Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws

nbcnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 120 posts

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

#111

Post by sixothree »

anileated wrote: post #74
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…

> Tickets are for individuals who make choices; safety regulations with fines and revoking licenses are for corporations and things like driverless cars. Fine the owner of the self-driving car enough and she will sell it and never buy from this company again. Fine enough owners and the company is broke. Similarly, we do not punish the Coca-Colas of the world for pumping out fossil-fuel based plastic packaging by a to…

So you’re suggesting the effect is correct but it shouldn’t be first order and some invisible free market force will actually work the way you pretend?

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

#112

Post by gamblor956 »

shagie wrote: post #91
bluescrn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pattern is that hardware is sold but software is now rented, it must be a 'revenue stream', not a one-off sale. Cars were hardware. But now contain ever-increasing amounts of software. With self-driving cars, the software is the main feature.

Software that is a one off sale is rarely profitable to do as that comes with the additional cost of updates and patches. The development cost of the updates and patches has to come from somewhere - either significantly marking up the initial purchase cost to fund the on going development (side bit: when a one time purchase server shuts down people are up in arms about that) or with some form of subscription model. I…

Software sold as a one-off sale can be, and usually is, very profitable. See e.g., most software companies pre-SaaS-era. This is in fact how most software was sold...and is still sold today.

SaaS is the plague on software development, because the subscription model demands a shift to constant feature "upgrades" and other frequently-useless "updates" intended to justify the perpetual subscription costs to customers.

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

#113

Post by bshipp »

This kind of reminds me of when the Concorde first started flying and technically could cancel IFR flight and proceed under visual flight rules over the atlantic because it was above 60,000 feet. An interesting legal possibility but likely not a practical consideration until driverless cars are afforded the same legal status as a human driver. As it currently stands, an AI would be considered a driving aid under the command of a licensed human driver, no different than cruise control.

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

#114

Post by bluejekyll »

shkkmo wrote: post #82
bluejekyll wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> We don't even require a breathlyzer reading before cars start.

Actually we do for repeat offenders. On top of that there is active discussion of having car companies detect if someone is impaired before driving.

Driving is not a right, it’s a privilege, and far too many people abuse that privilege.

> we try to discourage that behavior with education and penalties.

Try is the operative word here, we try and we fail because there isn’t enough enforcement on our streets.

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

#115

Post by anileated »

sixothree wrote: post #111
anileated wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tickets are for individuals who make choices; safety regulations with fines and revoking licenses are for corporations and things like driverless cars. Fine the owner of the self-driving car enough and she will sell it and never buy from this company again. Fine enough owners and the company is broke. Similarly, we do not punish the Coca-Colas of the world for pumping out fossil-fuel based plastic packaging by a to…

So you’re suggesting the effect is correct but it shouldn’t be first order and some invisible free market force will actually work the way you pretend?

Do you think it works in case of pollution and recycling?

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

#116

Post by albert_e »

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…

Here is an recent example from a slightly different area:

> Exam invalidated over... Facetime emojis??? > https://www.reddit.com/r/AWSCertifications/comments/18p8uub/...

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

#117

Post by turquoisevar »

FpUser wrote: post #89
turquoisevar wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the US, they are still firmly part of the criminal system and recorded on your criminal record, to the point that if you don’t show up, a warrant will be issued for your arrest in some jurisdictions.

Elsewhere, they also used to be part of the criminal system and handled similarly to how it’s dealt with in the US (minus the more severe tools the criminal justice system has on hand).

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

#119

Post by coryrc »

maxsilver wrote: post #108
coryrc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our regulatory state mandates small airplanes use leaded gasoline and has for many decades, literally harming poor children the most. Our regulatory state drives up the cost of housing in numerous ways (zoning, arc-fault breakers, "look and feel", etc). Children don't hardly see their parents because they must drive long distances to commute, they don't get adequate supervision. Our culture is what allows this to con…

> Regulation won't fix a broken culture. That's fine. Regulation's "job" isn't to "fix a broken culture", it exists to prevent repeat mistakes -- especially risky/damaging ones. The saying goes, "safety regulations are written in blood" -- that most of the regulations we have exist to prevent some kind of tragedy that has already happened at least once. > Our regulatory state drives up the cost of housing in numerous…

It's not "basic safety", it's akin to mandating helmet use while driving cars.

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

#120

Post by sixothree »

anileated wrote: post #115
sixothree wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re suggesting the effect is correct but it shouldn’t be first order and some invisible free market force will actually work the way you pretend?

Do you think it works in case of pollution and recycling?

I think waiting to punish someone 15 years later for a crime is silly.
Post reply on HN