Men Harassed A Woman In A Driverless Waymo, Trapping Her In Traffic

These cars need to have a panic button that allows a remote operator to talk to the passengers, assess the situation, alert police and override the auto driving to get them out of bad situations. Same as an emergency call button on an elevator basically. I dont understand these cars to have any feature like that so far, and I'm assuming this woman would have used it if one was available, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

These cars are likely going to turn into hijack machines if they're programmed for "maximum safety" in situations where, realistically, breaking every traffic law, hitting a pedestrian or causing damage to the vehicle through dangerous terrain may be the only way out with a living passenger. The second it begins to percolate among criminals that these things are super easy to stop at the perfect location of your choosing like this, they are going to become a massive target.

Or they turn into a hearse if the passenger has a medical emergency and the car doesn't redirect while the passenger is incapacitated. They might be coherent enough to press a button, but not to open their phone, navigate the app, call for help or redirect the car to a hospital...

But that of course requires labor so it will not happen until legally mandated after a minimum threshold of people die.

“The men came over to the car again and stood in front of it for a few minutes. Finally when they left, the car was still stalled but I clicked the ‘in car support’ on the screen and they seemed to be aware of the issue,” Amina said. “They asked if I was OK and the car began to drive towards my location. They asked if I needed police support and I said no.”

When she was almost to her destination, Waymo support called her again to ask if she was ok, she said. “I assured him that I was fine and he told me I would be given a free ride after,” she said. “After many hours I was called one last time by their support team. They asked if I was OK and told me that they have 24/7 support available. They also said I would get the next ride or next two rides (uncertain) free.”

"In an instance like this, our riders have 24/7 access to Rider Support agents who will help them navigate the situation in real time and coordinate closely with law enforcement officers to provide further assistance as needed," a spokesperson for Waymo told 404 Media in an email. "While these sorts of events are exceedingly rare among the 100,000 trips we serve a week across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix, we take them very seriously. We continuously look for ways to improve rider experience and remain committed to improving road safety and mobility in the cities where we operate."
- they should have [thing that already exists]
  
  Nobody reads the article though...
override the auto driving

I must be tired right now but I don't see how a remote operator could have driven better in this situation.

You can't get away from someone blocking your car in traffic without risk.of hitting them or other people or vehicles.

You probably meant they ought to drive away regardless of what they hit, if it helps the passenger escape a.dire.situation? But I have to wonder if a remote operator would agree to be put on the spot like that.
- Yea I'm not too keen on giving authorization to hit pedestrians. If I feel threatened in my car, I am not allowed to run over the person so why should a driverless car gain that right? And if the panic button is going to call the police, how is that any different from the passenger using their phone to contact police? Seems like extra steps of middlemen and confusion when the passenger could just call once they feel the need.
  
  I could defintely see a case for some extra safety features that help keep the doors locked and shut, maybe thicker windows too if needed to prevent robberies/assaults.
- I can't think of a NY cab driver that couldn't have handled this situation.
  
  This guy isn't doing fedoras any favors either - I'm already a bit on the skeptical side when I see a fedora.
- If a man jumps out in front of my car in traffic and points a pistol at me after I stop. I am going around or thru him and there is no other option. Anyone else trying to stop me even without visible weapons is going to get evasive maneuvers to protect myself because I am not dealing with that bullshit. That includes weaving far outside my travel lane or going over a sidewalk. That is self defense and a split second decision that any driver may have to make. Waymo prioritizes all outside obstacle avoidance which means it doesn't even want to leave it's set travel lane, which makes them trivial to stop like this with no recourse.
  
  The point I am making is that self driving has a really hard time interpreting traffic edge cases or passenger emergencies like this. A remote operator could make the decision to drive over curbs and other lanes, if free, to save the passenger, and realistically should avoid hitting pedestrians too... but in the case of an armed attacker - well, yknow. Like force for like force.
  
  Calling police would only be an auxiliary function to report the video evidence. They cannot be depended on to respond in time to actually make a difference.
  
  Would a remote operator interpret things accurately in 10 seconds or less, or be a job anyone would even want? How does the liability chain of command work? Who knows. But the current system makes no decision at all, and that is unacceptable. And the medical point still stands too, a remote operator could immediately reroute the vehicle to a hospital and alert the medical staff. A panic button is absolutely needed.
- I’m hitting them. I don’t know their intentions. But my intent would be to get away however I can.
What are you going on about? Have you ever ridden in one of these?

They do have these buttons...

https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/9172373?hl=en
It sounds like Waymo were already aware of the situation, in fact they called her in the vehicle as it was happening.

Not to say this isn't a good suggestion, but they seem to have other systems in place that worked.
- It worked, only because these men were only being creepy sexist pieces of shit and didn't have worse intentions. Customer support according to this article has no control over the vehicle other than restarting the auto driving routines to make the car move again.
They do, she only used it after they were gone.
They have a button on the center-front thingy but it's not labeled panic or anything.
Considering the length of your comment, you could have started by reading the article.
Well and the draw of these tiny driverless train like objects kinda goes out the window when you have to staff anything at all to monitor and control them.

I can see criminals easily exploiting this default behavior to stop the car and steal from those inside.

Where's a Johnny cab when you need it, it knows how to deal with criminals.

I doubt choosing to stick up a vehicle covered in cameras with someone who likely isn't even carrying cash is anyone's idea of a good payoff.
- idk i think plenty of people carry expensive stuff on them
  
  what a thief could actually get for them is another matter but clearly that doesnt stop them from trying
Where’s a Johnny cab when you need it

Or a Delamain.
- Or MagnaVolt.
- Only if you upgrade to the Excelsior package
My car isn’t driverless, but I as the driver have less control than ever before.

It’s an EV, and it will not shift to drive or reverse if the charging cable is attached.

Great for preventing me from destroying a charger. Terrible for getting away from someone trying to mug me.

Far too much of the safety features these days assume an environment in which all harm is accidental. This comes at the cost of safety in environments where someone is trying to harm another person.
- This is the seatbelt argument all over again. The safety features protect people in the majority of scenarios. While there may be scenarios where it does more harm than good, they are rare. You’re much safer with the safety feature.
- You don't complain about having to open your door or start the engine when escaping a threat.
  
  Having to unplug a cable during a very specific, imagined threat seems like a niche problem.
Did the lady have 5 kids to feed?
- She did have 3 boobs.
Thank God for cars. Imagine riding public transport and getting felt up/robbed/harassed. Glad we can all agree on this Lemmy 👍

Obviously this is the worst of both worlds, but it's a weird flex to support cars.
- In public the group of people watching and in close proximity prevents a lot of crime. Criminals feel shame too and at the very least want to prolong their ability to continue to make money how they do.
  
  A single person in a car is vulnerable simply because they are alone. They think the car protects them but its trivial to smash a window and pull someone out.
Everyone is a criminal
Pretty simple problem to solve, get a conceal carry permit.
- When the solution is "Vigilantism" you know the situation is fucked.
- Oops now everyone got guns and you get killed by some random. I'm sure judge dredd will save you. Try being more violent, violence solves all problem. It's self defense that mean it's right. Always remember, dead bodies tell no tales. Aim for the center of mass and always empty the mag to make sure there is only your side of the story left.
- I prefer to reduce demand, instead. Everyday people who feel happy and safe don't feel the need to be violent.
- ah, the American solution
- Would you rather be reading a story about how this woman was arrested for murder? Just because these men were being pigs doesn't mean you get to kill them...
- lemmy is full of sissy pacifists but i upvoted you.

Waymo should provide a loaded shotgun in every car. It's America, after all.

/s

Make it AI controlled for good measure
- Russian roulette cab ride
Maybe that could spark a nice tradition of the one sitting besides the drivers seat calling 'shotgun'.

... O wait
SAAB tried to corner the US market in the '80s and '90s by giving away a shoulder mounted anti tank rocket with each purchase of a car, but their legal team said "that's not an appropriate way to deal with road rage."
- Huh, sounds like their legal department was from Europe?
They should have little nozzles to disperse a cloud of pepper spray around the vehicle in emergencies.
- I had this thought too. Probably unrealistic because of all the ways that can go horribly wrong, but somehow that solution seems easier than convincing a certain subset of men to behave themselves.

literally tipped a fedora

That's a trilby, not a fedora. Narrow brim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora

The official hat of “females always pick the chads, even though I dress better than all these normies!”
Technically correct, the best kind of correct!
- Unless you want people to like you!
Ackshully, that's a jackdaw. Wait, where am I?
They are both super fucking cool and appropriate to wear with any outfit, so it doesn't matter.
- Ehhhh....
Yeah, I would say that this applies in general. That hat that we associate with a particular kind of socially maladjusted individual is not the faithful fedora but its contemptable cousin: the thrilby.
Ultraviolence anyone?

And they probably got upset when women chose the bear.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted, I had the same thought
- Because that question was/is blatantly sexist.
  
  Or also put forth the idea that all men, and all would be men, are dangerous predators, for no other reason than being a man. And that's dangerous thinking.

One of the men repeatedly made a “call me” gesture with his hand, then took his fedora off and literally tipped it at her...

It's assholes like this that make dudes in fedoras look bad. This and -you know- the hats themselves.

Fedoras are cool. That's a trilby, the classic neckbeard topper.
- ItsTheSamePicture.jpg
- Fedoras are cool.
  
  Lmao

I'd expect the Waymo video to have captured footage of these guys. It might not be that difficult to track them, and street harassment might well qualify as assault if the DA of San Francisco were interested in prosecuting.

That said, it's telling that they freely and openly harassed a strange woman on the street once the threat of being run over was not a factor.

ETA: One short-term workaround is to tint the windows so that passengers cannot be seen from the outside, but there might be causes to harass occupied Waymo vehicles regardless of the passenger (say, to mug them). I'm curious if this is going to lead to equipping autonomous vehicles with anti-riot ordnance.

Delamin Cabs vibe over here, hope people get the Excelsior package
- Waymo offering human remains delivery services should death occur on your journey
It seems like Waymo would have a profit interest to pursue this type of issue vigorously.

This is why driverless cars are a bad idea, they assume that everything will work as intended and everyone will play by the rules.

You need a human to make a snap decision in cases like these.

I hope these men are arrested for sexual solicitation via coercion (could be tried as attempted rape in the right state), disrupting traffic, sexual harassment, public disturbance. Fuck em, or better yet, don't fuck em, they're unfuck worthy.

What were these morons thinking? I'm sex positive as hell, I'm all for bringing back the free love of the 70's and the LSD of the 60's, but not like this, never anything like this... Hypothetically bro say you do get her number this way?

The fuck happens next?

"Hey remember me, I'm the dipshit who pressured you into giving me this number by trapping you in your car via exploitation of its safety features? So I'll pick you up at 7 for a romantic candlelit dinner and afterwards we could go see a movi..." click "Hello? Damn, friendzoned again."

Let’s not go too far overboard. These guys are assholes who deserve some consequences. However the article didn’t include anything that looked like attempted rape, nothing violent, no direct threat of harm (indirect, maybe). Let’s try to be proportional here
- Definitely a false imprisonment charge though
Driverless cars can work if enough vehicles are replaced with them. I agree that a few driverless cars in a sea of regular drivers is not optimal though.
- A few years back at the height of driverless car mania, I was feeling cynical toward my fellow human beings ……
  
  It’ll be a bonanza for the assholes of the world when we’re mostly self-driving vehicles. Imagine being able to cut anyone off in safety and with no consequences. Imagine driving as aggressively as you want as other cars get out of your way. Imagine being able to drive like in an action movie with the confidence that everyone will just get out of your way. Imagine that feeling of power and importance as you own the road , in your sad pathetic life
Na driverless cars are the future and tens of thousands of people will be saved from car accident deaths per year once most cars are automated. And this may happen in my lifetime which is cool.

You have a bad take imo.
- And it only takes one driverless car having a bug or some kind of user error to fuck it up for every body.
  
  A man can notice a mistake and correct it, a machine will continue as if everything is fine.

Doing things like this when you're certainly being recorded is a great idea. Wait, hold on...

waiting for the name & shame. what an absolute tosser
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The fedora tipping is too funny, seeing it from outside the situation, but she certainly was very scared because it's such a bizarre event.

Fedora tipping doesn't seem particularly aggressive.
- Sure, but preventing the car from moving by standing in front of it could be considered aggressive, especially when they knew she had pretty much no other option (I guess aside from getting out?).

I love how he looks like 2 different types of douchebags when he takes his hat off!

There's enough footage etc I guess for them to be identified and arrested, wonder if that's happening

Depending on where this happened this could be tried as sexual assault.

Not something you want on your criminal record.

“The men came over to the car again and stood in front of it for a few minutes. Finally when they left, the car was still stalled but I clicked the ‘in car support’ on the screen and they seemed to be aware of the issue,” Amina said. “They asked if I was OK and the car began to drive towards my location. They asked if I needed police support and I said no.”

When she was almost to her destination, Waymo support called her again to ask if she was ok, she said. “I assured him that I was fine and he told me I would be given a free ride after,” she said. “After many hours I was called one last time by their support team. They asked if I was OK and told me that they have 24/7 support available. They also said I would get the next ride or next two rides (uncertain) free.”

While scary, I'm left kinda impressed by Waymo's support.

100% that is brilliant levels of support.

Okay, this really seems more like a case of sexual harassment, rather than harassment of Waymo customers, which was my first suspicion. Had it been the latter as part of a politically motivated action against the company I might have had a lot more sympathy, but this is disgusting…

You saw the fedora and thought it was anything but sexual harassment? LMAO
- I saw “driverless waymo” in the title.
  
  Also: Prejudice against people wearing fedoras is still prejudice and thus not really a great thing to have. One of my best friends also likes to wear a hat at times (not sure if it counts as a fedora, I know very little about heads) and is one of the sweetest people I know.
Yeah, I’m sure the asshole thought he was being funny ….

I’d put it somewhere north of harassment since they physically restricted her, but less than the direct threat that some people think

They are quite lucky that woman was not my mother because she'd have pulled out her gun and been like, I told you to move, damnit.

What part of Texas is she from?
- The texas part
This is how you get shot for the silliest of reasons.
That's pretty stupid of her.

Without hesitation, because she is brandishing a weapon, anyone else simply watching the scene from a distance feeling even slightly any emotion is justified to shoot her to death as a form of self defense.

Never draw a weapon unless the intent is to use it, and in her case she would only intend to use it as a threat not a deterrence, and therefore deserves to die in this imaginary scenario.
- Do you have any idea how deranged this sounds to the rest of the world
- anyone else simply watching the scene from a distance feeling even slightly any emotion is justified to shoot her to death as a form of self defense
  
  That really depends on your area and what witnesses exist to corroborate your testimony. You can't just "say" you felt endangered just because a gun was drawn, it needs to pass the "reasonable person" standard (i.e. would a theoretical "reasonable person" feel threatened in this scenario?). I'm guessing an elderly woman pointing a firearm at an individual who is clearly harassing her doesn't present a danger to a reasonable person who isn't in the line of fire.
  
  That said, if the elderly woman appears jumpy or something, maybe there's a case. But it's not an open-and-shut case like shooting someone who is taking hostages or something.
  
  Source: am American in gun-friendly state who reads news articles about justified and unjustified shooting cases.
- Wait so the people that are justified to shoot her to death, would I be justified to shoot them since they're pulling weapons too? Is it then open season on me
- I'm sorry but doing creepy shit like stopping the car a stranger is in to freak them out is what actually gets you shot in America. Th3se two are lucky this woman wasn't a red blooded american.

Sign up for free access to this post...

I love how 404 Media call out other bad practices on the web, but at the end of the day they still want you to sign up and give them your metadata.
- How are they getting my metadata?
https://archive.is/XOxY2
The whole article is just a description of these tweets: https://nitter.privacydev.net/Amina_io/status/1840759345354809414

I have to admit, I expected a lot worse from the style of writing. This was written like some true crime stuff lol

404 don’t miss. Best tech journoing in the biz imho

Some nasty jerks they are. Well now internationally famous nasty jerks.

Too bad the cars can't realize the people are being assholes and run the fuckers over.

Edit: Might help take stupidity out of the gene pool.

Cruise was testing that feature.

The victim's statement here ends with an oddly volunteered tangent and specific praise of driverless vehicles, before it finally takes an eerie turn in the last sentence...

"...With that said, I think the Human Factor in this issue is going to be a lot harder to solve than anything else.” ....FREEZE CITIZEN!

I do hope she's okay, and those two folks seem to be clowns, but this thing also all reads as likely guerilla marketing for Waymo - who the article informs me, in a very capitalism-friendly turn of events, that they now have their service open to the public in 3 cities, cars have a safety feature that checked in with her multiple times and they "rewarded" her with an extra ride. It's a light enough "crime", with a very engineered feeling and enough to feel "real" while providing ready fodder for morning radio talk shows, Jimmy Fallon and good morning America talking heads to drone on about this morning across America as time filler that quietly advertises waymo "saving" a person from the scary outside world.

Note: Also, was very funny that throughout drafting my comment here "waymo" was constantly being autocorrected to "say no" :)

Just last week I had to run over some mother fuckers

It do be like that sometimes

This made me wonder though...the car obviously has cameras on the outside, and there's also a way to communicate with the support team from inside...so is it a stretch to think that these cars could be auto-recording everything that's happening inside the car?

Should we - as riders - have any expectation of privacy in a car with no driver?

No, but then the same is true of taxis and Ubers. They all have some kind of recording equipment in them for ensuring safety and cover in case someone claims something.
You should never expect privacy in someone else's car.

Give it a couple of years they'll legalise running down pedestrians for self drive cars. Can't have these jackalopes affecting the bottom line

In an instance like this, our riders have 24/7 access to Rider Support agents who will help them navigate the situation in real time

Clearly that's what a human driver would do, but I guess those Rider Support Agents work for free, so why not fire the driver? /s

And then when you have an emergency the response is along the lines of:

“Thank you for requesting to speak with a rider support agent. All agents are currently busy assisting other Waymo customers, but the next available agent will assist you as soon as possible. There are currently 32 other customers in front of you. Thank you for your patience.”
- True. The instant response that exists now is only because this is a pilot program and they want to prove that it works. Once it's normalized they will lay off most of the rider support and fuck you if you have to wait on the line.
I think the idea here is more that there's one rider support agent per like 100 riders at any time vs one driver per rider

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How the fuck do you figure that's "extremely common"? You need to spend less time on the Internet my dude ..
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It's definitely not extremely common.
- You guys are talking past one another. It's extremely common at a population level insofar as its happening literally many times per day at the population level. It is not extremely likely at the individual level because the vehicle miles driven per carjacking is massive with most people never getting car jacked.
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Extremely common? Really?
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If an AI car ever has to make a decision on who dies, the answer should always be "whoever agreed to the terms and conditions before they got in the vehicle".
- And there it is
- This will never be the case. Because nobody will buy an overpriced "yo, if there's ever any doubt about, like, anything - just put a bullet in my head" machine. So nobody will sell it.
  
  Face it - you have the same thousands of pounds of metal today, and you're the only one making decisions. You (drivers, as a community) have killed before, for selfish reasons: because you don't want to die is the least selfish of them. Other hits include "didn't wanna not get drunk with the homies", "I really needed to answer that text" and "I have 10 minutes till home but the game starts in 5, it's my favorite team, I can make it". And you somehow seem to want non-drivers (passengers of AI cars) to have the same expectation that they will be a victim even when they get a car?
  
  Drivers are so self-centered it's goddamn ridiculous.
Surely you can just take over? You can't expect the car to run people over for you lol
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That's gotta be the cyberpunkiest thing I've read in a while.

I guess there was no way to honk?

Waymo honking is only enabled after 10 pm.

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No, these are men, and the men are not alright...
- Nope they're boys with pubes. Pubes don't make you a man, strength of character does.
- I think you missed the point
JFC, they don't cease to be men because they're assholes. Stop pretending that 'men' can't do anything wrong. There is no man card and men are a diverse group of people.
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She could have called in-car support and they could have called the police, if the harassers didn't fuck off seeing this.

She did, it's in the article
- Only after.
Police in SF aren't available to just show up with no delay. Too much crime. Source: I live in Oakland and my partner got jacked this year. 911 said fill out an online form.
- And even if they come immediately (big doubt), it could be several minutes, just due to traffic. If doing that pisses off these men, it could put her into more danger than doing nothing.

See now if she had a HUMAN driver, this would have turned out alot differently. But no, we gotta remove another career so Corporations can make more money...

Human drivers are well known for never ever harassing women.
- Pshh, you need a good driver with a gun, then I’m sure everything will be resolved peacefully
Driving isn't a job we should be protecting IMO. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying self-driving cars are necessarily the answer either, just that if I had to choose, I'd pick self-driving cars every time over human drivers, provided they're on well-defined routes with ample testing (like in a city).

We should be solving personal transportation another way, such as:

mass transit

segregated bicycle/pedestrian paths

higher density so popular destinations are closer together

Ultraviolence precursur.

we need more men willing to stand up for women.

Some guys were annoying/sexist to her while she participated in a public menace and I guess this is supposed to mean something to me beyond "stay away from California"

California is awesome.
- Nah, California sucks, there's way too much traffic, and too many NIMBYs to solve the traffic problems.
  
  Weather is nice, but that's not enough to get me to move there. I have family there, so I visit fairly often, but I honestly don't really enjoy being there. They have some gorgeous national parks though, so it's worth a visit for that.
Riding in a self-driving car isn't illegal in California.

Street Harassment is: https://stopstreetharassment.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/SSH-KYR-California.pdf

Says a lot about you that you think riding in a Waymo means you're fair game for sexual harasment. You're just looking for excuses for it, huh?
- thanks for your contributions to artless rhetoric
Wtf is that even supposed to mean? Fuck off.
- Sorry, here's plainer language. Driverless cars are a public menace. People who hail them contribute to the acceptance of that public menace. As a reader, I do not find myself compelled to sympathy for your article's protagonist. I stay away from places like California's metro areas, because I do not want to participate in social experiments about me being run over by driverless vehicles.
  
  I hope this has clarified my meaning for you and a lighthearted fuck you right back for posting this propaganda, you corpo-brained parrot.