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Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

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

#41

Post by t0mas88 »

epistasis wrote: post #25
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…

That's the mostly overly American thing I've read this year... Make consumers file a class action against car manufacturers (good luck with a Tesla and mandatory arbitration), all to avoid doing the sensible thing: Make some rules for this market.

The likes of Musk will moan and bitch about it, but regulation is a perfectly good solution for this.

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

#42

Post by Rebelgecko »

When I've taken Waymo rides, the weirdest part of the experience was that it actually obeyed speed limits and stopped at stop signs. The latter actually freaked out other drivers.

I can't wait until the selfishness of humans is no longer a factor when it comes to road safety.

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

#43

Post by maxsilver »

eropple wrote: post #39
maxsilver wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 furnac…

> 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…

Completly agree. NHTSA should (imho) have full regulatory control over the approval of any and all self-driving car tech on the road. (Rather than just 'Voluntary Guidance' suggestions and 'safety-related defects', which encourages manufacturers to ship a known-defective product, and hope NHTSA can't catch it in a recall)

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

#44

Post by eropple »

maxsilver wrote: post #43
eropple wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Completly agree. NHTSA should (imho) have full regulatory control over the approval of any and all self-driving car tech on the road. (Rather than just 'Voluntary Guidance' suggestions and 'safety-related defects', which encourages manufacturers to ship a known-defective product, and hope NHTSA can't catch it in a recall)

100%. Like, maybe my original post sounded like a sop to manufacturers--to be totally clear, hell no. I want them not selling shit at all if it isn't exhaustively checked by an independent regulatory body. But if we can't have that, I want customers feeling the fear of God and not buying the stuff because the responsibility for the tool falls on them too.

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

#45

Post by exhilaration »

bluescrn wrote: post #31
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…

As individuals we are never going to own self-driving cars. If buying the hardware is even an option to begin with, there's going to be a hefty fee to subscribe to the required 'cloud based' self-driving service. (And there's certainly no way individuals/small businesses will be able to buy such a car and run a self-driving taxi service profitably when a megacorporation could have all the income from all the cars)

What about comma? https://comma.ai/ Seems like our old friend geohot built exactly what you want.

Positive HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927971

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

#46

Post by gdk »

solardev wrote: post #36
lolinder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, I edited my comment as you were replying. Do you think it would be possible (and desirable) to split liability, or should it remain solely the manufacturer's?

What happens when the manufacturer folds after the first major accident they're found liable for and now the entire remaining fleet doesn't have anyone liable for it?

If the regulators step in to remove the vehicles from the road then who makes the consumers whole now that their vehicle, and perhaps livelihood, is gone?

I suspect certification is the only reasonable path. If the regulators believe these systems are safe for the road then they should build the framework for establishing that bar. If such a framework is not possible to build then I think that also answers that question.

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

#47

Post by hahajk »

bluescrn wrote: post #31
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…

As individuals we are never going to own self-driving cars. If buying the hardware is even an option to begin with, there's going to be a hefty fee to subscribe to the required 'cloud based' self-driving service. (And there's certainly no way individuals/small businesses will be able to buy such a car and run a self-driving taxi service profitably when a megacorporation could have all the income from all the cars)

I still believe the free market can work for self driving cars. If there's demand for offline self driving cars, someone will make them. Probably someone in Asia will make them affordable.

But I believe regulatory capture and anti-competitive tariffs are likely to make affordable, buy-and-use cars impossible to sell in the US. Regulations will likely change annually, like they do for cars right now. The govt will be worried that China has control of our morning commute.

I hate being cynical, but cars do seem like a lost cause.

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

#48

Post by ceejayoz »

gdk wrote: post #46
solardev wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I edited my comment as you were replying. Do you think it would be possible (and desirable) to split liability, or should it remain solely the manufacturer's?

What happens when the manufacturer folds after the first major accident they're found liable for and now the entire remaining fleet doesn't have anyone liable for it? If the regulators step in to remove the vehicles from the road then who makes the consumers whole now that their vehicle, and perhaps livelihood, is gone? I suspect certification is the only reasonable path. If the regulators believe these systems are s…

An FDIC-style insurance fund, where the manufacturers have to pay in for every vehicle sold, might work here.

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

#49

Post by stavros »

eropple wrote: post #35
stavros wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I buy a defective toaster and it burns down my house, am I liable for choosing to buy it?

If it isn't UL or ETL certified? You very well might be, depending on circumstances. Your insurer may treat all fire as covered peril, but it is not guaranteed.

So, if cars are certified, which they are, I'm not liable.

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

#50

Post by gghffguhvc »

bluescrn wrote: post #31
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…

As individuals we are never going to own self-driving cars. If buying the hardware is even an option to begin with, there's going to be a hefty fee to subscribe to the required 'cloud based' self-driving service. (And there's certainly no way individuals/small businesses will be able to buy such a car and run a self-driving taxi service profitably when a megacorporation could have all the income from all the cars)

Never seems too strong here. In 2000 years when it has been maybe 1500 years since a human turned a steering wheel I can see a situation where an individual owns a self driving car like thing.

Even well before some such future, the type of people who buy Bugatti Veyron will still want to buy something unique and out of reach of the 99.99% of the population. Maybe that is human driven but what if human driven becomes illegal?

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