A Google small neighorbood electric vehicle (aka golf cart) was recently pulled over while traveling on an extremely busy main thoroughfare in the Silicon Valley and a cute story is forming in the media about a cop who pulls over a car with no driver for no reason. What happened you ask? The car was driving slowly, 24 mph (40 kmh) in a 35 mph (55 kmh) and had a chain of other cars behind it being held up. The Google team even acts as if this is some kind of badge of honor: Driving too slowly? Bet humans don't get pulled over for that too often.
Yes, well, they do in fact get pulled over exactly for things like this. California has a law about holding up traffic on a highway. California has a law about driving at speeds so low they are dangerous because differences with other vehicles are too high. None of those laws were broken here as the Google vehicle was never actually operating outside of the law. However being inside the law isn't what we should be analyzing.
When was the last time you saw a golf cart holding up traffic on a major street in a major city? If you saw that would you think it was cute? What kind of jerk would think that was appropriate then respond that its fine because driving that slow makes things safer. The Google car and worse, the Google team. Yay?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 14 2015, @03:14PM
Real life C&C? A woman who I had an interest in needed to get from Chicago to Hot Springs, years ago. She accepted a ride with an acquaintance. She was warned ahead of time, the driver was kind of weird. She figured, "Whatever, I've got to get there somehow - how weird can a driver be?" The driver turned out to be really weird. He drove 10 mph below the limit, all the way. He set his cruise control exactly 10 mph below the limit, each and every time the speed limit changed. And, he laid a "big ass" revolver in his lap as he drove.
The lady who I was interested in decided that she needed to choose her freinds and acquaintances more wisely.
Actually, it was less Cheech and Chong, than it was Godfather.