de officiis wrote:
I'm sure all the truck drivers are relieved. The Day of Judgment postponed a little longer.
I don't know. It's not impossible to do this by any means. I could think of a few different ways to implement it. But to do it right will take quite a lot of money and time. The federal government is going to step in eventually and make requirements similar to the space and aviation industries. These corporations are going to agree to do it that way and probably start again.
I think what happened here was zeal on the part of the business types who usually take over corporations from the engineers who start them but don't understand the actual products and what is required to develop them properly.
Going after taxis first, in my opinion, was also a big mistake. But something like a tractor and trailer with a full load drastically ups the risk as well. A very good start would be for private vehicles on various campuses that ferry people between buildings, and to and from parking lots. That's pretty slow and there exist all kinds of obstacles and contingencies to mitigate. It's a good problem domain that isn't likely to kill anybody while you figure out where all the problems will arise.
That's really the big issue here. Because it's so new, they have no idea what kinds of problems will arise, but they do know that failure could very well end in death.
It was a bad roll-out of this technology. Very bad.