published, in September, General Motors’ self-driving taxi company Cruise has halted operations in San Francisco after the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended their permit to operate.

Robo-Taxi Involved in Hit-Run Accident

This decision comes after one of their robo-taxis was involved in a hit-and-run incident on 2 October.

According to Cruise a Nissan sedan in the lane next to one of its robo-taxis struck a pedestrian who entered a pedestrian crossing against a red light. The pedestrian was thrown into the path of the Cruise driverless taxi.

DMV say the Cruise robo-taxi came to a complete stop but ran over the injured pedestrian during its hard emergency braking manoeuvre. The robo-taxi then attempted to pull over, dragging the pedestrian underneath the vehicle approximately 7m.

DMV claim Cruise was slow in providing video of the incident, but Cruise deny this and say they showed DMV representatives the full video several times the day after and provided a copy of the video when requested.

This accident highlights the complexity of situations that autonomous vehicles could encounter and increases the challenge for programmers to detect obstacles under the car as well as post collision action eg stop or pull over out of traffic.

Note: Based on information (above) it would appear the robo-taxi did not cause the accident, and a human driver might also have attempted to pull off the road if they were unaware of a person trapped under their car.

Robo Taxi Enters Fire Scene & Drive Through Caution Tape

In separate incidents San Francisco fire fighter said they had to smash the front window of a robo-taxi when it entered a fire scene and nearly ran over their hoses. In March this year two Cruise driverless cars drove through caution tape put up after wind storms brought down trees and power lines.