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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

#81

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

lolinder wrote: post #40
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?

Since we're talking about traffic tickets, which are (currently) routine and generally try to avoid the court system as much as possible, I'd say that we need laws that provide no ambiguity, and I'd rather those laws place the blame on the party with the most control.

This isn't just a matter of ticketing for minor violations with no consequences. These are unregulated robots that have and will continue to kill people.

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

#82

Post by shkkmo »

bluejekyll wrote: post #71
serf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? generally we don't pen laws in order to save a singular idiot teenager -- more-so the aforementioned teenager bought a product and then ruined it; the teenager already rece…

> the teenager already received the punishment for his actions by the destruction of their own property > Cars have always been dangerous, and aside from gross safety and emissions laws, we're allowed to modify them. These statements are inherently ignoring the externalities that the dangers pose to others on the roads and streets. For years we’ve allowed people to essentially modify their cars however they want, we’…

> These statements are inherently ignoring the externalities that the dangers pose to others on the roads and streets.

No, they don't. We don't ban alcohol or cars because of drunk drivers. We don't even require a breathlyzer reading before cars start.

Instead, we try to discourage that behavior with education and penalties. We penalize drunk drivers after they harm other road users or we try to catch them beforehand based on driving irregularities.

I do suspect we will see restrictions on what software can be run on cars. I hope those restrictions allow open source solutions to be viable. Ideally there would be a cost effective federal system of safety approval for any release of self driving software and we'll allow users to run any approved system on publix roads so that ownership of devices isn't lost. Unfortunately I think regulatory capture makes a positive outcome here unlikely.

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

#83

Post by ufmace »

crazygringo wrote: post #52

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion here, but "tickets" don't make any conceptual sense for driverless cars. The entire concept of tickets and fines are to act as a deterrent to individual drivers who might make unsafe choices -- that they'll actively choose whether to obey a speed limit or not. Driverless cars don't seem to be programmed to break laws in the first place. They're incapable of making a choice to break…

I basically agree with all that. I think I'd further say that the way any kind of practical regulation shakes out, it may never make sense for individuals to own self-driving cars.

If we are to hold the creator of self-driving systems responsible for any poor behavior of their creations (as we very well should!), then they must have both the ability to be certain that all of their deployed software and hardware is always in the intended correct working order, and the ability to perform fixes and updates on demand of either themselves or some regulating agency.

Therefore, it seems pointless for it to ever be possible for an individual to "own" such a thing. They would inevitably be mandated to never attempt to modify the system and to accept any updates and maintenance tasks immediately on the creator's demand. So why should any reasonable individual, or banks who would have to be writing loans to those individuals, want to own such a thing when they have so little control over it and so many liabilities?

Consider a situation like - the car has 6 laser/lidar sensors. It is designed to continue operating as well as possible if one of them malfunctions. If one of them does infact malfunction, who is responsible for deciding when to replace it and paying for such service? If you truly own such a vehicle, wouldn't you be the one paying for it? And if you're paying for it, how could you not be the one deciding exactly when it happens? So then inevitably some people would put it off as long as possible and have the vehicle operating in a degraded condition. Maybe it could try to refuse to operate until serviced, but when? Maybe when you're out of town somewhere, or when you have an important meeting to make it to later?

Liability, even conditional, for the end user doesn't seem like a very good solution either. Is it really a good system for every unfortunate incident to become a legal battle between an individual owner and what would necessarily be a gigantic mega-corporation with a fat legal budget for who is really responsible? Yeah, no.

So I think I just proved that self-driving cars pretty much always have to be operated as a taxi-like system as Waymo etc currently do. Lidar sensor breaks? Not my problem, the service needs to send another one, no matter what the location - it can't go to any location it couldn't send a replacement to anyways. If there's any problems, there's always a clear party responsible - a giant wealthy mega-corp that is very easy to regulate and fine and capable of fixing the whole fleet fast.

Am I missing something here? Maybe, but I don't see it right now.

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

#84

Post by turquoisevar »

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…

There are two components here that both already have an answer in the real world.

1) making owners of cars responsible for (most) traffic infractions

2) issues caused by third parties, with the first party bearing initial liability

Number 1 is surprisingly common in overseas countries. Some of those countries have figured that your garden variety traffic fines clog up the courts, so they’ve lifted simple garden variety infractions out of criminal law and placed them in administrative law.

In doing so, they’ve made the owner of the car (i.e., license plate holder) responsible for these types of traffic infractions, who then receive their fines by mail (which are technically settlement offers to avoid prosecution) with a generous appeal window, after which the fine is finalized (doesn’t end up on criminal record because it’s not criminal anymore).

This frees up court resources, allows for ticketing without stops, and shifts responsibility to the car's owner, who then, if applicable, can settle it with whomever they borrow their car to.

For more severe infractions, it’s still tied to the driver, with the car owner being the initial presumptive driver.

Number 2 is a common situation in the US and overseas and is resolved by going after whoever is responsible (e.g., manufacturer) after the fact to be made whole again. It’s similar to going after the seller of the stolen goods after the original owner takes back their property from you in jurisdictions where property rights don’t transfer after stolen goods are sold.

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

#85

Post by michaelsshaw »

crazygringo wrote: post #52

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion here, but "tickets" don't make any conceptual sense for driverless cars. The entire concept of tickets and fines are to act as a deterrent to individual drivers who might make unsafe choices -- that they'll actively choose whether to obey a speed limit or not. Driverless cars don't seem to be programmed to break laws in the first place. They're incapable of making a choice to break…

The absurdity of ticketing driverless vehicles makes it all the more clear that American police will lobby hard in favor of it

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

#87

Post by cyanydeez »

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…

the answer obviously is you're getting a service contract and the company will claim you're responsible 99.9% of the time.

the best of capitalism will definitely happen.

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

#88

Post by x86x87 »

crazygringo wrote: post #52

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion here, but "tickets" don't make any conceptual sense for driverless cars. The entire concept of tickets and fines are to act as a deterrent to individual drivers who might make unsafe choices -- that they'll actively choose whether to obey a speed limit or not. Driverless cars don't seem to be programmed to break laws in the first place. They're incapable of making a choice to break…

who is liable in case of a self-driving car causes an accident? Is the liability any different between an accident and a potential accident (ie ticket) ?

I for one do not buy the argument that the intent to break the law is not there. To understand why this is the case: imagine a really fast self driving car that enters the runway at an airport. It speeds up as it attempts to take off. It does not take off and in the process - best case - causes delay for everyone using the airport. Now, I could argue that this car is a plane and it was in fact NOT programmed to NOT take off. Therefore everything is good.

In my opinion: self-driving cars do not belong on the road unless there are real consequences to their screw ups. Right now it's a beta test where you might just lose your life and nobody is going to be held accountable.

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

#89

Post by FpUser »

turquoisevar wrote: post #84
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…

There are two components here that both already have an answer in the real world. 1) making owners of cars responsible for (most) traffic infractions 2) issues caused by third parties, with the first party bearing initial liability Number 1 is surprisingly common in overseas countries. Some of those countries have figured that your garden variety traffic fines clog up the courts, so they’ve lifted simple garden varie…

>"so they’ve lifted simple garden variety infractions out of criminal law and placed them in administrative law."

Many "garden variety infractions" are human errors. I do not think those were ever a subject to criminal prosecution disregarding whether the ability to clog the courts.

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

#90

Post by analog31 »

crazygringo wrote: post #52

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion here, but "tickets" don't make any conceptual sense for driverless cars. The entire concept of tickets and fines are to act as a deterrent to individual drivers who might make unsafe choices -- that they'll actively choose whether to obey a speed limit or not. Driverless cars don't seem to be programmed to break laws in the first place. They're incapable of making a choice to break…

In between tickets and regulations, there's insurance. Say that my car bumps into a parked car. My insurance pays for the repairs. The insurance company figures out how much to charge me. Simply saying that a driverless car pays for the damage that it causes might be the way to manage this issue.
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