A 2nd robot car pulled it over.
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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I'm not against self driving cars for the sake of it but because I understand technology comes at a cost. The idea of pumping out cameras everywhere and centralizing all the data is giving corpos and governments unimaginable power.
I really don't like this crystal ball dystopia they're building and self driving cars are excellent means for surveillance and data collection.
And yet I still know people who are just so chuffed about "never having to drive again."
Did they not heard about public transport or it doesn't count because it isn't choke-full of fancy tech and isn't pushed by techbro?(it is choke-full of fancy tech but never pushed by techbro)
Public transit in the US simply isn’t good enough in many cases. Years ago I lived in a suburb north of Boston and worked in another suburb west of Boston. It was about a 40 minute drive during rush hour. Trying to do that same commute by public transit likely would have taken me 4+ hours and involved a bus to a subway into Boston followed by a commuter train and another bus. It would have been a nightmare.
Like the point is, if people are giving a "this thing isn't good enough now but will be great in the future" for this lobotaxi thing, they sure can give the same treatment to public transport as well. Of course it isn't great now, the government spend little to nothing on it to make it good. But what if people start pushing for more public transport development? It will be better in the future, everyone win.
Yeah, but that would require raising taxes, which the billionaires have convinced the masses is a terrible thing because socialism, and look where that’s gotten third world socialist countries.
The only solution, according to the billionaires, and the brainwashed masses, is to give even more money to the billionaires so that they can privatize things even more and throw cutting edge technology at the problem instead of proven solutions like light rail, etc.
Yeh, ill drive my own vehicle thanks
As a car and motorcycle enthusiast I can't imagine never wanting to drive again, but then most people driving aren't their just steering wheel holders using the 30 minute commute to get in their daily reels. Self driving cars are honestly probably better than half those morons that can't be bothered to looks where they fling their 2 ton steel cage, but if they nail me on my motorcycle they have to pay. If a self driving appliance on wheels slams into me a PR firm will make sure they don't pay dime to me. Until the people that sign off on this tech are directly responsible for everything their tech does then they should not be in the road point blank. Doesn't matter how good or bad self driving cars are, with no responsibility to their actions they have no place roaming around the public where they can cause injury and property damage to others.
Exactly. If the only cost to the company for any death or maiming these things cause is money, then it's just "the cost of doing business". They'll only make the cars as safe as the law says they must, and they'll pay to make those laws as weak as possible, and push the responsibility to anyone else they can.
What if we kissed while being kidnapped in the Waymo being chased by the police?
”never having to drive again”
Y’know I can’t put my finger on it but something tells me that there’s an alternative to that without technofascist wet-dream robocars involved 🤔
You couldn't pay me to get into a Waymo but you COULD probably convince me to pay a person to get me somewhere. What a novel concept!
Or trains, which I guess is still technically paying a person to get me somewhere in a really removed way.
Trains are me and my neighbors paying ourselves to get everyone where they're going in an extremely efficient way!
Waymo is everyone paying tech bros for an inefficient illusion of futurism with a whole lot of negative externalities that is drawing resources away from real progress in order to enrich the few.
Even if there was no other person involved. Making trains self driving makes way more sense and is way more achievable than hoping to automate chaotic road behavior
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Permit me to reiterate an idea I had the last time a self-driving car did something illegal:
All of these cars are being driven by the same software "driver". That driver is in contempt of the law. Thus it needs to be punished like any other driver in contempt of the law. All fines to be paid by its representative human or company. All incarceration to be for as long as is necessary for the driver to be rehabilitated. If no such rehabilitation is possible, the driver is permanently banned from driving.
By which I mean, all Waymos need to be taken off the road until they're provably rehabilitated and it is certain that this won't happen again.
And if Waymo the company thinks that would be detrimental to their business, tough. Take some responsibility and fix your damn cars.
CEOs should be held liable for the products their company produces.
I mean... If they are "people" for the purposes of buying our democracy from us, right?
They can vote now, as well--as long as they live in that one state where all the corporations reside. This shit is so stupid
Also when a human takes remote control, does that person have a driving licence valid in the place they are driving. Because last i heard they were in Indonesia or something. Presumably a taxi drivers licence as they are carrying passing passengers.
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I'm sure Waymo's lawyers would argue that a simple software update would make the "driver" an entirely new entity, and thus free from the fines and incarceration. You're raising some interesting legal questions that we'd have to figure out
By that logic, I would not legally be the same person as I would be tomorrow since my brain would not have an identical cellular structure as it does today.
Your honor, my client's largest organ has completely different cells compared to when they were arrested a few weeks ago, and so I move to dismiss the case.
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That would make too much sense. They are operating a vehicle, regardless of whether or not said vehicle has a “human driver” there is a person who is allowing said vehicle onto the road and is the person at the top of the chain of authority which sent those vehicles out.
Like, if I sent out a swarm of killer drones no one would argue that it was me who killed people. Of course, in today’s world, you can have insurance companies supercede medical instruction, leading to the deaths of thousands, and that’s not even a news story.
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insiders at Tesla saying, along the lines, "You couldn't pay me to let one of these things drive me somewhere."
That’s rich coming from cars that don’t use LIDAR and rely solely on cameras.
Well, it was Tesla insiders saying that about Tesla Robotaxis, not waymos.
https://thenextweb.com/news/tesla-insiders-dont-trust-fsd-self-driving-reuters
We have shitty camera sensors on our forklifts at work. Let me tell you how much they suck. I have done various hallucinogenic drugs, well over 1000 times in my life. And I ain't never seen the things these dumbasses censors be tripping on.
Meanwhile, they stayed silent when some dipshit from the office almost got fucked up the other day because apparently HE is fucking invisible...
I think that just proves your office people are all vampires.
That's just office people tho. Why do you think I eat so much garlic?
The article links to another source, but the video they show doesn't have the elements the passenger describes, like speeding through a construction zone or evading police. All you see in the video is the car moving less than 1 MPH while trying to merge through a clusterfuck of traffic. Is there a longer version of the video somewhere? Because so far, it sounds fishy. Especially with claims from Tesla workers, of all people, commenting on it.
EDIT: The guy's LinkedIn profile starts with: "As a Content Creator & Social Media Specialist, I collaborate with various stakeholders within institutions to create paid and organic content for social media. I support and drive the overall efforts and strategic visions by engaging in multi-disciplinary cross-functional teams (strategists, marketers, copywriters, etc.)." The man is literally a professional bullshitter. I'm not buying it.
I can believe that the Waymo could've gotten stuck in a complicated merge, but I don't believe for even a second that it would flee from police or speed through construction. I used to work on these cars, and it was nearly impossible to get them to drive through construction zones at even 5 MPH, let alone at highway speeds. On top of that, lights and sirens behind the car will trigger a pullover.
This sounds like somebody who got stuck in traffic and got annoyed, and wanted to put their name on some headlines.
Ah bummer. Though I should mention the Tesla workers comment was just me paraphrasing a different article talking about Tesla's auto-driving, not Waymo related stuff. I saw the two today, but saved one and not the other.
I've edited in a disclaimer to be skeptical. Thank you for catching that!
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Sounds like a fucking chode. I bet he thinks moving out of the way for a cop car means he was being charged.
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And yet I still know people who are just so chuffed about “never having to drive again.”
Personally I'd be happy to use fully automatic car and never drive again unless I really want to. The coffin on wheels with T in front just isn't one of those. And none of the other brands aren't there either.
Fleeing from the police, speeding through construction zones. Sounds like Waymos are trained on human data.
Like Rick Sanchez' car
I'd be damn proud of my waymo if it fled the police.