California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by input_sh » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #79

Groxx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better than the current standard for AV, which is "what floor?"

Cruise was entirely shut down because of an incident that didnt even result in a death. Thats way worse than what people tend to get

It wasn't "because of an incident", it was because they were required to submit a report about that (or any other) incident, did so, and then the security footage proved that they straight up lied in the report about that particular incident.

If they just told the truth, they wouldn't lose their licence, but they couldn't even oblige by this piss-poor regulatory action in which they were required to do nothing but self-report any incident.

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

#182

Post by Aachen » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Aachen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who does it benefit if an accident ruins a second life? What does a jail sentence deter? ("[no] gross negligence [...] wasn’t engaging in a race or sideshow, was not texting, and was not under influence") This person was 80 years old with no criminal record, needs to pay $67400 in restitution, do 200 hours of community service, isn't allowed to drive for 3 years but "never intends to drive again". Apologised to the f…

> Who does it benefit if an accident ruins a second life? The next person they'd mow down. (Also, retribution. It's a real human need and attempts at philosophising it away degrade trust in our justice system.) > isn't allowed to drive for 3 years This is the wild part. No! You don't drive again! > What more can you ask for here? For her to have recognised her own limitations before they took lives. Failing at that,…

Huh? We're talking about someone who's not going to drive for 3 years at 80 years old. Who else are you foreseeing they'll "mow down" if you don't jail them for life

> For her to have recognised her own limitations

Surely I don't need to look up the statistics of people under 30 killing others by accident. We're humans, not infallible. The judge didn't think they took any undue risk here

But sure, enact your vengeance on the person that fate picked out. Comment sections are always full of it anyway so I'm sure the voting booth will be too and this is just going to spread

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

#183

Post by jollymonATX » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

Why was this not already happening?

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

#184

Post by willbeddow » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

Seems good. I'm a big Waymo user (344 rides) and love it, but I think they violate both traffic laws and common-sense courtesies of traffic in ways not captured by safety / crash statistics. Tickets probably are a great signal for ways the model needs to be improved.

For example, every time a Waymo picks me up from my apartment, it blocks a full lane of traffic on an extremely busy street, rather than pulling into a much quieter side street that an Uber driver will always use. I suspect (but have no idea), a lot of these low-level annoyances might be invisible to someone only looking at aggregated crash statistics, ride times, etc.

In many ways, I suspect the AI future might be better in many of the ways we can measure, but worse in those which aren't legible to statistics.

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

#185

Post by cindyllm » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

themafia wrote: post #140

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…

> 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.

[dead]

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

#186

Post by ryandrake » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:43 PM UTC

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…

As the saying goes: If you want to kill someone and get the lightest possible consequences, kill them with your car.

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

#187

Post by ryantgtg » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

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…

Now we’re talking. So much misinformation in this thread. There’s a reason that the saying, “if you want to kill someone, do it with a car” exists. Fortunately, it seems like judges are finally starting to wake up to the idea that it’s unreasonable for drivers to claim ignorance about the increased risks (and thus intent) of making poor/illegal decisions when being the wheel.

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

#188

Post by Aachen » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #92

mlyle wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the wild part. No! You don't drive again! She's not going to drive again. > For her to have recognised her own limitations before they took lives. This is something that humans suck at. > Failing at that, her family–or literally anyone who cared about her, and didn't want to see her spend her last years in jail–having taken initiative. You shouldn't punish her for other people failing to take action.

> She's not going to drive again She gets her license back. That's wild. > This is something that humans suck at Not usually with fatal consequences. These were preventable deaths. Not only that, the driver was being incredibly reckless, apparently driving 70 mph in a residential area. > You shouldn't punish her for other people failing to take action You're punishing her for being criminally reckless. You're creatin…

> She gets her license back. That's wild.

Definitely not given back. If I didn't misread it, she needs to take a new driver's test at 83, which she already declined applying for (though it'll be her right; we'd have to see if she stays by the decision or if the examiner deems her a safe driver)

> You're punishing her for being criminally reckless. You're creating an incentive structure that should reduce the frequency of future criminality.

Wtf? Try applying logic somewhere in the process. People don't enjoy killing others by accident, paying 64k, 200h community service, three years of trying to use American public transport before you can start the process of getting a license back, going through a whole court system, and, y'know, guilt that I'd imagine would cripple me for years

Edit: I'm very surprised, reading your other comments, they're overall legit sensible. Really struggling to comprehend how, here, you get from "someone did something by accident" to "you need life punishments or they'll have an incentive to mow the next person down". There's zero incentive for citizens to kill people in any society that I'm aware of, again even ignoring the internal problems it causes

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

#189

Post by wredcoll » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

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…

Ok, so give an actual example.

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

#190

Post by timoth3y » Sat, May 02, 2026, 9:52 PM UTC

This will be just another minor cost of doing business unless they are treated like human drivers in at least two other ways.

1) If theses companies get enough points on their license, their license is revoked. Not just for that vehicle, but for all of their vehicles. (The number of points would need to be adjusted for number of miles driven.)

2) Senior executives could be held criminally liable for vehicular manslaughter the way a normal drivers are. A death doesn't mean someone is going to prison, but their would be a police investigation. If an exec decided to ship a product with a known bug that lead to someone's death it should be treated with the same seriousness as a drunk driver killing someone.