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California to begin ticketing driverless cars that violate traffic laws

bbc.com

251–260 of 371 posts

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

#251
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>I live in Spain, this year we had 4 derailments for a total of 48 deaths and 195 injured. Which, to be clear, is a considerable outlier. Highest since 2013 and about double the deaths and 4x the injured of a "normal" year. Not to mention that trains are far safer than automobiles too. >The USA has had 0 passengers killed or injured from train accidents this year. Is this a fantastic, magical year or something? The n…

Your number includes suicides, trespassing and more. Only 24 passenger deaths in a ten year period.

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

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What. in god's name are you saying? > 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. Yeah and how many in the 15 years prior? 112. Of which 80 were in a single (TGV) crash. How many people die each year in Spanish roads? Thousands. > The USA has had 0 passengers killed or injured from train accidents this year. Can't have ra…

> Can't have rail accidents if you don't have rail taps side of head

The USA has the world's largest network with 220000 kilometers of rail

> This is just not true, by any metric.

In Amsterdam the tram is 57x more deathly than the car.

https://www.parool.nl/nieuws/al-twee-doden-dit-jaar-hoe-onve...

Trams in Amsterdam should be replaced with busses. Busses stop much faster and don't weigh as much. Trams are literal death machines. It's really scary to ride bicycle in Amsterdam and hear the ding-ding-ding when you are about to be run over by a tram and you quickly have to move over.

Also you seem to be a bit confused, Amsterdam does not use narrow cobbled streets for traffic calming. Maybe you are thinking of France or Belgium.

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

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, the cross section of people who lose their license/insurance and those that could use something like an ebike reliably for their commute is practically zilch. The US is really big and a lot of people have rural 30+ minute commutes where it snows ~6 months out of the year.

> The US is really big and a lot of people have rural 30+ minute commutes The size of the country in which a commute is contained is immaterial to the length of that commute. What you mean is not "the US is big" but "things are really far apart in the US". Which they are, but precisely because of car-centric (car-only, actually) design.

Things being far apart in the US predates cars. Rail made that possible.

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably higher city/state taxes. A police officer making over $200k a year with a pension isn’t making most of their salary from traffic tickets.

At the same time, there are not many cops making USD200K per annum in my municipality. And it's in flyover country, where everyone is clamoring for lower taxes. So I think it'd be a bit naive to think politicians wanting to score easy points with voters in cities, and even states, won't take the opportunity to extract a bit of revenue out of Big Tech. Not saying it's right. Just saying that's how local politics work.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because fines are automatic. If you register a vehicle to your name and don't insure it within 28 days you get a €500 fine. The government can fine you up to three times a year for a total of €1500. And that is if you actually pay the fines. If you do not pay the fines and let the fees stack up, you are looking at around €4500 per year. And if you are caught driving uninsured that is a €700 fine on top of all that. W…

> If you register a vehicle to your name and don't insure it within 28 days you get a €500 fine Oh, this is actually a really good idea. Wild we don't link those systems.

I still see dozens of unplated mopeds in The Netherlands so the system is not perfect but they are trying to fix it.

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

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

I've actually thought of a much more dystopian idea: that Waymos could be technically used as roving traffic cameras, and report on the human drivers around them. They absolutely have strong enough telemetry systems to be able to determine things like excessive speeding, dangerous lane changes, red light running, etc., and their imaging systems could probably pick up a license plate with little additional modificatio…

[deleted]

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

#257
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The refutation of your point is in the article itself. The standard, by law, punishment involves jail time or home confinement. The judge explained how those punishments were not appropriate because of the exceptional circumstances.

I'm not sure how that would change things. It is still a representative example. See also: http://archive.today/2026.03.23-031145/https://www.nytimes.c... > And there is precedent for the light manslaughter sentencing of an older driver. In 2003, George Weller, 86, killed 10 pedestrians at the Santa Monica Farmers Market after confusing the gas and brake pedals. He received five years of probation. The judge in that…

You mean a representative example of an exception? Your example also points out how the judge justified their deviation from the standard.

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

#258
post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you like trains does not mean that it is actually a solution to everyone’s problem. For example, until proper law-enforcement starts happening on public transit, nobody in my family is allowed to take it in USA (they are allowed to do so in Singapore or Japan)

We can take the LEO's that would have patrolled highways/city streets and have them patrol on public transport, same job just slightly different environment. Can I ask why you feel that public transit is unsafe in the US?

Because each of these perps were not on their first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth violent offense and were freely out to kill:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Debrina_Kawam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Iryna_Zarutska

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-men-pushed-subway-...

Many more such cases occur and aren’t widely reported. I’ve personally witnessed a stabbing on a bus

My chances of being stabbed inside my car are much lower

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

#259
post #100

Are they trying to drive safety or revenue? The second order effect people forget about is tickets are a source of revenue for cities and police depts. Surely driverless car companies will absorb a few tickets and fix the issue quickly. So I do wonder what happens in the future when roads and cars are all automated and city funding from this channel dries up.

Tolls, revenue taxes, ever stricter rules that cause tickets despite technology getting better.

>ever stricter rules that cause tickets despite technology getting better.

That sort of stuff might work on a bunch of peasants since you can screw them individually for small enough amounts it doesn't meet the threshold for political pushback but it won't fly against a few megacorps who do self driving fleets.

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

#260
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…

> What about AV? $10 million? Executives go to jail? What if $10 million fine per X AV miles driven is an OK cost of doing business?

If AVs will save lives, we need to be sure we aren't punitive to the point of making them disappear.

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