Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Tuesday January 01 2019, @04:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the defenseless-car dept.

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.


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 02 2019, @12:19AM (5 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 02 2019, @12:19AM (#780798) Journal

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics [wikipedia.org]

    I'm not part of identity politics - I stand against all of that nonsense.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 02 2019, @02:09AM (4 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday January 02 2019, @02:09AM (#780834) Journal

    Like fuck you do. That rant shows you are up to your eyeballs in identity politics.

    - "And, I, for one, am not willing that my grandchildren should be cast into some third-rate citizen role, to make those brown or black people happy."
    - "Progressives promise to enslave my descendants, at the expense of brown and black people. Just fuck them."
    - "[I]f you're brown, or black, you get a leg up in education, employment, in everything. If you're white, or Asian, you get shit on, and you're lucky if you can ever get a job cleaning septic tanks, or collecting garbage."
    - "I'll willingly sacrifice five million dead conservatives and independents to put a stop to the progressives."
    - "Twenty million dead progressives? Make it fifty million - it's all the same to me."

    Fuck you, you disingenuous sack of shit. How dare you say things like this and claim to be "not part of identity politics." You think this site has no memory? You think we can't find out what you really are? Piss off.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 02 2019, @07:17AM (3 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 02 2019, @07:17AM (#780926) Journal

      Again - you started the speculating about the next civil war. I explained what the next civil war would be like. You seem to have lost all track of your own contributions to that "discussion".

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:05PM (2 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:05PM (#781035) Journal

        ...what the fuck is wrong with you? Do I need to copy and paste the entire thing here? Do I have to grab you by the back of your fat stinking neck and smash your face into the monitor over and over again directly on top of the quotes? Are you trying to outdo Donald Trump in brazen, self-serving, reality-denying lies or what?

        YOU. SAID. THESE. THINGS. And the internet has a long memory.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 02 2019, @04:31PM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 02 2019, @04:31PM (#781068) Journal

          You only have to own up to your end of the conversation. YOU started by speculating that it might be worth it to kill off a few of the assholes in Washington. Stuff went back and forth a couple times, then I spelled out for you very specifically what a civil war would be like, with millions of bodies hitting the ground. You are so very obsessesed with my post, but you still fail to hold the whole conversation in context. It's your failing, not mine. And, apparently, that's why you are unable to really comprehend what I wrote.

          If you REALLY need me to hold your hand, if you REALLY need me to find where you started all of the speculation, I suppose I can do that. I shouldn't have to do that though, not if you're 92nd percentile.

          But, I fully expect that once again, you'll just fall back on "You're going to burn in hell!" Surprise me with a rational conversation?

          • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @05:52PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @05:52PM (#781102)

            She started that conversation but your piss poor reading comprehension is what really got the fight started. In your anger you showed your true predilections. Now that may be so uncomfortable that you can't handle acknowledging it but Azuma is right. You could have tried apologizing, that is usually how people show remorse when they said the wrong things in the heat of the moment, but noooo. Just more lack of personal responsibility and childish "wasn't me" behavior.

            You are that guy, the one with a good black friend and racist jokes. Run over any welfare mamas yet?]