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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

#261

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

stavros wrote: post #17
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…

The CEO gets charged with manslaughter? I work in healthtech and the responsible individual is certainly personally liable for any harm that results from reckless behavior, it should be the same here. Same as if someone were driving, if a person just jumps in front of your car while you're driving under the limit/sober/etc, you aren't at fault, so the AV should also not be at fault if it couldn't reasonably avoid the…

> The CEO gets charged with manslaughter?

Well then forget autonomous vehicles altogether and allow the human joyride to continue, because no CEO is stupid enough to risk that.

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

#262

Post by jeromegv »

retired wrote: post #253
andrepd wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Rails encouraged density around the train stations.

Rail is not responsible for the car sprawling type of communities which are mostly a 20th century phenomenon.

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

#263

Post by jeromegv »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #122
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…

> 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. A lot of the people driving without insurance or licenses in the US are illegal immigrants, which means enforcement of driving illegally is…

It’s almost like there’s consequences to making it as hard as possible for people to be legalized.

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

#264

Post by jeromegv »

retired wrote: post #131
danaris wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...But what percentage of Swedes is that? vs the vast majority of working-class Americans. Remember, outside of its few biggest and wealthiest cities, the US just does not have decent, reliable public transport, and most places don't have any .

And how many Americans live in places without any public transport? As a European I spend some time in LA and Las Vegas and while not optimal I could get everywhere without a car. I could even do a day-trip to Bakersfield by bus.

Your anecdata to this one time you took a trip to California doesn’t help.

You can just look at % of urban residents that use transit, which is lower in US than any western country. Clearly transit isn’t built or available in a sufficient way to majority of people

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

#265

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

cyanydeez wrote: post #97
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…

Want to reduce road deaths? Invest in public transportation.

I had to look up a name for this. "Utopian Fallacy."

You don't have to get rid of genuine progress just because your utopian vision has something better. The USA is on the path to autonomous vehicles. They are not on the path to public transportation excellence.

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

#266

Post by pizzly »

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…

If we consider fairness/retribution/justice then we won't get this future of less road deaths.

1. There will always be a probability of death from a vehicle. This can never go to 0%.

2. If the probability of a AV causing death is many magnitudes lower than human driving then that is the future we must choose.

If 1 and 2 holds and we hold AV manufactures accountable in the sense that Executives go to jail or are personal liable financially for deaths/injuries then AV will never get released or become mainstream even if this results in less total deaths. The sense of fairness/justice/retribution may make us feel better but result in more overall deaths. Logically this means that there must be a standard. Something like x deaths per y cars manufactured. If above the threshold you get big fines as a company. As technology gets better you can lower the threshold. Anything apart from causing deaths either purposefully or negligently would have be ignored.

Can we as a species accept this? That is another question.

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

#267

Post by wat10000 »

Aachen wrote: post #199
xnx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't drive intoxicated, tired, distracted, or physically impaired by age or other means.

There's a test every 5 years after iirc 65yo where they check things like response time, if you have enough strength for handling the wheel completely unimpeded, and if you aren't suffering from dementia. At least that's what I've heard from my grandparents about the tests they had to do. If that doesn't cover the age risk, imo that test would be the thing to fix. Not sure how strict those are in the USA Since the ar…

Every 5 years is ridiculous. The difference between 80 and 85 can be stark. I have to get refresher training every two years to legally fly a small plane and that’s something where it takes some serious work to kill anyone who isn’t me or my passenger.

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

#268

Post by qazxcvbnmlp »

ssl-3 wrote: post #160
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…

It's all pretty nuanced. I don't know where to draw a line. For instance: Busy intersections with 4-way stop signs are an interesting example of how laws don't quite fit. It's obviously important to get the order right since nobody wants to be in a car crash today. But the law (often -- we've got 50 states worth of driving laws and they aren't all the same) says something very specific and simplistic about the order:…

The nuance for four-way stops is pretty simple. First come, first serve queue. Except you are allowed to jump out of order if you jumping out of order doesn't slow the people ahead of you down.

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

#269

Post by roenxi »

input_sh wrote: post #181
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

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 se…

I believe you, but that really highlights how dangerous small regulatory overheads are. One - quite reasonable - frame on what you're saying is that there was no problem with Cruise except they failed to engage with the bureaucracy properly on some relatively minor points.

That sort of behaviour should be an aggravating factor if they're actually misbehaving. If they aren't, then it is poor policy to try and put them out of business over paperwork.

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

#270

Post by aidenn0 »

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.

This was just in my local news 2 days ago; it doesn't seem that strange for California:

https://www.santamariasun.com/news-2/fatal-dui-case-closes-w...

Last year I was on the jury for someone who drove drunk, caused an accident, and fled the scene. They had multiple prior DUIs but still had their license.

[edit]

Some details from the story for those who don't want to click through:

An unlicensed driver drank, did some cocaine, drove on one of the more dangerous stretches of road in the area, crossed the centerline and killed someone. Probation.

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