"begin" you mean they haven't been doing that already? That seems wrong
California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
151–160 of 371 posts
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue here is that a lot of the concerns about AV's are orthogonal to the standard metrics of concern. I'm a strong transit alternatives advocate, but even I recognize that a firetruck or ambulance being blocked by an AV has the potential to cause an outsized amount of death and destruction, because deaths aren't always linear and a fire that is able to get out of control can do catastrophic damage compared to a…
We already accept that it’s fine for human drivers to block emergency services and we generally refuse to build, say, bus and bike lines that can be used by emergency services. So the uproar over AV’s blocking emergency vehicles seems incredibly manufactured or inconsistent, much like the hoopla over AI and water. e.g. You can take anyone complaining about this and you’ll find they didn’t care about emergency vehicle…
The difference is blocking emergency vehicles in predictable, high traffic areas that can be intentionally avoided vs randomly blocking an entire road because you couldn’t handle a weird event.
People actually think hard about these problems. The entire point of my post is that it is trivial to mitigate.
I was in the middle of the SF blackout, and witnessed the Waymos stopped at lights and actually commended Waymo for handling the emergency so well. At the same time, I’ve seen many ambulances get blocked just seconds away from the hospital because of Waymos unable to navigate complex intersections like oak/fell and stanyan.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#153I 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…
> If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book. Hah. Do they, though? https://sfstandard.com/2026/03/20/mary-lau-sentenced-probati... The standard for human drivers is through the floor.
The reason that’s a news story is because the outcome is unusual.
When things are normal and happening all the time, they’re not reported as abnormal outcomes.
The world is a big place. Being able to think of a counter-example does not negate a general point.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue here is that a lot of the concerns about AV's are orthogonal to the standard metrics of concern. I'm a strong transit alternatives advocate, but even I recognize that a firetruck or ambulance being blocked by an AV has the potential to cause an outsized amount of death and destruction, because deaths aren't always linear and a fire that is able to get out of control can do catastrophic damage compared to a…
> I'm genuinely stunned that AV's do not have the ability to be "commandeered" by Police/Fire/EMS in a pinch, and I'm honestly surprised that regular citizens can't just hit a red button that signal "this is seriously an emergency." The passenger of a Waymo can, but not anyone outside it. There's a very prominent "call for help" button on the screen when you get inside.
A “call for help” button is customer service. The ability to say “this is the police, drop everything and attend to this car” button would be helpful.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#155Earlier 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…
Don't forget to add rail incidents to that metric. I live in Spain, this year we had 4 derailments for a total of 48 deaths and 195 injured. The USA has had 0 passengers killed or injured from train accidents this year. Portugal had 15 death after a tram derailment. In Amsterdam, the tram is more dangerous than the car. Also Germany is very high (for European standards) because of the Autobahn. They can save around 1…
Hm, it's only something like 10% of German traffic fatalities that occur on the autobahn. And according to wikipedia, Germany doesn't rank high in terms of traffic fatalities, even by European standards. France has a similar number of highway deaths. I'm personally not a fan of the autobahn and especially not the unrestricted speed. It seems obvious that it should cause lots of fatalities, but the evidence for it just doesn't seem to be there.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#156How do the police pull over a driverless vehicle? Who hands over the license and registration? How do you get it to sign the ticket?
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#157If there aren't serious consequences for driverless cars committing crimes (I mean jail time for executives serious), what's to stop someone for starting a hitman business?
We'll just run someone over with our "driverless" car and pay a fine - capitalism, baby!
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#158Why have they not been doing this already?
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#159Earlier 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…
> 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 or government level That effort being what, exactly? Road fatalities per mile driven don’t translate cleanly from country to country because the type of roads and even types of deaths (single vehicle, multi vehicle) are different. We could set the speed limit at 25mph everywhere and force all vehicles…
> That effort being what, exactly?
Off the top of my head you could do any of these or a combination.
- much stricter training and testing to get a license
- vehicles where the safety of others is considered
- ban stupid dangerous cars (my wife doesn’t stand as tall as an F350, let alone a kid
- harsher penalties for drunk driving (see Germany)
- harsher penalties for all kinds of dangerous driving
None of these are hard to implement, the US just lacks the will.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#160Bike Lanes have turned out to be an interesting edge case. Waymos are currently dropping off and picking up passengers in a bike lane which is not legal (because it is dangerous) however many ride share drivers also do this. As somebody who is commonly a biker / pedestrian I am excited that AVs will likely make many things safer for that class of user. That being said, I do worry about how we encode these "social und…
It's all pretty nuanced. I don't know where to draw a line.
For instance: Busy intersections with 4-way stop signs are an interesting example of how laws don't quite fit.
It's obviously important to get the order right since nobody wants to be in a car crash today. But the law (often -- we've got 50 states worth of driving laws and they aren't all the same) says something very specific and simplistic about the order: First-come, first-served; if order is unclear, yield to the right. Always wait for the intersection to be completely clear before proceeding.
That sounds nice and neat and it looks good on paper. It was surely at least a very easy system to describe and then write down.
But reality is very different: 4 way stops are an elaborate dance of drivers executing moves simultaneously and without conflict. For instance: Two opposite, straight-going cars can proceed concurrently works fine. All 4 directions can turn right, concurrently. Opposing left turns at the same time? Sure! While others are also turning right? Why not.
When there's room for a move and it creates no conflict, then that move works fine.
We all were taught how these intersections are supposed to work, but then reality ultimately shows us how they do work. And the dance works. It's efficient. Nobody gets ticketed for safely dancing that dance. (And broadly-speaking, a timid law-abiding driver who doesn't know the dance will be let through...eventually.)
The main problem with the dance is that it's difficult to adequately describe and write down and thus codify in law.
But maybe we should try, anyway.