BBC link:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41923814

Lol so the shuttle did exactly what it was supposed to do (stop) and the other ****** ran into it. Cool story.

But who gets the ticket if the self-driving vehicle is the one at fault or breaks a traffic law? Seriously?

Since the vast majority of traffic laws are enforced for revenue generation rather than safety, what will city, county and state governments do when they don't have as many humans to give tickets to?

The question I asked when I first heard about it is, who cleans up the puke from the drunks?

These shuttles will be moving targets for union-card truck drivers and cabbies.

The article says it was the human's fault.

Hope they get these running up again. I can't wait for the popularization of autonomous vehicles.

The person who is operating the vehicle. There's no difference between stirring the wheel right or telling the car where to go by programming a route.

The only question is if there is a human present to intervene when something goes unplanned. That's the case on a train or airplane. If there's no pilot physically present, like in a drone or cruise missile, you have to blame the remote operator.

FWIW, I would be shocked if less than 90% of accidents between self-driving cars and "regular" cars will be caused by the human driver. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the number of people dying in traffic accidents in the US (per 100k population) in the US will be cut by more than 50% in 30 years.

One pretty shocking statistic that shows why we need self-driving cars ASAP: the all time high for traffic fatalities in the US was ~55k in 1972. 40 years later, that number shrunk to ~32k. This year, we're on pace to get back over 38k for the first time since 2007.

The "remote operator" will be a few thousand lines of programming code. Does the programmer get all the tickets? The QA group that passed it as ready for production? The Russian guys that run Google?

It is and will be the same way automation works in other fields where mistakes have the potential to being very costly. At a modern manufacturing facility, a bunch of robots do the heavy lifting and a couple of humans sit around with their hands close to an emergency stop button. All they do is press another button every 60 seconds to prove they are awake and ready to intervene if necessary. They also went to college and get pretty decent pay to do that.. (cargo train operators do exactly the same thing)

I have no clue how that Vegas shuttle is operated, but when public transport will be totally handled by autonomous vehicles, there are going to be operation centers to monitor what's happening. A sophisticated railway system operates the same way, except for the fact that they have a driver who can perform emergency stops. But other than that, there are trains that run at a predefined speed on a predefined way and humans in an operation center look at monitors to make sure all switches work the way they should. Good example of what can happen if those guys play Candy Crush on their phones instead of making sure the trains do what they are supposed to do, happened last year in Germany when two trains collided head-on, killing 12 people. That operator is in jail now.

The company that operates the vehicle will get the ticket, not the remote operator. That's like saying if you make a mistake on the job and it costs your company money, you personally have to pay it.

It'll be more like 99% in thirty years

This shuttle goes about 25km/hr ? .... 15 mph ?

"The Las Vegas shuttle, designed to ferry passengers to the famous strip"

I call BS on its getting deployed successfully into real traffic lanes, from McCarran to the Strip destinations, even for this story.

This vehicle sounds like a slow-rolling traffic hazard unless it has as dedicated lanes which is unlikely.

Seriously, also, a "pizza delivery lorry"?

A better example would be bus drivers. Some companies make their employees pay for traffic tickets they get while operating the vehicles, others don't. In Chicago, CTA bus drivers had to pay the fines they got until the union filed a grievance a couple of years ago and they agreed to stop that practice.

With autonomous vehicles, it will come down to the level of neglect. I highly doubt anybody would have to pay for tickets out of pocket, but if that happens repeatedly the person will probably have to look for a different job. In other professions, accidents on your watch negatively impact your end-of-year bonus. That might be the case here as well, if operators even get one. Right now, most of these positions are filled with highly skilled people, but that might change. Some companies might think they could save some money and hire people that don't cost them $60-100k/year.

Precisely, if some company wants to run automated vehicles to avoid paying drivers or for whatever more altruistic reason they cite, let them lay some track or build dedicated roadways, etc.

Railroads have done that, inter-terminal airport shuttles have done that, so why should this or any other driver-less vehicle be allowed to operate on public streets with other private traffic ?

("Public transportation" on dedicated infrastructure can be expensive, such as the Las Vegas monorail white elephant, which does not even make it to the airport ...)

What, it costs too much for them to build the infrastructure to make any money from operating their "innovation" ??? Too, bad. (Even uber is planning on this "innovation", btw.)

Because cars don't need rails but can operate on public streets in a significantly saver way than today's traffic? Going forward the question won't be about self-driving cars on public streets but about people being allowed to operate vehicles on said public streets. But that's obviously something that's highly controversial and won't happen in the near future.

Written by someone who is pissed off because he most likely has received multiple traffic tickets (that were no doubt well deserved).

A truly touching account from the Las Vegas Sun:

“This is a very exciting day,” said Joanna Wadsworth, a civil engineer for the city of Las Vegas, holding back tears of joy. “It’s been a lot of hard work by a lot of public and private partners.”

The free shuttle’s route runs from Fremont Street in front of Container Park to Sixth Street, then to Carson Avenue and back to Fremont Street. There are three stops along the route."

Sounds like the government here forgot about real traffic issues and public safey in its rush and "lot of hard work" on behalf of a lot of "private partners".

Apparently, this is going to run downtown for a year or so....

"After the 12-month program ends, Wadsworth said there are plans to keep the shuttle running downtown, and a fee may be introduced."

To clarify the "accident", the robo-shuttle saw a truck backing up slowly, stopped behind the approaching truckand waited for the slow moving truck to back into it .... apparently, there is no horn, no warning system nor ability to slowly get out of the way ???

Misjudge much?

I've been pulled over exactly once in my 25 years of driving and I got a ticket that day for doing 8mph over the posted speed limit as I missed the sign coming into a rural town on a big 4 lane divided highway. The speed limit was 70 and dropped to 60. I had my cruise set on 70.

I was clearly in the wrong and the local cop was sitting within 50 yards of the speed limit sign hidden from my view. While by law, I deserved the ticket I find it quite intriguing that the cop (the only one in this town with no red light) was hidden from view right past the speed limit sign. I'm sure the little one horse town cares only for my and other driver's safety more than the revenue generation.

Oh and so that you know that I'm not just bitter about that ticket because it's fresh on my mind and wallet; I received it about 15 years ago.

.... so, you think Americans will give up their automobiles and freedom to drive on the streets their taxes have paid for, by government fiat ? Seriously ?

You think that the incredibly high percentage of folks employed as drivers, the pretty well-established auto industry, the every-day Americans' exercise of their right to travel at will, etc are going the way of central transportation planning and restrictions ?

You envision future American public policy reflective of the early 1800s opposition to railroads:

“[Railroads will] only encourage the common people to move about needlessly.”

The Duke of Wellington, 1835

or more recently;

"The prolific English philosopher C. E. M. Joad could not bring himself to see real human motorists as anything less than mortal threats to all civilized refinement. In a 1927 book (whose subject was, significantly, the pernicious influence of everything American) he came straight to the point: “motoring is one of the most contemptible soul-destroying and devitalizing pursuits that the ill-fortune of misguided humanity has ever imposed upon its credulity.” The motorist was nothing but an obnoxious showoff: he “desires to advertise to the world at large that he has amassed enough money to hurl himself over its surface as often and as fast as it pleases him.”

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/467412.html

No, Lord Madlex, the driving of one's automobile is here to stay.

As I said, that's a highly controversial topic and especially older people don't like the thought of self-driving cars.

That said, the stock market values Tesla (70k cars sold last year) in the same $50bln yearly average market capitalization neighborhood as GM (>10 million cars sold last year). Uber (not publicly traded) was valued at $70bln earlier this year but dropped in the $50-60bln range thanks to recent management events. But the fact that the combined market value of Tesla and Uber, two companies without any significant revenue, is higher than the one of GM+Ford who are the two most valuable tradional car manufacturers, speaks volumes. There's just no reason why people have to operate a vehicle themselves except for "that's what we always did!". And no, it's not going to be like public transport today but much more like sitting in a taxi. Big lobbies are the only thing standing in the way right now but lots of things are going to change when rich old white guys from the heart of the country start dying and younger multi billionaires from the coasts will slowly take over.

I encourage everybody who doesn't believe in a future of self-driving cars to invest in GM and Ford stock and short Tesla and Uber, as soon as the latter one had their IPO.

10-15 years ago, people laughed about investors into Amazon because they lost $20bln/year. Today Amazon is worth >$500bln and looking into which market they are going to destroy next after they are done killing off most traditional retail chains like Macy's, JC Penny and Kohls. Their Whole Foods acquisition will change that industry and they just started looking into pharmacy, let's see what's next. One thing is sure: it won't be human driven UPS cars.

It won't be government fiat. Self-driving cars will be safer, cheaper and more reliable. Why would anyone drive their own car when the car can do it for them? I think in the future driving your own car will be a niche thing only for enthusiasts, while the rest of the public will ride in autonomous cars, which may or may not be owned by themselves.

IIRC about a third of driving deaths are caused by alcohol. If you add in distracted driving, underage driving, and other illegal acts that would put the number at over 50%. So it's not that autonomous vehicles are substantially aafer than safe drivers, but safer than random drivers.


Autonomous vehicles will also encounter crashes that most people consider odd, such as driving into road construction ditches, not hearing horns, stopping when manuvering is safer, etc

While there's no argument and no question that some little "one horse towns" have speed traps for the sole purpose of revenue generation, that's a far cry from your ridiculous statement that the vast majority of traffic laws are enforced for revenue generation rather than safety.

This machine is billed as "driverless", but it still features a human operator at a computer terminal. Who still didn't manage to prevent the accident. This is why I don't really see the point of these kinds of projects.

Who wants a f'ing driverless car anyway? I want a flying car, and I want to drive it myself, dammit!