Video Shows Google Self-Driving Car Hit Bus

Traffic would literally not work if everyone followed all the laws all the time. There would literally be constant gridlock. Regardless, the bus clearly had the right of way and the Google car did not. Legally, there is no ambiguity here: the bus owned the lane and the Google car pulled directly into it.
 
File said:
Anyone got a road/driving law breakdown of the situation to point to appropriate actions? This way we can get rid of interpretation based on experience and just go by the book.
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Going by my state's statutory law, it looks to me like nothing illegal happened in the video by the bus or car. Since the car didn't take proper care in changing lanes, I say that it is at fault here. This was just non-criminal negligence, pure and simple, since California considers the computer the driver in autonomous situations.
 
Wtf, it's not even close, the bus was in it's lane going straight. The Google car just sort of pandered around and slowly starting moving in to the other lane of travel oblivious to the cars traveling in it. The SUV in front of the bus even had to swerve to avoid being hit, the bus didn't stand a chance. What was he supposed to do, slam on the brakes!? Fuck the Google car, it needed to continue in it's lane or wait. Period.
 
I don't understand what the Google car was doing. Did it stop on the side of the road then decide to proceed, or was it making a right turn, then decided against that because of the pedestrians?
 
ShagnWagn said:
Perhaps you are seeing more into the video that I can comprehend. The laws of physics dictates that buses can't turn and stop like a standard-sized car. They can't stop on a dime to let everyone do what they want around them. Kind of like when people cut in front of 18-wheelers, hit the brakes, and expect the semi to be able to stop in time. The last thing I want is a self-driving bus destroy my car (and me with it). If people scream to have these dangerous cars on the road, make them all Smart cars to lesson the damage done. Then pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcycles are practically the only ones in danger.
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Actually, the laws of physics have little to do with it. On a dry day like that, the bus can stop pretty quick (well, OK, not with the kind of attention that driver was giving his job), wet day, depends on the driving. There are two air-powered braking systems at work, compression and friction. Together, while they might not be as powerful as a nice car and have a tiny delay, they are pretty comparable to a standard pickup truck and actually perform better than the hydraulic brakes on our cutaway minibuses. I've been very thankful at how well they work, even tonight when I went from 55 to 20 in about 150 feet-including reaction time-when a deer came into the road (no riders, thankfully, but we're rural, they're pretty used to us doing this).

The bus didn't need to turn as much as it needed to drift over a few feet, pretty easily done, I'm guessing a speed of around 20-25 based on the transmission noises (we drive the same buses), a slight jerk of the wheel and he'd be over. But really, at the sight of the Tahoe sliding over and the car inching out, his foot should have come off the accelerator and moved to the brake.
 
Slam on the brakes, lots of injured passengers. Also 2 air-powered braking systems at work, compression and friction? Huh? You mean 1 braking system, unless you simply don't know how brakes work, cause all automotive brakes compress pads/shoes onto a rotor/drum to slow down with friction.
 
potency said:
I like to call the orderly merging of two lanes the zipper effect, because the vehicles should look like zipper teeth coming together if everyone does it courteously and properly. Once I let one person over in front of me, I'm on their ass if it looks like someone else doesn't want to fall in line like everyone else.
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Zipper merging is the proper name. And yes that is how it should work, one and one.
 
krotch said:
Slam on the brakes, lots of injured passengers. Also 2 air-powered braking systems at work, compression and friction? Huh? You mean 1 braking system, unless you simply don't know how brakes work, cause all automotive brakes compress pads/shoes onto a rotor/drum to slow down with friction.
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Grebuloner sounds like he drives a bus, so I'd give his words some weight.

Here's an article on various braking systems on large vehicles: How Engine Brakes Work
 
Ah the naysayers got their dogbone to chew on. I know you're afraid they're taking away your steering wheel, but by your logic no progress would be made, ever. Just remember how we hated ABS when it was first introduced, then traction control, then ESC. Society is programmed to fear the unknown.

As for the video this is clearly a lesson learned for the technicians. You can't just program the car to follow rules dogmatically. You need to account for other vehicles that don't exactly go by the rules. Since the google car was occupying the lane, it didn't expect another vehicle to go past it in the same lane. And I'm not even saying the bus is at fault here. It's perfectly acceptable traffic culture to go past a car that has pulled off to the edge of the pavement. That's why it is a development vehicle. It still needs work. "Bah I found a bug in the beta of a software, scrap the entire project" - sounds stupid right? Then why are you advocating the same thing here?
 
NoNRG said:
I don't understand what the Google car was doing. Did it stop on the side of the road then decide to proceed, or was it making a right turn, then decided against that because of the pedestrians?
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I found an explanation for anyone interested. Yes, the Google car was making a right turn and it saw the sandbags next to the curve then moved to the left to avoid them.

Roadshow: Drivers race to Google car's defense
 
DocSavage said:
Grebuloner sounds like he drives a bus, so I'd give his words some weight.

Here's an article on various braking systems on large vehicles: How Engine Brakes Work
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How many ppl drive cars and have no idea how their brake systems work? Do you know how your brakes work? Do you know what each component does? He probably just drives the bus and just knows how to do the safety checks prior to the start of the day and the nuances in how it functions differently from hydraulic brakes. That's if there isn't some kind of maintenance crew that does the checks instead.

I also know how the air brake system works, since I've had to work on it on my dad's semi truck. I haven't touched it in years though. What I do touch constantly are the hydraulic brakes on my own car, since I like to race around and do track days.
 
While the car may be technically in the wrong .... the bus driver is clearly a distracted douchebag. He has one hand on the wheel, eating a sandwich, and he speeds up to prevent the car from merging. I have seen this time and time again in the city I live in. The bus drivers expect you to slow down, so they can merge into traffic, but if you try to pass them or try to merge in front they speed up. I'm not sure this is so much a bus problem as I often notice a correlation between the size of the vehicle and the "I own the road" mentality.
 
File said:
Anyone got a road/driving law breakdown of the situation to point to appropriate actions? This way we can get rid of interpretation based on experience and just go by the book.
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A vehicles lane was "blocked", the vehicle needed to merge into another lane. The vehicle was not given express right of way and continued to merge. This resulted in a collision with another vehicle that was always within it's own lane. I hope my knowledge of the law is not low enough to know who's fault it was.

Should we all be nice and let other people over? Sure. Are we legally obligated to do so? No. The Google car, or anyone, could have been stuck there for 30 minutes while everyone zoomed past. That's just the way it is. You have a lane, and others have theirs. You must always yield to other cars when merging (unless traffic signs indicate else wise).
 
westrock2000 said:
A vehicles lane was "blocked", the vehicle needed to merge into another lane. The vehicle was not given express right of way and continued to merge. This resulted in a collision with another vehicle that was always within it's own lane. I hope my knowledge of the law is not low enough to know who's fault it was.

Should we all be nice and let other people over? Sure. Are we legally obligated to do so? No. The Google car, or anyone, could have been stuck there for 30 minutes while everyone zoomed past. That's just the way it is. You have a lane, and others have theirs. You must always yield to other cars when merging (unless traffic signs indicate else wise).
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Except both vehicles were in the same really wide lane. The real solution is to have the google car drive the same speed as other traffic so they don't have to hug the curb and let everyone pass them.
 
DocSavage said:
Except both vehicles were in the same really wide lane. The real solution is to have the google car drive the same speed as other traffic so they don't have to hug the curb and let everyone pass them.
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The video is really washed out. Some funny business going on there with the lanes for sure. I don't know if that would be classified as a turn lane either.

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westrock2000 said:
The video is really washed out. Some funny business going on there with the lanes for sure. I don't know if that would be classified as a turn lane either.

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Yeah, from the street view it is just a really wide lane with no separation dedicated to turning right. The driver should have taken control of the car as soon as the computer started to freak out.
 
kumquat said:
What is wrong with you people. The car pulled directly into the bus.
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No shit, I don't see how anyone sides with the car here. A transit bus never stops to let a car merge into the road like that, and if they did it would take forever to get anywhere. I lived in Boston for multiple years, you give the bus the right of way in almost all cases when the bus is at speed. And what the hell is the Google car doing curb humping in that lane? People only do that when they are unloading a vehicle. The car turned and drove straight into the bus, blows my mind how anyone sees this different.
 
I watched all the videos and still have no idea what happened. Looks like the google car was on the side of road and then just decided to pull out in front of the bus.
 
I don't see a dedicated turn lane painted there. So if the Google car was going for a right turn, I think (could be wrong, I couldn't pin down a CVC citation) the Google car still has right of way in the lane and anyone passing on the left is in violation. Strictly speaking, the Google car never even left its lane or attempted to changed lanes in this case. Assuming no dedicated turn lane, I believe everyone passing on the left of the Google car is technically in violation of the CVC, but again, I couldn't pin down a cite for that.
 
LodeRunner said:
I don't see a dedicated turn lane painted there. So if the Google car was going for a right turn, I think (could be wrong, I couldn't pin down a CVC citation) the Google car still has right of way in the lane and anyone passing on the left is in violation. Strictly speaking, the Google car never even left its lane or attempted to changed lanes in this case. Assuming no dedicated turn lane, I believe everyone passing on the left of the Google car is technically in violation of the CVC, but again, I couldn't pin down a cite for that.
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That part of the lane is also regularly used for parking and in the jurisdictions I'm familiar with, the vehicle moving from a parking space is always at fault.
 
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