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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

(www.cnbc.com)
597 points achristmascarl | 4 comments | 22 Aug 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.213s | source
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hardwaregeek ◴[22 Aug 25 17:37 UTC] No.44987337[source]▶
I’m curious if autonomous cars will become targets for aggressive drivers. Like a driver isn’t going to be as scared cutting off a Waymo or tailgating one because the AI isn’t gonna get road rage or honk like hell. In some places I could see the Waymo’s getting severely bullied if that’s the case.
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1. dmicah ◴[22 Aug 25 17:50 UTC] No.44987475[source]▶
But why would you tailgate a driverless car? I think usually people tailgate to intimidate the person ahead of them to drive faster.
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2. dazc ◴[22 Aug 25 18:30 UTC] No.44988015[source]▶
Because that works every time?
3. gffrd ◴[22 Aug 25 18:44 UTC] No.44988216[source]▶
People tailgate because they're toddlers and locate their locus of control externally - if anything, they'll be very happy tailgating driverless cars because they can throw as big a fit as they want, there will be no consequences, and they'll feel they got to blame something else other than themselves.
4. hardwaregeek ◴[22 Aug 25 19:37 UTC] No.44988901[source]▶
Because there’s still someone in the car, they just have no way to defend themselves. You can tailgate and honk at them to your heart’s content. Well at least until they call the police but that’s pretty far. And there are other forms of aggression that do accomplish something. If you cut a Waymo off or beat it to merge, you get ahead of it. In some locales I could see a whole series of cars merging ahead of a Waymo if people are aggressive enough.