http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-22/uber-removes-self-driving-cars-from-san-francisco-roads/8142474

So after lots of wrangling they have had their cars taken off the roads, as usual there are 3 sides to the story

The DMV told Uber that if it had obtained a permit, the regulator would have given the green light to the self-driving pilot.

DMV director Jean Shiomoto said in a letter sent to Uber that she would “personally help to ensure an expedited review and approval process”, which she said could take less than three days.

The permit process is largely seen as a public safety measure, as regulations also require that companies provide the DMV with accident reports.

Uber, however, has complained that its home state has favoured complex rules over technological innovation.

It is not yet clear whether Uber will apply for the permit or simply bring the self-driving cars to another state.

And mostly the thread isn’t about the tech itself but the way some of the sharing tech companies want to operate, it’s keeps coming back to the if we don’t like the rules we will ignore them, air BnB were posting via facebook locally for people to fill in an email sent to politicians to lobby on behalf of them to have bugger all regulation or tax implication as “just let the people share man” seems to be the motto, government bad, big corp (which of course uber/airbnb claim not to be) good.

Probably rambling now but why should the likes of these guys get to dictate the terms they want to play by?

I’d be more concerned about getting squashed by one of their self driving cars:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/19/uber-self-driving-cars-bike-lanes-safety-san-francisco

Saying that, it’s still probably safer than most of the Uber drivers ari7nd where I live.

Probably rambling now but why should the likes of these guys get to dictate the terms they want to play by?

I don’t think this is any different to any other big business that has come before it. Difference now is that because their “employees” are essentially just members of the public, they have to publicly lobby them to lobby government on their behalf, rather than it all happening behind closed doors like before. (Not that any of this is right, I don’t think)

Am I the only one surprised that these things are on the road?

I don’t think this is any different to any other big business that has come before it.

The difference I’m seeing is they are doing first (encouraging their contractors to break laws) then demanding permission.

Uber needs to be regulated as a proper taxi service complete with licensing. It’s clear the business model is to go driverless, so in London that’s 50,000 jobs gone ? What happens to prices then, yup they are jacked up. Many youtube news videos looking at how low the Uber pay really is if you take off vehicle purchase and maint.

The self drive thing should be carefully investigated. Turns out the Google self drive test cars have had 1000’s of intervention incidents where driver has had to intervene to avoid a potential crash. Uber require you to accept NO compensation in the event of a self drive accident.

I’m buying shares in Stingers

Uber has had a test fleet here in Pittsburgh longer than SF. I’ve seen many of them, but never rode in one. They all have a driver to intervene if the car does something that its not supposed to. The only way to improve them is to run them in the real world to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Like it or not, cars will be driverless in the near future. They will be safer then human drivers very soon, if they’re not already.

As far as regulation, Pennsylvania tried to make Uber and Lyft toe the line and run as regulated taxi companies. This was pushed hard by the taxi companies, but it failed. In the end, the state of Pennsylvania blinked, and Lyft and Uber were given a 2 year trial operating license. Some of the taxi companies have now embraced the same business model that they fought so hard against!

And this all happened in a state where the state has run all liquor stores since the end of Prohibition!!! Prohibition ended in 1933…

Edit – Lots of articles in the local newspapers if you search “Uber” on either of these websites:

http://triblive.com/

http://www.post-gazette.com/

They will be safer then human drivers very soon, if they’re not already.

Not for a while yet! Car companies are rushing this stuff out without enough testing, justifying it by saying there is a driver in case it fails. But, as Google found out, drivers get bored very quickly without any actual driving to do, and fail to check the car.

It’s the same with “driver assist” stuff. In fact I think Tesla just linked together a few driver-assist algorithms and claimed their car was “autonomous”, much to the annoyance of MobilEye who designed the systems.

Unfortunately, I think things are going to get more dangerous before they get safer.

Am I the only one surprised that these things are on the road?

No I am surprised they aren’t more prevalent. In fact I’m surprised that we still let human beings drive cars on the road.

Uber needs to be regulated as a proper taxi service complete with licensing.

You do know that in places like the UK where taxis are tightly regulated uber do exactly that?

It’s clear the business model is to go driverless, so in London that’s 50,000 jobs gone ? What happens to prices then, yup they are jacked up.

That makes no sense. Uber don’t have a any unique capability that can’t be copied, and have competitors. Surely if they dumped 50k taxi drivers on the London market their would be such price competition (all those guys are licensed private hire drivers, with their own cars and can compete the very next day) that uber could never put up its prices? in fact once uber has paved the regulatory pathway are others not likely to try and copy (undercut) them?

No I am surprised they aren’t more prevalent. In fact I’m surprised that we still let human beings drive cars on the road.

Are there true driverless cars (without onboard human monitor to take over) on public streets in any city? A car that without anyone on board can go between any two random addresses?

Will these driverless cars flash their lights if overtaken by someone making progress?
Do they assume the rest of us know how to drive?

Acquiescence for convenience. There won’t be any consequences don’t worry your little heads about it, they have our best interests at heart.

Seems the plebs are happy (roaring on the champions) creating gang masters as long as they are not in the gang being whipped!

– Don’t pay tax fine
– Pressurise legislators to tip the playing field further in their favour #soalpha
– Treat workers like shit, yeah they deserve it lazy scumbags
– Undercutting businesses that pay tax and contribute to local and national economies because that’s the new game right MTFU
– Move everything possible to cheaper labour markets, who needs jobs any more there’s loads about, just move to another country.
– Food, energy/fuel/utilities and housing are coming down in price all the time.

Everything is going to be free like on social media and movies and stuff soon yay FTW.

Are there true driverless cars (without onboard human monitor to take over) on public streets in any city? A car that without anyone on board can go between any two random addresses?

Not that I am aware of, but the technology isn’t that ground breaking (and the barriers could be overcome with some state sponsored imagination), it’s surprising it’s taking us so long to complete and adopt the technology. The car itself hasn’t really changed in 100+ years, and yet itself was an innovation that had a fairly dramatic and rapid impact on transportation.

Chestercoppercot – I’ve never perceived taxi firms as being the epitome of exemplary labour policies or squeaky clean taxation. I am sure some are. I see more and more taxi firms launching apps to compete and bring the user the convenience uber offer. Certainly round here, and in current peak times, they beat uber on both price and availability.

You do know that in places like the UK where taxis are tightly regulated uber do exactly that?

Here in Oz similar taxi regs to the UK and no uber goes through the same checks and licensing yet.
This includes things like criminal records checks and car checks

@ poly- No me neither but they pale in comparison to the international shysters.

@poly they are certainly not regulated as taxis in London. They use the much more lax “mini-cab” legislation. I am pretty sure that’s true nationwide in the UK.

@JoeG love STW, doscussing Uber and a forumite pops up in Pittsburg 🙂

Pittsburgh! 😡

Uber has a test and research center here I believe because of Carnegie-Mellon University and their first rate computer and robotics programs.

I was lolling at Uber’s SF launch last week. Not only did they get bad press due to safety issues but Travis Kalanick made it sound like a fully autonomous Uber service was just round the corner on his facebook feed which got an angry response from a lot of Uber drivers who thought they were about to lose their income.

There is a gargantuan difference between running an autonomous vehicle with a safety driver ready to take over, vs no safety driver. However, they should be getting approvals for hands off the wheel driving, it is reasonable that they have to demonstrate that they have thought about/mitigated hazards etc. Furthermore, developers need to co-operate with authorities a bit to work towards getting the regulations together for safe & efficient autonomous driving.

The missing the traffic signal and poor behaviour with the cycling lanes is reasononable part of the autonomous learning curve, but the safety driver should be very well trained, alert, planning ahead and pro-actively intervening rather than letting the car do dangerous stuff. They should also be part of the dev team and feeding back the issues so they can be fixed.

Are there true driverless cars (without onboard human monitor to take over) on public streets in any city? A car that without anyone on board can go between any two random addresses?

No. Because that is super massively complicated.
Expect, maybe, serial production of vehicles that can autonomously drive on well controlled environments like autobahns/motorways (pegasus project) by 2021, maybe.

What is the point of an “autonomous” vehicle which has a driver?

The future!

It’s the start of a learning curve to work towards fully autonomous think of it as online testing.

Any thoughts on this.

I didn’t want my wife using uber to get home from town – I didnt want stranger unlicenced Jeff the uber driver taking a lone female out into the country.

It just doesn’t feel right Am I being paranoid…

So the Uber drivers are right?

It just doesn’t feel right Am I being paranoid…

I feel the same tbh. Don’t entirely know why, but just don’t fully trust the idea.

Worth reading Google’s view on semi-autonomous cars…

https://medium.com/waymo/why-were-aiming-for-fully-self-driving-vehicles-c8d4d6e227e1#.yzhyo8neg

“But we saw some worrying things too. People didn’t pay attention like they should have. We saw some silly behavior, including someone who turned around and searched the back seat for his laptop to charge his phone?—?while traveling 65mph down the freeway! We saw human nature at work: people trust technology very quickly once they see it works. As a result, it’s difficult for them to dip in and out of the task of driving when they are encouraged to switch off and relax.”

Well I don’t even trust cruise control. Or automated checkouts.

Uber moving self-driving fleet from San Francisco to Arizona

@poly they are certainly not regulated as taxis in London. They use the much more lax “mini-cab” legislation. I am pretty sure that’s true nationwide in the UK.

Jamba did I say they were? If so I apologise, I may have slipped into the colloquial habbit of describing private hire and taxis as the same thing. of course they are licensed as private hire vehicles – that’s what they are.

I didn’t want my wife using uber to get home from town – I didnt want stranger unlicenced Jeff the uber driver taking a lone female out into the country.

Are you in the UK? If so the choices were a black hack (or similar) where probably the only check she makes is the shape/style of vehicle; a private hire where she calls a random number then a random driver turns up (late!) and she gets in his car or uber who send a private hire car, but your wife has his photo, his vehicle reg no and model before he arrives, can see his progress in the app (so she isn’t standing around on a dark alley in the hope he is coming and tempted to jump in the first thing that looks like a cab) and then his position is constantly tracked and she can leave feedback at the end. (and if she has a genuine complaint will get a full refund – I did when an uber driver used his phone when driving).

She can decide, but I actually feel safer using uber around the world than many cabs.

Here in Oz similar taxi regs to the UK and no uber goes through the same checks and licensing yet.
This includes things like criminal records checks and car checks

In Cardiff uber has to use licensed taxi drivers using licensed private hire vehicles. This is true for most of the UK. London is a bit different regarding private hire vehicles and drivers.

I’m in Aberdeen , I know a few taxi drivers , in Aberdeen certainly it’s quite tightly regulated. No random mini cab numbers here.

Where as I could uber in my berlingo if I so wished. …or anyone else.

Bit like country taxis -except with country taxis it’s probably a neighbour who’s been designated driver this week 🙂

Driverless cars will never be any use in rural areas at all.

I’m into tech, innovation, science and progress, I’m under 30, and am genuinely dreading us all driving or being driven around in electric or hydrogen cars. Wish I’d been born 40 or 50 years earlier.

Driverless cars will never be any use in rural areas at all.

What makes you think that?

Presumably if you’re on here you’re a cyclist – you should be rejoicing as you’ll get to experience riding on roads free of idiots out to kill you. It will probably come too late for me given the inertia of licencing something different.