Of six crash reports involving self-driving, autonomous, or robot vehicles filed in California so far this year, two of them involved San Francisco residents approaching the cars and attacking them... It seems like the human response to a possible (and unlikely) robot takeover is not looking so great.
On January 2nd, a San Francisco man ran across the street in spite of the do-not-walk signal and struck the General Motors Cruise autonomous vehicle and damaged its taillight "with his entire body." Though the car was in autonomous mode, there was still a driver behind the wheel...which makes the happening even more confusing than it already is.
Next, on January 28th, a taxi driver got out of his vehicle to slap the passenger-side window of another General Motors autonomous vehicle (which also had a human driving it).
Why? Why did they do that? For what reason? Why was he so angry? Why was he shouting?
We at The Silicon Valley Journal ask the real questions.
Considering there will be even more autonomous vehicles on the roads in California in the coming months, these incidents may become more frequent. Beginning in April, California will allow car makers to put self-driving cars on the roads without a driver behind the wheel, which is a "major step forward for autonomous technology in California" according to the director of the California DMV Jean Shiomoto.
While 78% of Americans are afraid of riding in autonomous vehicles and 41% don't want to share the road with driverless cars, the fact of the matter is that 94% of car accidents are the result of human error according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
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