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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

#161

Post by testing22321 »

tallowen wrote: post #127

Bike 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…

I wonder what happens legally if a biker plows into the Waymo, Casey Neistat style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ

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

#162

Post by ruszki »

retired wrote: post #125
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…

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…

There is a reason for that “per billion miles range”.

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

#163

Post by kelseyfrog »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #105
kelseyfrog wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the insight is that people have varying degrees of forethought. Crime isn't mono-causal and therefore solutions shouldn't be expected to be monolithic.

> solutions shouldn't be expected to be monolithic I don’t see anyone in this thread arguing for this. Just backing up the notion that vehicular manslaughter is almost tolerated by the justice system.

Perhaps an unintentional use of the definite article?

> The function of prison sentences is deterrence.

The definite article is typically used to indicate 'there is only one'[1].

1. https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/free-resources/gramm...

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

#164

Post by ninalanyon »

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're not choosing to do this on purpose

So the AV software is so unreliable that it can't adhere to speed limits?

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

#166

Post by Tagbert »

loeg wrote: post #71
Hnrobert42 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The standard for human drivers is through the floor. The linked article doesn't describe the standard. It describes a single, exceptional example.

It's a representative example. (When you're disputing my evidenced claim, it behooves you to bring your own facts, rather than just asserting.)

No “representative” would mean that was a typical outcome and that is not the case. That is what would be called an “exceptional” outcome.

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

#167

Post by BrenBarn »

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…

I think jail time for executives should be table stakes. Another thing would be fines well in excess of $10 million. The fines should be defined as percentages of gross revenue, or maybe even (to target VC-funded operations that operate at a loss) percentages of gross expenses. The penalties should be such that a few crashes can put the company entirely out of business.

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

#168

Post by asveikau »

Aurornis wrote: post #153
loeg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, the reason that's a news story is because many people were upset about the accident, which killed an entire family of 4 while they took the kids to the zoo on their wedding anniversary. Even by the standards of auto wrecks it was heart wrenching. A lot of people felt the driver was negligent and deserved prison.

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

#169

Post by theendisney »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #134
ctoth wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Someone (i forget who) wrote that if someone invented a technology equally beneficial and equally harmful it wouldnt even be considered today but 100 years ago they wouldnt even question it. It was labor as usual.

Personally i would like to see a more granual permission to drive based on performance, need and demography.

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

#170

Post by keerthiko »

Aurornis wrote: post #153
loeg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

there are many[0] many[1] data points like this. even if individual ones seem like outliers, when there's this many outliers, it's like there's at least two distinct lines depicting consequences, one material and one not.

those who probably have exhausted all the various escape hatches built into the "vehicular manslaughter & mutilation forgiveness program" worldwide by the automobile industry, may get a year or so in prison — usually extreme repeat offenders, high profile deaths, homicide cases, or drivers who were already criminals just having the charge thrown in.

most people who "slipped up" are just fined and forgotten, at the cost of global pedestrian safety.

[0]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1856923/do-s...

[1]: https://gothamist.com/news/95-of-nyc-drivers-avoid-criminal-...

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