Video Shows Google Self-Driving Car Hit Bus

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A video has surfaced that shows Google's self-driving car hitting that bus last month. I'm not sure why the Google car felt the need to swerve into the other lane (those sand bags were tiny and in the gutter) but thankfully it did or we wouldn't have this video. ;)
 
bus looks at fault there...

Not sure how (unless you are kidding - refering to bus driver's sandwich). Bus driving along, Google car leaves its lane and crashes into moving traffic. Google claims the car did that to avoid those sand bags.
 
So confusing, what lane are they in? Is this a merging lane? Google car hugs the curb too much.
 
bus looks at fault there...

Not at all actually.

BUT....the bus driver looks to have done what almost every driver normally does when they see a car waiting to get into their lane with the turn signal: he sped up slightly to try and prevent the car from getting in front of him and that's probably not what the self-driving car expected to happen (software like this will soon learnt that humans are assholes).

It's crazy how you can spot the exact moment he notices that the gap between himself and the SUV is big enough for the google car to merge and that's when he gassed it.

I swear, people complain when other cars don't use their blinker but even when you do use your blinker you will notice how quickly people are to leave as little to no gap for you to merge.
 
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Let me guess. Google filed a take-down notice on the incriminating evidence? LOL
 
Let's see that self-wrecking car get itself home now that it destroyed itself... haha
 
Google car was absolutely at fault here. There's no way anyone could have made that merge properly in an SUV, much less at 5 miles per hour or whatever the hell speed the Google car putters along at.
 
Bus driver in the video drove like an asshole and looks totally complicit in the accident . Left blinker on and in the same lane as the bus and the bus gases it once an opening presented itself for the google car, hitting another it ahead of and (again) in the same lane as itself. Looks like google will need to program asshole driver defense routines and remove the polite driving ones that put it off to the side of that lane.
 
Bus driver in the video drove like an asshole and looks totally complicit in the accident . Left blinker on and in the same lane as the bus and the bus gases it once an opening presented itself for the google car, hitting another it ahead of and (again) in the same lane as itself. Looks like google will need to program asshole driver defense routines and remove the polite driving ones that put it off to the side of that lane.
The bus driver was in his lane the whole time and the car hit him. Almost no where requires that you allow someone to merge. I disagree with that law or lack there of, but it is what it is. Open and Shut the G-car and/or G-operator's fault.
 
What's interesting is that had it not been a bus, it's possible it would have merged successfully behind a smaller car.
 
Bus driver here.

I can't speak for how that state rules on accidents, but here in WA we (bus drivers) are graded only on preventability. One hand/arm on the wheel, eating, and aggressive driving means a preventable accident. At our company, assuming this is his first offense he could expect some serious discipline for that kind of accident if not fired.
 
One hand/arm on the wheel, eating

Have had to take CTA buses in Chicago for many years while I lived there, if I ever got on a bus where the driver was driving like that I would have GTFO immediately. Seriously, what the fuck.
 
Umm, the google car was clearly turning into the lane and instead of slowing and allowing it to enter the lane (it had space) the bus driver SPEEDS up and hits the side of the car.

How is everyone taking the bus drivers side in this? It's just like those assholes that when you try to get on the interstate and you have room the driver speeds up to make you not get in lane and you end up having to go super slow/stop and wait for an actual competent driver to allow you in.
 
Doesn't matter, unless the bus hit the back of the car, which it didn't.
 
It's like people entering the freeway at 40mph and expecting you to dodge them. No bitch, it is your duty to figure out how to safely merge by either accelerating ahead of me or decelerating behind me, it is not my duty to let you in.
 
It's like people entering the freeway at 40mph and expecting you to dodge them. No bitch, it is your duty to figure out how to safely merge by either accelerating ahead of me or decelerating behind me, it is not my duty to let you in.

What about when people speed up to stop you from safely entering? To me it seems like more harm forcing you to either 1. Try to go faster or 2. slow to a halt making it even harder to get out and blocking people behind you waiting to get out too.
 
Seeing the ammount of answers that support speeding up to block others it doesn't surprise me to later read the stadistics of accidents. If only said accidents would only involve the asshats and not usually take someone else with them.
 
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Wow, that doesn't exactly look like the situation in my head from the original description of the accident. What the hell was the Google car doing right up against the curb anyway? I don't even see these sandbags or whatever it was trying to avoid in that video. Regardless, changing lanes at an intersection is extremely dangerous. As a human driver in that situation, I would have turned right on to the adjoining road and found a way to turn around to get back to where I was going.
 
If I have to slow down to LET you in, it's not your turn. If I have to slow down after you've made it in, I'm annoyed but I understand.

This bus driver seems to have allowed a gap, car thinks, "Yay I'm in!", bus accelerates sharply to close the gap it created. It looks to be Google's fault legally, but that bus driver was being a jerk.
 
It blows my mind that people here think it's the bus driver's fault. The self-wrecking car clearly rammed into the side of the bus. Not even near the front. In the side! 100% google fault. All over a sandbag in the gutter. LOL. epic fail. I'm surprised they couldn't program it to avoid from hitting something bigger than a barn door. Good thing there wasn't a bicyclist or a motorcycle there...
 
It blows my mind that people here think it's the bus driver's fault. The self-wrecking car clearly rammed into the side of the bus. Not even near the front. In the side! 100% google fault. All over a sandbag in the gutter. LOL. epic fail. I'm surprised they couldn't program it to avoid from hitting something bigger than a barn door. Good thing there wasn't a bicyclist or a motorcycle there...

The bus could clearly see the google car was moving in but he decided "Hey it's a person in there, he'll stop when he sees me coming in his side view mirror." Nope.
 
I don't see how the bus is at fault. Who attempts to merge in a 1 1/2 car gap from essentially a standstill. What'd google say it was? 5 mph? Sorry, but judging how fast the car was passing the tree on the right, it wasn't doing 1 mph.
 
The only time I ever speed up to close a gap is when someone blatantly flies past everyone in a turn only lane to try and cut in front or when there have been signs posted for a mile about your lane ending and you waited until it actually ended to merge. No, I will not let you in. You had ample amount of time to get in line with the rest and you purposely didn't so that you can cut in line. And the turning lane thing is terrible as well but I don't see it as often.

Outside of those two scenarios, I almost always let people in.

As far as the video goes, google car thought it could make it and the bus driver didn't want to let him in. In this scenario, it's the google car's fault. You can come to whatever conclusion you want about the bus driver and his driving habits and you'd probably be right, but I think as far as "fault" goes, they would always assign it to the car in the right lane since the bus was side swiped in his own lane.
 
I don't see how the bus is at fault. Who attempts to merge in a 1 1/2 car gap from essentially a standstill. What'd google say it was? 5 mph? Sorry, but judging how fast the car was passing the tree on the right, it wasn't doing 1 mph.
Google said the car was only doing 2 MPH at the time of collision :rolleyes:.

The only time I ever speed up to close a gap is when someone blatantly flies past everyone in a turn only lane to try and cut in front or when there have been signs posted for a mile about your lane ending and you waited until it actually ended to merge. No, I will not let you in. You had ample amount of time to get in line with the rest and you purposely didn't so that you can cut in line. And the turning lane thing is terrible as well but I don't see it as often.

Outside of those two scenarios, I almost always let people in.

As far as the video goes, google car thought it could make it and the bus driver didn't want to let him in. In this scenario, it's the google car's fault. You can come to whatever conclusion you want about the bus driver and his driving habits and you'd probably be right, but I think as far as "fault" goes, they would always assign it to the car in the right lane since the bus was side swiped in his own lane.
That is also one of my biggest pet peeves. My rule is "one per customer" when traffic needs to merge. I'm not going to let everyone just run me over, and I'm sure as hell not going to let that self-important douchebag in line when everyone else had the decency to queue up in an orderly fashion.

To your last point, just a few weeks ago I was nearly sideswiped because some asshole in the center lane wanted to make a right turn where I was going to make one, and they inched their way back and forth over without stopping even though there was no appreciable gap between me and the car in front. If they had actually used their turn signal, I probably would have let them in. The rules of being a decent human being must also apply when driving a car.
 
That is also one of my biggest pet peeves. My rule is "one per customer" when traffic needs to merge. I'm not going to let everyone just run me over, and I'm sure as hell not going to let that self-important douchebag in line when everyone else had the decency to queue up in an orderly fashion.

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.
 
It blows my mind that people here think it's the bus driver's fault. The self-wrecking car clearly rammed into the side of the bus. Not even near the front. In the side! 100% google fault.

True, it is Google's fault the car hit the bus, but you cannot excuse the bus driver's responsibility. He had every opportunity to prevent the accident from occurring at all, and yet chose to be both negligent in his driving and an asshole. In the video, he seems so unaware of what's going on that he's rather surprised he was hit. Watch the front view of the video, the Tahoe in front clearly gives the Google car its space, seeing something dangerous is about to happen, but the bus doesn't move over or stop accelerating at all despite the obvious warning. The bus driver won't get a ticket, but he can't be let off the hook.

Apologies if I'm crass about it, but I've sat in on a few of these videos at work (shop steward). Lots of analysis, pointing, viewing different angles (no outside cameras? We have two on each side front and back) and arguing about things. We would also never allow the video to go public, but that's a different issue.
 
Do any of you G-car merge defenders drive in any major metropolitan areas? The gap was created because a bus takes longer to accelerate than a smaller vehicle. It also takes longer to decelerate. There's no way in hell the G-car should've made that merge even if it were allowed to go full throttle, and the fact that it impacted a massive vehicle that was already alongside it shows that it has major issues with collision avoidance at this time. Saying the bus should've dodged the car or jammed on the brakes is simply nonsensical.
 
Do any of you G-car merge defenders drive in any major metropolitan areas? The gap was created because a bus takes longer to accelerate than a smaller vehicle. It also takes longer to decelerate. There's no way in hell the G-car should've made that merge even if it were allowed to go full throttle, and the fact that it impacted a massive vehicle that was already alongside it shows that it has major issues with collision avoidance at this time. Saying the bus should've dodged the car or jammed on the brakes is simply nonsensical.

Exactly. The traffic is starting up from a red light there. The Google car - what the hell is it even doing there, it's not in a lane, it's like it's parked on the side of the road there. 100% a fault of the self driving software there. What happens as seen in the video looks like if you were just driving along in the right hand lane and a car parked by the side of the road just decided to move out into the flow of traffic. Not the bus driver's fault at all. Again, I have to wonder what the Google car is even doing there. I doubt there is parking allowed along the sideof the road at that spot, and there is not another lane there - it's like it rolled up on the shoulder to sneak in to make a right turn at the intersection then decided it didn't want to.
 
True, it is Google's fault the car hit the bus, but you cannot excuse the bus driver's responsibility. He had every opportunity to prevent the accident from occurring at all, and yet chose to be both negligent in his driving and an asshole. In the video, he seems so unaware of what's going on that he's rather surprised he was hit. Watch the front view of the video, the Tahoe in front clearly gives the Google car its space, seeing something dangerous is about to happen, but the bus doesn't move over or stop accelerating at all despite the obvious warning. The bus driver won't get a ticket, but he can't be let off the hook.

Apologies if I'm crass about it, but I've sat in on a few of these videos at work (shop steward). Lots of analysis, pointing, viewing different angles (no outside cameras? We have two on each side front and back) and arguing about things. We would also never allow the video to go public, but that's a different issue.

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.

So, who gets the driving infraction in this case? Every one of the programmers of these self-wrecking cars should each get a ticket. It's their faulty programming that caused the incident. Either that or the vehicle manufacturer should pay for every fine and damage caused by their faulty software.
 
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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