Fire trucks are very expensive to be playing bumper cars with

tjwebbnorfolk 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

If we reach the point of needing to forcicbly move mass numbers of cars off the road for fire trucks, that's a dire situation where routine cost/benefit analysis has already gone out the window.

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quesera 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Modern fire trucks, and police cars usually, are built to be able to push vehicles out of the way. It's a very common need.

(Not an argument against Waymo doing better in this situation though!)

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blibble 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

if google's property is blocking the road, google can pay for the damage

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autoexec 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Just paying for the physical damage isn't enough. It should also come with massive fines for obstructing emergency vehicles.

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philipallstar 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

As long as you're happy that if your property ever blocks the road, you will pay for the damage too.

	▲	solid_fuel 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> As long as you're happy that if your property ever blocks the road, you will pay for the damage too. Pretty sure that's always the expectation? It's typical to tow illegally parked cars, smash windows to run hoses through cars blocking hydrants, etc. The only unusual thing here would be holding a corporation to account the way we hold individuals to account.
	▲	Rebelgecko an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Duh?
	▲	blibble 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		absolutely don't be a dick, don't block the road

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kylehotchkiss 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They have massive steel bumpers, pushing them away slowly seems mostly harmless (not at maximum velocity lol)

	▲	uqual 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Although it would be amusing for them to do it at high velocity if the cars (and surrounding cars if any) were "dead heading" or had no humans in them for other reasons (perhaps because the humans had fled the vehicles upon seeing the fire truck headed their way!).

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w-ll 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

True, but in a 'Big One' event i dont think we would care.

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moregrist 6 hours ago | parent [-]

You care because it takes valuable time to move things out of the way and in an emergency time is often the one resource you don’t have.

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estebank 5 hours ago | parent [-]

In an emergency, if the only options are taking time moving things out of the way or not being able to move, you move things out of the way.

	▲	MBCook 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		GP’s point is that’s a false dichotomy. Yes that’s the correct decision when those are the only options, like if a car has stalled or the driver just got out and ran away. In this case there’s a third option: the computer that’s still perfectly functional should have been able to get out of the way on its own. And legally all drivers are required to. I assume that applies to robots as well, if it doesn’t it absolutely should.