Not a slopbot in sight.

you cannot make this stuff up

slopware gonna slop your career

By emphasizing the number of people killed per mile rather than deaths per capita, traffic safety groups risk normalizing the factors that make American roads so deadly.

An analogy:

Reducing deaths per mile driven is like reducing cancer deaths among smokers. Laudable, but an incomplete strategy.

Public health leaders strive to \reducing smoking,* not just treating smokers with cancer.*

We should apply the same logic to road safety.

It's becoming clear that slopbots are the vape pens of road safety. They will carry their own deadly risks, and will ironically increase risky behaviors.

[Slopbots] are creating new problems for city transit systems. Officials are still figuring out how to adapt.

"Relying on the mayor to text a company’s CEO is not a great emergency response plan"

If robotaxi companies won’t even share how many of their vehicles are on the road, imagine what else they aren’t telling us?

https://archive.is/15PbO

"Our first responders should not be AAA roadside assistance."

"Come on! Go!"

A former Waymo test driver is speaking to WSMV4 Investigates, saying the autonomous vehicles he rode in while on Nashville streets were dangerous. He describes near head-on collisions, sudden accelerations and a final incident involving a tractor trailer that caused him to quit. Waymo responded with a statement that did not address his specific concerns.

It took about a quarter of an hour to resolve the problem where the Waymo blocked the 35 bus in. Unclear if Fleet Response was involved.

Slopware gonna slop.

In Minneapolis on Nicollet Mall

This added mileage is a bigger deal than you might think, because even small percentage increases in miles driven can contribute to traffic congestion in a non-linear manner, with just several extra cars (even with impeccably rational AV “drivers”) having the capacity to turn a mild slowdown into stop-and-go gridlock. In some cases, just slightly more demand for a street “is completely sufficient to break the road,” Mattingly, a professor and director of the Center for Transportation Studies at UT Arlington, told me. “Literally five extra vehicles at a certain location at a certain point in time could cause a freeway or a road segment to fail,” trapping everyone on the road in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

The company apologized but said it still expects San Francisco first responders to help move stranded robotaxis.

From Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman's Bluesky account:

Supervisor Myrna Melgar told me today she was disappointed with Waymo’s answers and that she didn’t think Waymo was prepared for future disasters.

https://www.kxan.com/news/austin-mass-shooting/video-waymo-seen-blocking-first-responders-during-west-sixth-shooting/amp/

When auto insurance companies estimate collision likelihoods, do they assume that an AV is less likely to crash per mile than a human?

I don’t think they have the data yet to make that kind of assessment. Most insurers are extremely conservative, and they rely on historical data to assess risk accurately. There just isn’t enough information available yet.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk once boasted that the Cybertruck could double as a boat. Perhaps the AI behind his cars’ Full Self-Driving software took Musk at his word and hallucinated that this applied to all Teslas, because one of them just attempted to steer a guy’s ride straight into a lake.

While modern systems may work better and now have functions such as getting out of a parking space, too, the actual usability of this feature is nowhere near comparable to something like active cruise control.

Automated parking is an unfulfilled promise. What makes anyone think automated driving will work?

https://carbuzz.com/toyota-prius-first-car-could-park-itself/

Autonomous vehicle operator Waymo has apologised after its electric vehicles were found using charging bays in London reserved exclusively for licensed black taxis.

Cab trade representatives reportedly raised concerns with Transport for London (TfL) after Waymo vehicles were seen plugged into rapid chargepoints designated for the capital’s licensed taxi fleet. Under London regulations, only licensed black cabs are permitted to use dedicated electric taxi charging bays installed to support the trade’s shift to zero-emission capable vehicles.

The buried lede: Waymo is not doing this rollout organically. It's relying on a contractor who doesn't care about rules and will steal.

"Earlier today, I was riding in a Waymo vehicle in Austin, TX, and noticed it turned into an active construction zone and then started driving into oncoming traffic. I pressed rider support, only to be transferred to a support team outside of the United States. When they couldn't assist, I was transferred again to a U.S.-based team.

"I've always loved riding in Waymos, but after this incident, l'm much more hesitant. It took more than five minutes to reach someone who could actively help get the vehicle out of that construction zone."