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Comment by eutropia | Hacker News Reader

It sounds more like she was arrested for not following an order given by the police officer to move out of the way of the robot.

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The police do not have unlimited power to order us around.

Quote from a lawyer in the article:

> Personal delivery devices must yield to other pedestrians and pedalcyclists in a pedestrian area

Sounds like the robot legally had to yield to her. If so, what lawful basis would the officer have had to make the order?

Just because something must yield to you doesn't mean you have an infinite right to obstruct it.

It's quite possible (and likely!) for you simultaneously to have an obligation to yield and the other party to have an obligation to not block.

I'm reminded of how the head of Oregon's DMV once described the legalities of merging onto the highway. "Yielding is the law, merging is what we do." Technically the merging traffic has to yield to the traffic already on the highway, but this does not mean traffic on the highway can block them. In fact, in Oregon we have a law that would make that likely to count as speed racing, a class A infraction. I.e. something you do not want your insurance company to get wind of.

The article includes "she might spend 10 or 15 minutes blocking it, moving as it does, to delay it on its journey".

That sounds like the robot tried to yield and she purposefully moved to counter that.

That would likely support a charge for obstructing traffic or disorderly conduct or something similar.

A robot on a sidewalk is not traffic.

If the robot wants to be traffic, great! Go into the street with the other commercial delivery vehicles.

Is it a lawful order to command a person who is not committing a crime to move from a public sidewalk she has every right to be on?

Police can definitely order you to stop obstructing a public right of way.

But she was not obstructing the right of way. Presumably people could move around her. It's not illegal to stand on the sidewalk. It's possible they might try to stretch (IMO bogus) "loitering" laws to get her, but doing so would make their intentions crystal clear.

At least in my state it doesn’t matter if people can go around you. If you’re there to intentionally obstruct human or vehicle traffic on a sidewalk, you are guilty of disorderly conduct. Doesn’t matter whether you’re standing still, moving, blocking the whole sidewalk or just part of it. What matters is your state of mind and purpose.

Just out of curiosity, can anyone report on how the robots act in terms of right of way? Lets say the sidewalk narrows around an obstacle like a tree or trash can or lime scooter or whatever. If the robot approaches the constriction at the same time as an elderly pedestrian, how does it behave? Will it pause instead of entering? Will it back up a bit when a human would do so to be polite? Will it crowd in someone walking with a cane? In short, what are these things like to be around?

Presumably it depends on the exact model and when the encounter took place, since I’m sure the devs are constantly working on behavior.

> Presumably people could move around her

But if she was doing the same thing to humans as she was to the robot, they couldn't move around her (assuming that means re-positioning herself every time they try to go around) - and I think most people would agree that arresting her would be a good thing.

So the next question is, are all users of the sidewalk (as long as they're using it roughly the same way, which is temporary and quick pass through) deserve to have the same rights as a human?

My previous comment doesn't seem to align with this one, but mostly because I'm mixed on this.

As an analogy, consider doing this to a person and trying that same excuse.

I suppose if the robot literally cannot path around someone standing still, it might be a valid excuse? But as soon as you're actively moving to block it, it is obviously obstruction.

Judges get to run off common sense, not programmer logic - the point of the law is that public paths ought to be usable by anyone for lawful purposes, and currently "delivery robot" is a lawful purpose.

As an analogy, consider doing this to a person and trying that same excuse.

Why? A robot is not a person. It is a robot.

Unless the delivery robot has a legal permit to conduct its commercial business in the public space that is the sidewalk, then there is no reason that a human being should care about it.

Just like when businesses put up bandit signs in the median. People have the legal right to remove them because the signs are not there legally.

I have seen nothing that indicates these robots have any special-use permits for the sidewalk the way, say, a street vendor would.

Sorry, what law specifies obstruction only applies to "people" or something with a special permit? Where are you seeing the requirement for them to have a special-use permit?

Maybe I'm unfamiliar with the local law, but it sounds like you're just making stuff up, since you're not citing any specific code here.

>It's possible they might try to stretch (IMO bogus) "loitering" laws to get her, but doing so would make their intentions crystal clear.

If I stand on a train track, do you think the police aren't allowed to ask me to move?

She was explicitly repositioning herself to stay in the way of the robot and prevent it from making forward progress despite its efforts to move around her. She's not just standing there.

Did he tell her to move off the sidewalk? Or did he tell her to stay where she was and let the robot navigate around her?

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