Protestors Disable Driverless Cars w/Traffic Cones

Some pushback against the city being treated like a laboratory.

[ronaldbradley]

My grandfather had a vehicle that drove it's self home when he fell sleep. It was called a horse and buggy.

[iainballas]

To be fair, if someone put a traffic cone on the hood of my car, I'd stop, put on the hazards, and then stare in confusion at what just happened.

[jdrissel]

Some 30+ years ago the local police started parking police cars in locations they thought would deter speeding. Sometimes they even had a mannequin in uniform. Then someone who had a lot of decorative grade duck decoys began putting them on the hood of the car. When police began to remove them as part of regular patrols, the ducks started being glued down. They used some kind of strong industrial glue that was so strong that attempting to remove the duck would bend the metal. Apparently they discovered that the glue was cheap and common and whoever was doing it was careful enough that they didn't get caught. At one point I saw a photo of stacks of hoods and duck decoys, some damaged by attempts to separate them. I think they published it somewhere because a few days later they started gluing the ducks to the roof of the cars. Very shortly after that the police stopped parking cars and leaving them. I think they realized if things continued as they were they were going to run out of patrol cars.

[B_Bodziak]

There was a recent story on my local news about a school teacher who spent 2-2.5 hours each day after work picking up and returning electric scooters to their charging stations in order to receive the $5 per scooter return payment. Over the course of 3 years, he had saved over $100k.

[lucasokeefe]

This is exactly like that DARPA test where soldiers immediately fooled the AI battlebot they were trying to train by wearing cardboard boxes. Literally right out of Metal Gear Solid.

[GreyAcumen]

I'm really glad that Steve can recognize that there is a distinction between what is legal and what is righteous. There are far too many people in government, politics, and law that either have forgotten that distinction, or have a vested interest in ignoring that the distinction exists.

[urieaaron]

On my way home ten minutes ago, I ran into the exact same situation you were talking about. For a brief uncomfortable moment, I was confused about where I was supposed to drive in the construction zone. I almost chose the wrong path, so I made a mental note to warn my wife about it. But then I forgot. Your comment reminded me to warn her, so thank you.

[kibbo]

In northern Ireland, protesters used to disable the police tanks by throwing paint balloons on the driver's visor slits

[dark_winter]

My worry is that without being able to switch to manual control, robberies of people in self driving cars could become extremely popular.

[jadesprite]

Honestly, power to them. I lived in tempe for a while when they were doing live automated driving tests and so many people got injured and I think it was 3 people killed because the cars just couldn't comprehend crosswalks. F these cars, these people are live.

[YdenMk-II]

This actually has been happening for a while even before the big green light for large scale rollout happened. Main issue with this is that the cars are programmed to detect the traffic cones and move out of the way but when it's on the hood of the car, it's right in front of one of the main cameras so whatever direction it tries to move, the cone doesn't get further away leading to the lock up.

Edit: Also the story behind the cul de sac thing is pretty silly since that happened because the cars were following a traffic law that's was just ignored by everyday drivers. In an intersection leading up to that cul de sac, there was banned left turn and since these cars were programmed to follow traffic laws, they would refuse to take that turn that all the drivers in the area would have taken and took the long way around and converged in that cul de sac to turn around and turn right onto that street.

[MarcoS-ypqf]

Saw a girl put a hula hoop around a delivery robot, stuck.

[ryansais]

It's been happening for two months or more. Hugely entertaining.

[hellshade]

and let he who is without sin throw the first cone...

[fartzinacan]

When I saw this a few weeks ago, I couldn't help but laugh and be somewhat proud at the ingenuity. Plus, the cars look ridiculous with a traffic cone on the hood.

[brianward]

6:43 as a bus driver, we have been taught that a major doesn't just happen, there is a theory called 300:29:1. That is, for every major accident there were 29 close calls or minor accidents, and there were about 300 incidence of behavior or actions that could have caused an accident. That is supposed to be your wake-up call, that's supposed to be your warning. So, when this activist group catalogs hundreds of incidents, that is supposed to be our wake-up call. That is supposed to be our guide as to how to avoid a major accident

[gordonshumway]

I’m put in mind of the classic Monty Python “Confuse-a-Cat” sketch. I can only imagine what Python could have done with Driverless Cars.

It seem to me that this could be a more difficult problem to solve than it first seems. The difficulty of programming a car to ignore Traffic Cones under any circumstances seems fraught with peril. And one could imagine many analogous situations.

[dave_npu]

When Steve was reading this story, and I do find it funny, what came to mind was the Scotty quote from this movie. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock1984
Scotty: The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

[donmertle]

While driving my tour bus, in San Francisco, I saw a driverless car. It pulled around a coned pavement repair job site, as required, into the oncoming lane of a two way street. The car then immediately pulled into the middle of the work area and stopped. When I told a friend who is a cement truck driver, he said “It happens all the time”. They are uncalled for and unwanted. Get them off the roads.

[SPUTNIK]

This is the most badass thing I’ve heard all year. Such a simple yet effective method of protesting