They haven’t been all this time? Damn — what a time to be a robot
California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
21–30 of 371 posts
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#22I 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.
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 family of the victims. She's taking responsibility and I can't imagine forced labor at that age is fun. What more can you ask for here? The family member isn't coming back if she gets what's not unlikely to be a life sentence
Edit:
> She told a witness at the scene that she was trying to park her car when she accidentally moved her foot to the gas pedal.
This seems to happen a lot. Don't know about statistics but this happened to someone I know at 50yo (thankfully only damaged their own car minorly), and you hear it on the news with some regularity. Maybe the gas needs to be in a fundamentally different spot from the brake? We can jail the people to whom it happens, sure, but I can understand a judge using their head instead of their heart. The real solution must come either from the automotive industry or legislation
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#23As a Waymo (and other driverless car) supporter, this seems like an obviously good thing, right? I’m a little surprised this wasn’t possible before given the amount of regulatory scrutiny (correctly) applied to these companies. Archive link in case of random paywalling like I got: https://archive.ph/xHMDO
> As a Waymo (and other driverless car) supporter, this seems like an obviously good thing, right? I’m a little surprised this wasn’t possible before given the amount of regulatory scrutiny (correctly) applied to these companies Not necessarily. I went into a bit more detail in my own comment but it might be useful to think that when regulations are written keeping in mind multibillion dollar automobile companies, wh…
I would hope any type of software modification would put more of the responsibility the owner.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#24Earlier 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.
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…
They intentionally moved assets to their family members to avoid liability, right?
Laws are also meant to deter bad behavior, people who aren't able to drive safely should know there will be consequences
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#25Earlier 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.
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…
> What does a jail sentence deter?
Other irresponsible drivers.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#26Ticketing is a weird thing to do with driverless cars. If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow rules or else cease operations entirely. If the violations are unintentional but happen only rarely in weird edge-case situations, then just set low frequency thresholds for them to be allowed, the same way we allow tiny amounts of rodent hairs in peanut…
Ok, but why are AVs getting a break on the same tickets a human gets no "low frequency threshold" for them to be allowed.
If a AV runs a red light or a stop sign, it should be the same penalty, period.
If AV companies want to avoid the tickets, they can make their claimed superior drivers avoid violating the law.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#27Ticketing is a weird thing to do with driverless cars. If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow rules or else cease operations entirely. If the violations are unintentional but happen only rarely in weird edge-case situations, then just set low frequency thresholds for them to be allowed, the same way we allow tiny amounts of rodent hairs in peanut…
No, I think ticketing is the right thing to do. You set a law. Any instance of breaking that law costs money, so the AV company has an incentive to reduce the number of violations. The won't be able to bring the number of violations down to 0 just like we can't bring the number of cockroaches in chocolate down to 0, but that nonzero amount is just a regulatory cost they can decrease by getting closer to the goal of 0 violations.
Obviously, we should also have the option to pull vehicles that are brazenly ignoring the law and just eating the cost of the tickets. Just like we do with drivers who do that. But that should be the second line of defense if regular monetary fines (tickets) fail
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#28Ticketing is a weird thing to do with driverless cars. If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow rules or else cease operations entirely. If the violations are unintentional but happen only rarely in weird edge-case situations, then just set low frequency thresholds for them to be allowed, the same way we allow tiny amounts of rodent hairs in peanut…
>If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow the law or else cease operations entirely.
I have to stop reading the rest of the comment right there.
If the violations are intentional and easily fixable is an incredibly loaded presumption to start any type of conversation, dialogue, or debate. To the point, asking the question 'how do we qualify intention? How are we measuring difficulty of fix? Costs of payroll, computer, deployment, and potential regression testing? What about the very nature of the context that led up to it? Did an external 3rd party cutoff a robotaxi and require that the robotaxi veer into the oncoming traffic lane, bc sensors indicated it was the best decision to avoid a collision, prioritizing safety and human life over traffic law?
What happens when following traffic law statistically leads to a greater risk of loss of life over violating the law?
I must insist we move the dialogue upstream to reality as-is, and there is plenty to discuss there.
I will in good faith issue a starting point: how should we measure the robotaxi driver license wrt suspension? Do we issue a point system that is averaged across the fleet, e.g. violations/car before suspending all operations until licensure evaluation? Personally I think that is a fair starting point amd am completely open minded to alternative views.
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#29Earlier 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…
> What does a jail sentence deter? Other irresponsible drivers.
How would I know I'm going to kill someone on the road today and stop doing that thing?
Re: California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws
#30Ticketing is a weird thing to do with driverless cars. If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow rules or else cease operations entirely. If the violations are unintentional but happen only rarely in weird edge-case situations, then just set low frequency thresholds for them to be allowed, the same way we allow tiny amounts of rodent hairs in peanut…
I think part of ticketing is the state makes money off of it. If they just shut these companies down no one benefits.