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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) by khallow on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:43AM (9 children)
What's the crime? Did Boeing personnel deliberately crash the jet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 02 2019, @08:08AM (8 children)
Only a court can tell what their crime is, if any. [Lion Air case] But they can be accused of a few misdeeds. For example, they haven't mentioned the new stability system in pilot manuals. They haven't said a word during the difference training. (Pilots of American Airlines and Southwest did not know either. It's already clear that all MAX were dangerous from day 0 just because of lack of training on a new system that can override the pilot.) The prosecutor will add several more from the book, just for the fact of a crash and multiple deaths.) One lawsuit is already in process, per Wikipedia:
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 02 2019, @03:03PM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday January 02 2019, @08:46PM (4 children)
So if an Uber/Waymo car hit you and killed you, your family should just shrug and go "meh, whatever"?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 03 2019, @02:14AM (3 children)
They can sue. The act doesn't need to be criminal to generate legal liability.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 03 2019, @02:50PM (2 children)
You've obviously never lost anyone close if you think any amount of money can come close to being justice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 04 2019, @02:15AM (1 child)
Back at you. What's supposed to be special about jail time (or perhaps more exotic punishments) that when added to said amount of money comes closer to being justice? Dead person is still dead no matter how much you punish someone or some business. Meanwhile excessive punishment means businesses die, jobs lost, peoples' lives aren't bettered, society has to take up unreasonable burdens (for jailing people for what should be non-crimes), and so on.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 04 2019, @02:36AM
To correct this, I have an observation to make. Do we in the developed world have huge troubles with businesses killing people because it's only money? To the contrary, death rates from typical business-related areas like workplace deaths, are at an all-time low. For example, workplace deaths [osha.gov] in the US are at their lowest point of the last 40 years (and they weren't getting better before that!).
A factor of three improvement despite this lack of justice. Something is working. I think that same something will work with self-driving vehicles as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 03 2019, @01:52AM (1 child)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 03 2019, @02:38AM
And yet, it's odd how no one has mentioned such a misdeed which was actually a crime. The prosecutors tend to decide otherwise.