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California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

bbc.com

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Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#131

Post by retired »

danaris wrote: post #126
embedding-shape wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Losing one's license means destitution for many Americans. That'd be the same for a Swede who lives in the middle of nowhere too. Although I'm sure both groups, if they'd loose their license, would continue driving anyways.

...But what percentage of Swedes is that? vs the vast majority of working-class Americans. Remember, outside of its few biggest and wealthiest cities, the US just does not have decent, reliable public transport, and most places don't have any .

And how many Americans live in places without any public transport?

As a European I spend some time in LA and Las Vegas and while not optimal I could get everywhere without a car. I could even do a day-trip to Bakersfield by bus.

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#132

Post by preinheimer »

Aachen wrote: post #12
zdw wrote: post #2

Ideally the fees would be similar to the Norway model, where some tickets are tied to the income of the driver, in this case the pre-tax earnings of the company that created the driverless car.

That can make sense (opinions differ) for individuals, but it's not like the company is advertising with "we get you there at 1.2x legal speed". They're not competing on that; they're not choosing to do this on purpose like an individual might choose to speed (for example because of economic incentives if their hourly price is high) If they were, then it makes sense to fine them to some multiple of the benefit they g…

They may not advertise “getting you there at 1.2x legal speed” but the sooner they drop you off, the sooner they can get another fare. Over a whole fleet it will add up to changing the size of the required fleet.

If getting a ticket one ride in a thousand is cheaper than deploying another 2000 cars to make up for the increased trip time I’d expect them to keep getting tickets.

I’m also not sure they don’t do it on purpose. Tesla self driving has an aggressive mode willing to speed and roll through stop signs. Those were deliberate, law breaking, choices.

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#133

Post by hluska »

wongarsu wrote: post #20
callc wrote: post #7

I am, in general, hoping AV will reduce road deaths in the future. The last hurdle is regulatory. We can’t let AV manufacturers use “there’s no driver” as a way to escape responsibility, externalizing the harms AC cause onto society. The question is how to achieve fairness. If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book. What about AV? $10 million? Executives go to jail? What if $10 million fine…

In the US, 11 deaths per billion miles driven (or about 47k per year) is currently seen as an OK cost. More than twice as much per mile as places like Sweden and Switzerland, and still substantially more than places like Canada, Australia or Germany (all three in the 6-8 deaths per billion miles range). So it's not like there isn't room to improve. The effort to do so just isn't seen as worth the cost at the societal…

Doesn’t that 11 per billion statistic include commercial drivers as well? And doesn’t the United States have by far the largest percentage of commercial miles driven of any developed nation?

There’s a far cheaper solution available. Log books.

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#134

Post by cucumber3732842 »

ctoth wrote: post #102
pessimizer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a representative example. This is the assertion. You can recognize it because the obvious reply is that it is not at all a representative example, but one that you just handpicked. You're question-begging.

Here' I'll do the needful: Twin Cities, 2010-2014: 95 pedestrians killed in 3,069 crashes. 28 drivers were charged and convicted of a crime, most often a misdemeanor ranging from speeding to careless driving. ~70% of pedestrian-killing drivers faced no criminal charge[0]. Bay Area, 2007-2011 (CIR investigation): sixty percent of drivers that were at fault, or suspected of being at fault, faced no criminal charges. Ov…

You're likely falling for a red herring.

Criminality is basically just a checkbox for this stuff. Most of the time people wouldn't be going to jail for these sorts of crimes, it'd just be big fines and penalties. There's almost always administrative/civil infractions of the same or similar name that has the same or greater punishment but are far more efficient for the state to prosecute because the accused has fewer rights.

It makes for good appeal to emotion headlines to say these people aren't getting charged with crimes, but that's only half the story. They're likely lawyering up and pleading to a civil infraction that has approx the same penalties.

And this is true not just for this issue but for many subject areas of administrative law. Taxes, SEC, environmental, etc, etc, all operate mostly like this.

It's easy for a writer to pander to certain demographics and get people whipped into a frenzy by writing an easy article about prosecuting rates using public data. Actually contacting these agencies and figuring out what they actually did is hard and in the modern media economy doesn't offer much upside for the work.

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#135

Post by _vertigo »

biophysboy wrote: post #130
wongarsu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, 11 deaths per billion miles driven (or about 47k per year) is currently seen as an OK cost. More than twice as much per mile as places like Sweden and Switzerland, and still substantially more than places like Canada, Australia or Germany (all three in the 6-8 deaths per billion miles range). So it's not like there isn't room to improve. The effort to do so just isn't seen as worth the cost at the societal…

Coming from a bio background, I’ve always been confused why auto fatality stats are normalized per miles driven. Epidemiological metrics like incidence or prevalence seem like they would work fine? Town A would be “safer” than town B if people’s commutes are 20% shorter, even if accidents occur w same frequency

What are some other better ways to normalize?

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#136

Post by [deleted] »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
OptionOfT wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Belgium, and even with public transportation, there are a large group of people dependent on their driver's license. But if you ask someone if they'd drive without insurance, or without driver's license they look at you like you've asked them to do the impossible. Whereas in the US no-one bats an eye when that happens. Half the time the cops just issue a ticket, and don't even tow the car. And now people who…

> if you ask someone if they'd drive without insurance, or without driver's license they look at you like you've asked them to do the impossible To wit: Europe's 1.8% (and Belgium's 0.7%) uninsured-driver rates are a fraction of America's 15% [1][2]. [1] https://www.mibi.ie/ireland-may-have-highest-level-of-uninsu... [2] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-uninsure...

[deleted]

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#137

Post by bluecheese452 »

callc wrote: post #7

I am, in general, hoping AV will reduce road deaths in the future. The last hurdle is regulatory. We can’t let AV manufacturers use “there’s no driver” as a way to escape responsibility, externalizing the harms AC cause onto society. The question is how to achieve fairness. If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book. What about AV? $10 million? Executives go to jail? What if $10 million fine…

Holding executives responsible for actual violence is considered promoting violence on this site and is not allowed. Cue the handwringing and moralizing from the usual suspects.

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#138

Post by retired »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
OptionOfT wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Belgium, and even with public transportation, there are a large group of people dependent on their driver's license. But if you ask someone if they'd drive without insurance, or without driver's license they look at you like you've asked them to do the impossible. Whereas in the US no-one bats an eye when that happens. Half the time the cops just issue a ticket, and don't even tow the car. And now people who…

> if you ask someone if they'd drive without insurance, or without driver's license they look at you like you've asked them to do the impossible To wit: Europe's 1.8% (and Belgium's 0.7%) uninsured-driver rates are a fraction of America's 15% [1][2]. [1] https://www.mibi.ie/ireland-may-have-highest-level-of-uninsu... [2] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-uninsure...

In countries like The Netherlands it is impossible to drive around uninsured. So that is probably why the number is so low.

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#139

Post by themafia »

callc wrote: post #7

I am, in general, hoping AV will reduce road deaths in the future. The last hurdle is regulatory. We can’t let AV manufacturers use “there’s no driver” as a way to escape responsibility, externalizing the harms AC cause onto society. The question is how to achieve fairness. If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book. What about AV? $10 million? Executives go to jail? What if $10 million fine…

> hoping AV will reduce road deaths in the future.

It won't. The majority of fatalities are caused by drugs and alcohol.

> The last hurdle is regulatory.

Indeed. Compare the USAs DUI laws with any other first world country.

Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

#140

Post by themafia »

wongarsu wrote: post #20
callc wrote: post #7

I am, in general, hoping AV will reduce road deaths in the future. The last hurdle is regulatory. We can’t let AV manufacturers use “there’s no driver” as a way to escape responsibility, externalizing the harms AC cause onto society. The question is how to achieve fairness. If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book. What about AV? $10 million? Executives go to jail? What if $10 million fine…

In the US, 11 deaths per billion miles driven (or about 47k per year) is currently seen as an OK cost. More than twice as much per mile as places like Sweden and Switzerland, and still substantially more than places like Canada, Australia or Germany (all three in the 6-8 deaths per billion miles range). So it's not like there isn't room to improve. The effort to do so just isn't seen as worth the cost at the societal…

> 11 deaths per billion miles driven

You should calculate how many are "single vehicle accidents" and how many are "multiple vehicle accidents." In the US the majority are single vehicle.

> seen as an OK cost.

You cannot build a system that stops every stupid person from doing something stupid without introducing absolute tyranny.

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