Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 371 posts

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

#211

Post by Aachen »

tintor wrote: post #45
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…

Apologised for taking lives of married couple and two babies?

Is that a question? I'm not sure if you're expecting an answer about maybe she should have tried praying for the person to be brought back or what would legit help the situation at that point?

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

#212

Post by fragmede »

altmanaltman wrote: post #206
willbeddow wrote: post #184

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…

Don't they have 360 video of everything? Maybe they're low priority issues for now but surely those issues cannot be "invisible" because they "aren't legible to statistics."

There's no external public visibility into it, so other than wilbeddow writing on HN, how would anyone else know about this issue? I have the opposite problem, where the Waymo takes the legal option on an unbusy street, making the route a lot longer, rather than making an illegal U-turn that a human driver would do, when there's zero traffic or pedestrians it could remotely possibly run into.

Which is also not captured in the statistics.

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

#213

Post by fragmede »

scarmig wrote: post #116
HDThoreaun wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

IIRC Cruise got into the most trouble not because of the accident itself, but because it tried to hide evidence from and deceive regulators.

"it"; Kyle Vogt, their CEO at the time, is the person that decided to do it.

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

#214

Post by tmtvl »

aziaziazi wrote: post #112
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…

> there are a large group of people dependent on their driver's license Are there "no licence cars" in Belgium and the US ? Basically a moped motor and a seat inside a box. 45kmh and no highway, but a bit more confortable and fast than a ebike for rural environment.

Those do exist in Belgium, but (joke starts here) that's because Belgium is enormous, far too large to get proper public transport going (joke ends). I am seeing more and more cargo e-bikes (e-cargo bikes?), which I find a positive change, though it does differ from place to place (Antwerp's fairly okay for bikes, same for Leuven, Brussels was pretty bad last time I was there).

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

#215

Post by adrr »

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.

Is it? Laura Bush ran a stop sign and killed her friend. No charges. Caitlyn Jenner hit a car and pushed it into on coming traffic killed someone. No charges. I can keep going and going.

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

#216

Post by Aachen »

preinheimer wrote: post #132
Aachen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

Oh, I actually read an article about that this morning in bed but didn't imagine regulators would approve a mode that is programmed to ignore laws. Not sure how it works where you're from but in the Netherlands, where Tesla did the approval process to subsequently apply for an EU license for using the drive assistance mechanism, the regulator "hopes to not need more than a week to approve safety updates. Other updates can take longer". They test every change anew it sounds like, at least at first (there was some talk of relaxing reporting requirements if accident rates are as expected, that is, lower than human drivers when using the presently approved assist methods)

Seems foreign (heh) to me that a regulator would allow software to drive lethal machinery on public roads without checking that it at least stops at a stop sign. Fining them proportional to turnover makes a lot more sense suddenly. Or maybe a competent regulator, like, prevention rather than after the fact action

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

#217

Post by Aachen »

ninalanyon wrote: post #164
Aachen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Just like human_brain.exe right? I miss signs, and notice others missing signs, in unfamiliar areas all the time. So why not the same punishment and thus the same incentive not to do that?

A sibling comment mentioned that they did willfully build a variant that breaks laws btw. If there is apparently no regulator that needs to approve what makes it onto the road, I can understand a lot better why people are calling for insurmountable fines such that they have no choice but to remove that. Why not call for adequate approval mechanisms though, looking at other countries' examples where this problem doesn't exist... I dunno

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

#218

Post by andrepd »

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…

Many things already reduce road deaths and they are infinitely easier to do that driverless cars, namely: viable alternatives to driving! Trains, streetcars, bike lanes, whatever.

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

#219

Post by jcranmer »

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, it's actually fairly common in crashes between motor vehicles and pedestrians (or cyclists) to place most or all of the blame on the pedestrian.

When the Uber self-driving car struck and killed the pedestrian, not only did the internet peanut gallery largely blame the pedestrian for the first 24 hours or so after the death, but the local police force did as well for a couple of days. I rather suspect that without the national spotlight of being the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving car, the local police force would have been happy to absolve Uber and the driver of any liability.

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

#220

Post by mekael »

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…

Societies can already reduce road deaths to nearly zero, it's cheap, it's easy, and it's fun. It's just redirecting all of the cash we spend on vehicles/cars/highways/roadways/signs/etc into public infrastructure that is all encompassing.

A hundred billion dollars a year [0] on construction (reading the definition I'm not 100% sure what is included in this due to how definitions can be hazy) has goes a long way, not to mention the amount we spend on gasoline, car maintenance, etc etc.

The reason I say it's fun, is because I love being on a train. First time I was able to ride one, which due to living in the good old USA wasn't until I was 23, I yelled "I'm on a train" . The Germans traveling with me weren't as into it.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLHWYCONS#

Post reply on HN