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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

I suspect this is human error rather than a computer error. Waymo is a supervised system -- from what I've heard while there's little remote driving by humans, there is occasional real-time human labelling and confirmation. So the car likely phoned home to ask "what the heck is this?", and a human clicked on the "overtake" button or something.

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>a human clicked on the “overtake” button

Ok. So what are the consequences for this human operator and/or Waymo?

Human drivers make mistakes all the time, it’s true. But there are consequences for those mistakes. If a human drives into the opposite lane that’s a big problem, especially if they end up causing property damage or bodily injury. Why are the same standards not being applied here?

I've seen plenty of cars drive the wrong way down a one way street. I've done it myself by accident a couple of times. I've never seen any face any consequences other than being honked at. I've seen one pulled over, but they got away with just a warning since they were obviously just confused tourists.

OTOH, I doubt the operator still has a job, and Waymo is going to face significant consequences. Likely formal consequences, but if not, the punishment by the court of public opinion is going to be massive.

If this is actually what happened, then regardless of the consequences, it would challenge the notion that human supervisors provide adequate protection of the public while these cars are being tested.

> Ok. So what are the consequences for this human operator and/or Waymo?

If you're Waymo apparently you can tell the car to run a red light, cause a moped to crash and not even need to report it to the state.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2024/03/26/waymo-...

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