Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws • Hacker News Board

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#21

Post by argiopetech » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:39 PM UTC

PopAlongKid wrote: post #10

lolinder wrote: post #2

> According to the Texas Transportation Code, the owner of a driverless car is “considered the operator” and can be cited for breaking traffic laws “regardless of whether the person is physically present in the vehicle.” This is all well and good when the owner is Waymo or Cruise and actually has direct control over the code that caused the vehicle to fail, but for consumer cars it brings up important questions of wh…

>how many of us have "owned" a product that has suddenly changed its behavior in undesirable ways after we purchased it? I'd be interested in some examples, as I can't think of any offhand, despite your claim that this "isn't unlikely". Also, when it comes to vehicles misbehaving in traffic, I'd say "harmful" is a more apt term than "undesirable".

"Smart" TVs have this aggravating tendency to change their UIs dramatically from time to time without warning or recourse.

How I wish dumb TVs were still the norm.

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#22

Post by Solvency » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

PopAlongKid wrote: post #10

lolinder wrote: post #2

> According to the Texas Transportation Code, the owner of a driverless car is “considered the operator” and can be cited for breaking traffic laws “regardless of whether the person is physically present in the vehicle.” This is all well and good when the owner is Waymo or Cruise and actually has direct control over the code that caused the vehicle to fail, but for consumer cars it brings up important questions of wh…

>how many of us have "owned" a product that has suddenly changed its behavior in undesirable ways after we purchased it? I'd be interested in some examples, as I can't think of any offhand, despite your claim that this "isn't unlikely". Also, when it comes to vehicles misbehaving in traffic, I'd say "harmful" is a more apt term than "undesirable".

Really? Hell my Google Mini has only recently decided to scream "by the way, the mic is off!" on startup every single time. I've had the mic off for years. Google decided to punish me for using it only as a speaker.

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#23

Post by ajross » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

djbusby wrote: post #5

kevindamm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the judicial system exists.

Usually invoked after some harm has been caused. Perhaps there is something we can do before the, nearly obvious, harm occurs.

"Nearly obvious" seems to be doing a lot of work in that sentence. Maybe elaborate? There are now millions of cars on the road with some level of autonomy, you don't need to hand-wave about what you believe "will" happen. Just show the data.

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#24

Post by verisimi » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

> “It seems like while they make fewer of the kind of mistakes that we see from human drivers, they make interesting new kinds of mistakes,” Raicu said. “It has the feel of a human subject mass experiment, right? Without the kind of consent that we usually want to see as part of that.”

"human subject mass experiment", "consent"?

No, she's wrong there -that's the past. For the past 4 years mass experimentation is fine. Just do it!

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#25

Post by epistasis » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #2

> According to the Texas Transportation Code, the owner of a driverless car is “considered the operator” and can be cited for breaking traffic laws “regardless of whether the person is physically present in the vehicle.” This is all well and good when the owner is Waymo or Cruise and actually has direct control over the code that caused the vehicle to fail, but for consumer cars it brings up important questions of wh…

In this case the consumer should of course still be held responsible, and if they think it's wrong they can join in on the class action lawsuit against the manufacturer.

Or, owners should enter into a pre-existing legal relationship with the manufacturer to get reimbursed for any manufacturer error that gets pushed out.

Those who choose to operate driverless vehicles must have some skin in the game in order for this to be fair at all. Bringing your driverless vehicle into an area is the customer's choice, after all.

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#26

Post by maxsilver » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:42 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #4

lolinder wrote: post #2

> According to the Texas Transportation Code, the owner of a driverless car is “considered the operator” and can be cited for breaking traffic laws “regardless of whether the person is physically present in the vehicle.” This is all well and good when the owner is Waymo or Cruise and actually has direct control over the code that caused the vehicle to fail, but for consumer cars it brings up important questions of wh…

> It doesn't seem reasonable to me to hold an individual consumer liable for bugs in a machine that they are unable to fully control. They chose to buy it. Manufacturers should also be potentially liable for some classes of problem, but consumers are the ones pressing the "run the self-driving car" button. The court system exists to apportion liability properly past that.

> They chose to buy it.

No, absolutely not, never ever. This just highly incentivizes Manufacturers to dump trash garbage into the market (since you've just forced consumers to bear all liability for Manufacturer failures).

You do this once, and you might as well kiss all of society away. Imagine a toy that kills children, and you tell parents, "well, you pressed the 'On' button, so it's your fault". Imagine a furnace that burns down your house, and you tell homeowners, "well, you pressed the 'heat' button, what did you expect?". No one would be willing to buy anything at all, because every manufacturer would be in a race to see the shittiest thing they could trick people into buying. Every product on every shelf would be snake oil.

---

Manufacturers should always be fully liable for any and all problems, that can not be directly attributed to extreme gross negligence on the consumers part.

"wel, consumers are the ones pressing the "run the self-driving car" button" -- absolutely not. Manufacturers sold car with a "self-driving" button, consumers hold zero fault for pressing the button Manufacturers promised would work, unless there's some kind of extreme gross negligence involved. (i.e., pressing the button, while the car is already dangling off a cliff-side, or pressing the button after gouging out every camera and sensor on the car, or whatever).

"But then Manufacturers couldn't sell a self-driving car" -- cool, then the car isn't ready to be sold anyway. If a car company isn't ready to take on the liability for their self-driving product, then it isn't freaking ready for the road -- no exceptions.

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#27

Post by lolinder » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:43 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #20

lolinder wrote: post #2

> According to the Texas Transportation Code, the owner of a driverless car is “considered the operator” and can be cited for breaking traffic laws “regardless of whether the person is physically present in the vehicle.” This is all well and good when the owner is Waymo or Cruise and actually has direct control over the code that caused the vehicle to fail, but for consumer cars it brings up important questions of wh…

> one day the manufacturer pushes a mandatory, automatic over-the-air update that contains a critical bug This is a hidden two-fault scenario, which isn't always "bad engineering" but is usually a smell in that direction. You're (1) accepting that the operator/owner/whatever of the vehicle is technically responsible, (2) acknowledging that this supervision is likely to work in practice, then (3) imagining a hardware/…

I'm explicitly not accepting points 1 or 2.

I set up the scenario to show that no matter how careful the consumer is, their supervision will not work in practice (since the vehicle's behavior can change at any time and without warning) and therefore they cannot be held responsible for the behavior of the vehicle.

Either the manufacturer should not be allowed to market it (because it cannot be operated safely) or the manufacturer should be considered the operator.

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#28

Post by solardev » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:47 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #2

> According to the Texas Transportation Code, the owner of a driverless car is “considered the operator” and can be cited for breaking traffic laws “regardless of whether the person is physically present in the vehicle.” This is all well and good when the owner is Waymo or Cruise and actually has direct control over the code that caused the vehicle to fail, but for consumer cars it brings up important questions of wh…

> Either manufacturers need to be required to provide important software freedoms to vehicle owners

FOSS robot cars seem like a great way to bypass emissions controls, safety regulations, and plain common sense. It'd take what, half a day, for some teenager to modify the firmware to double the 0-60 and blow up the battery pack at the same time?

I'd want the opposite: for self-driving firmware to be locked down and hardware signed to heck, with an independent auditing body code-reviewing every update.

> or the manufacturers themselves need to be liable for infractions.

Can't it be both? Split legal responsibility between each consumer and manufacturer. Doesn't have to be 50/50, but personal liability (even capped at a few grand) could make people pay attention and take over when the self-driving doesn't seem to be doing its job. We don't need more drivers on the roads who think their wondercars are infallible and blame everyone else for their accidents.

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#29

Post by PopAlongKid » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:50 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #18

PopAlongKid wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how many of us have "owned" a product that has suddenly changed its behavior in undesirable ways after we purchased it? I'd be interested in some examples, as I can't think of any offhand, despite your claim that this "isn't unlikely". Also, when it comes to vehicles misbehaving in traffic, I'd say "harmful" is a more apt term than "undesirable".

Here is a (very) incomplete list. Not all are ones that I've personally experienced, but they're all products that either I or someone in my direct acquaintance have owned/used. * Microsoft Windows starts showing ads in new and creative places, even though I shelled out $200 for the Pro version. * An Android update broke my preferred home screen. * Roomba vacuums go through regular periods of stupidity in between sof…

>Here is a (very) incomplete list

Unlike the potential of a vehicle making driving mistakes, none of your examples is harmful, especially not to random third parties. The only thing on your list I have direct experience with is Windows--I've had the Pro license ever since Win 10 came out, now on three different machines, and I don't see any ads on my desktop or popping up in my file system. (of course, I don't log in to any Microsoft account, maybe that explains it).

Re: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

#30

Post by lolinder » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 3:50 PM UTC

solardev wrote: post #28

lolinder wrote: post #2

> According to the Texas Transportation Code, the owner of a driverless car is “considered the operator” and can be cited for breaking traffic laws “regardless of whether the person is physically present in the vehicle.” This is all well and good when the owner is Waymo or Cruise and actually has direct control over the code that caused the vehicle to fail, but for consumer cars it brings up important questions of wh…

> Either manufacturers need to be required to provide important software freedoms to vehicle owners FOSS robot cars seem like a great way to bypass emissions controls, safety regulations, and plain common sense. It'd take what, half a day, for some teenager to modify the firmware to double the 0-60 and blow up the battery pack at the same time? I'd want the opposite: for self-driving firmware to be locked down and ha…

That's a reasonable argument. In that case, I argue that the manufacturer who wrote and signed the firmware should be liable as the operator of the vehicle.