
Las Vegas' self-driving bus crashes in first hour of service - zadeh
https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/09/las-vegas-self-driving-shuttle-bus-crash/
======
bmcusick
>Las Vegas' self-driving bus IS HIT BY A HUMAN DRIVER THAT WASN'T LOOKING
WHERE HE WAS GOING in first hour of service

ftfy

------
fnwx17
I know marketing and website traffic is important, but: > title: "bus crashes"

> literally first sentence of the article: "getting into a minor collision"

Clickbait aside, here's the concerning part: "It's designed to stop.. and
yield to the moving object..."

So basically it wasn't designed to avoid or back up, it was just designed to
give way, which confused it when the trailer continued backing it up

~~~
Cthulhu_
It wasn't confused, it was just stopped - preventing worse damage to the
occupants and itself. The truck driver was in error and will have to pay for
damages.

------
keeptrying
Its also possible that the trailer backing up would have expected the bus to
back up as thats what would have been expected from a human driven bus.

There is so much complexity that needs to be modeled that the fact that these
cars need to mimic humans in all conditions gets forgotten sometimes.

~~~
sandworm101
There is also little work in how these autodrives interact with other
autodrives running different soft/hardware where electronic communication isnt
possible. There is a huge amount of non-verbal communication between human
drivers that must be somehow replicated once there really is no human on
either side of the interaction.

~~~
bowlich
This story makes me think of the colloquialism in the northern plains states
where if two drivers come to an all-way stop on some dusty dirt road right-of-
way is determined by a nod of the head or wave of the hand.

Legally, I don't think there's a rule on the books for offering right-of-way
via body language. If you misinterpret them and they drive out and hit you,
then you would be at fault. Yet, growing up it seemed like an an unwritten
rule that, at an otherwise empty rural intersection, if you have right of way,
you should offer it up as a kind of generosity to the other driver.

It's a cultural norm that I would dearly miss and would definitely vary from
state-to-state and even from urban-to-rural driving inside the same state.

~~~
sandworm101
>> I don't think there's a rule on the books for offering right-of-way via
body language.

Except for signalling. Hand signals are still permitted, with many
jurisdictions still teaching them. Motorcyclists use very casual hand signals,
in combination with eye contact. These convey more intention than a sterile
blinking light.

------
hourislate
The bus stopped like it was suppose to. The tractor trailer kept backing up
and grazed it. Could have been prevented if the at fault driver of the tractor
trailer was paying attention or perhaps the Rig was self driving. Important
lesson, software has to take into account shitty drivers and try to avoid them
in every possible situation.

Was hardly a crash....

~~~
acomjean
My question is did the shuttle honk before it was hit?

------
forthefuture
Here's the other thread that is still on the front page:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15661314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15661314)

------
jenkstom
Lesson learned... add a horn.

------
justboxing
Active Discussion =>
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15661314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15661314)

------
liberte82
On its maiden voyage. Hopefully they didn't boast about it being Uncrashable?

