It ain't Tom Cruise I'm worried about but GM's driverless Cruise

CRUISE GETS THE GREEN LIGHT TO TEST FULLY DRIVERLESS CARS IN CALIFORNIA


Cruise deploying driverless vehicles in San Francisco: but when we did we, the residents of California, give permission?

Cruise, the self-driving company owned by General Motors, has been approved to test its driverless cars on public roads in California. The company says it plans to test vehicles without a human safety driver behind the wheel before the end of 2020.

They have already run 2 million miles in the City with a "safety driver" to grab the wheel if it makes a mistake but this is no safety driver.

What I want to know is: when did the public have a vote on this? Where in the DMV booklet does it explain how to cope with a driverless car coming toward you?

Cruise is the fifth such company to receive a driverless permit from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, the others being Waymo, Nuro, Zoox, and AutoX. Currently, 60 companies have an active permit to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver in California.

Does the public know people have been killed by driverless vehicles--even those with a "safety" driver? I think as a Calif. resident we drivers should have been given a chance to approve this in advance.

GM, who owns this company, is partly selling it on the fact the vehicles are Chevy Bolt zero emission vehicle. "Removing the driver is the true benchmark of a self-driving car, and because burning fossil fuels is no way to build the future of transportation.”

Cruise hasn't said whether a safety driver would remain in the vehicle’s passenger seat during testing, nor if Cruise would use chase vehicles to follow around its driverless cars. Those details, as well as the service area within Cruise’s San Francisco geofence (the invisible walls that dictate where the vehicle can operate), have yet to be announced. The program will start within the next two months so there's still time to ask questions or protest.

You might ask, since the DMV permit only allows them to to test “five autonomous vehicles without a driver behind the wheel on specified streets within San Francisco,” and at speeds below 30 miles per hour,why am I worried about five cars? I say because even one out of control could mow down a whole classroom of kindergartners out on a class trip. GM also says they will not test during "heavy fog or heavy rain.” Hey vehicles go out of control on bright sunny days too.


Oh, the state made sure the dead and maimed, if there are any, would receive compensation. Companies that receive these driverless permits have to provide evidence of insurance or a bond equal to $5 million. But when did we, the public, give permission to be used as unwitting guinea pigs?


Cruise hasn't even publicly demonstrated its fully driverless vehicles, unlike their rival Waymo, which just last week announced it would be making its fully driverless ride-hail service in Phoenix, Arizona available to more customers.

Cruise could say "Don't you worry-- we don't allow non-employees to ride in our vehicles. " But those employees have been apprised of what they are signing up for. The general public? Despite this publicity, 99% of them won't have a clue. GM had previously planned to launch a public self-driving taxi service in 2019 but failed to do so. Cruise has yet to set a new date for the start of its public robotaxi service.

The federal government is weighing a separate application from Cruise to deploy a fleet of fully driverless Chevy Bolt vehicles without steering wheels or pedals. In 2019, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it would solicit public comments and conduct a review, but has yet to issue a final decision. I don't recall a national vote being fielded. If Congress votes on it, I want the survivors of people killed by driverless cars to testify.

GM already has a model called the Cruise Origin planned, a fully driverless prototype vehicle without a steering wheel, pedals, or any controls typically associated with human driving. I would say don't green light production until there's a national vote.

I say it's better to go to some mock up city (like movie companies have) and test them there against robots simulating pedestrians. I got enough to worry about driving to be presented with the possibility of a driverless car coming toward me. I never gave permission. Is anyone with me?

 

My worry is when you compare it to the 737 Max. it required pilots to take extra training to know what do do when it started "porpoise-ing" But that would mean the poorer airlines ordering the planes would have to spend hundreds of thousands more on training, which they didn't care to. So, according to my understanding, the foreign airlines bought the planes unaware there was this occasional occurrence, Then two or three crashes happened, and I heard in at least one the poor pilots were frantically pouring through the owner's manual for information on what do do when this pitching came up. But they lost control. So with these autonomous cars, again the engineers are willing to accept a few casualties until the bugs are worked out but we aren't talking bugs. We are talking human body count , and the question that has to be asked by the NHTSA and DOT who in my view are abrogating their responsibility by letting these pilotless cars out on the road, is "Are they perfected?" When did we, the public, ever approve testing them on public streets without informing the public? Boeing had to pay billions for their haste to get the planes out there with a flaw they knew existed. I don't want the same scenario to happen with autonomous cars. I think after the crashes , and trust me, there will be crashes, there should be a trial for engineers who stamped their approval though they knew the systems are not perfected. To me this is a black mark on the engineering profession, that they can get away with signing off on something they know is flawed. Even now, VW engineers are on tril for faking emissions on Diesels. the industry has to come to accepting punishment for green lighting things engineers know are wrong.