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The old gray lady reports that the people of Tempe AZ, a popular testing location for self driving cars, are fighting back. Here are a couple of snippets from the longer article:
The [tire] slashing was one of nearly two dozen attacks on driverless vehicles over the past two years in Chandler, a city near Phoenix where Waymo started testing its vans in 2017. In ways large and small, the city has had an early look at public misgivings over the rise of artificial intelligence, with city officials hearing complaints about everything from safety to possible job losses.
Some people have pelted Waymo vans with rocks, according to police reports. Others have repeatedly tried to run the vehicles off the road. One woman screamed at one of the vans, telling it to get out of her suburban neighborhood. A man pulled up alongside a Waymo vehicle and threatened the employee riding inside with a piece of PVC pipe.
[...] "There are other places they can test," said Erik O'Polka, 37, who was issued a warning by the police in November after multiple reports that his Jeep Wrangler had tried to run Waymo vans off the road — in one case, driving head-on toward one of the self-driving vehicles until it was forced to come to an abrupt stop.
His wife, Elizabeth, 35, admitted in an interview that her husband "finds it entertaining to brake hard" in front of the self-driving vans, and that she herself "may have forced them to pull over" so she could yell at them to get out of their neighborhood. The trouble started, the couple said, when their 10-year-old son was nearly hit by one of the vehicles while he was playing in a nearby cul-de-sac.
"They said they need real-world examples, but I don't want to be their real-world mistake," said Mr. O'Polka, who runs his own company providing information technology to small businesses. "They didn't ask us if we wanted to be part of their beta test," added his wife, who helps run the business.
It looks like The New York Times used this article from December 11 as part of their story:
A slashed tire, a pointed gun, bullies on the road: Why do Waymo self-driving vans get so much hate?
This seems to be happening everywhere Waymo is testing, not just Tempe.
Lots of comments about this article on other sites, SoylentNews should get in on the fun too! A quote from a "media analyst" suggests that driverless cars are like scabs, hired to break a union strike.
Also at The Hill.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 01 2019, @05:02PM (7 children)
> ... The trouble started, the couple said, when their 10-year-old son was nearly hit by one of the vehicles while he was playing in a nearby cul-de-sac.
Damn overprotective parents, what expectation should they have that their precious is safe while playing in a quiet isolated cul-de-sac? Yes, this is sarcasm.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Tuesday January 01 2019, @05:26PM (6 children)
'Almost hit' doesn't provide any useful context. If you are almost hit because you're a 10 y/o idiot jumping out and playing chicken with them that's one thing. If you are playing hopscotch and one barrels up to you and you have to dive out of the way, that's another.
These are not stealthy fast moving vehicles, and regardless, walking on, across, or playing in the street means being alert.
Sounds like these vigilante parents would be well served by teaching this to their kids.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Tuesday January 01 2019, @06:56PM (1 child)
At the same time, it sounds like the self driving cars need programming to change the rules (expectations) when they're in a subdivision.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday January 02 2019, @01:20AM
it sounds like the self driving cars need programming to change the rules (expectations) when they're in a subdivision.
What, you mean, 'kill all humans' doesn't apply there like it does on the interstate?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Tuesday January 01 2019, @08:38PM
And it looked like a toaster anyway.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @01:22AM
Children are small, and the car might not recognize them. The less equipped Tesla (no lidar, only cameras) does not even see bicyclists [medium.com].
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday January 02 2019, @01:22AM (1 child)
The one that killed the woman with the bike was fast and fairly stealthy. Maybe they are evolving to hunt.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday January 02 2019, @08:08AM
Just give them access to face recognition databases and social credit scores [soylentnews.org] and you're off to the races [imdb.com].