SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
1–10 of 17 posts
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#2Look, they told us from the start that there would always be a “responsible operator” with a license and insurance and this individual person would be liable for tickets and implicated in accidents, whatever happened on the road.
Waymo has been deployed for a long time. It’s absurd that law enforcement has no idea how, or whom, to ticket!!
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#3In most jurisdictions, if a speed camera catches a car breaking the speed limit, doesn’t the ticket go to the registered owner of the car, and it's their responsibility to claim someone else was driving or pay the ticket?
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#4If it is a problem to give a ticket for such minor infraction, how is police going to find a person who is responsible for accident or death? Police will just shrug? Until it is exactly specified who is responsible for what in written law, these cars should not be on public roads.
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#5> The department said that it had alerted Waymo of the glitch, and that “hopefully the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves”.
Company breaks law: you cheeky little scamp, just don't let me catch you again, eh?
Normal person breaks law: Halt! Prepare for adminstration of the long dick of the law!
Seriously, how many points do they get to rack up before a ban? I get 12. And is it per car, per version or what?
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#6>During a DUI enforcement operation, officers in San Bruno pulled over a car without anyone behind the wheel after the autonomous vehicle made an illegal U-turn at a light.
I'd bet a lot of money that the intersection isn't signed or is poorly signed (because if there's one thing these vehicles do pretty well it's obey obvious signage) or not signed and the illegality of the U turn is implicit, the software learned that the path was valid from other drivers because it's a easy/tasteful place to do a U turn and the cops just spawn camp it (because they need a legal pretext for the stop, so something like that works well) when they want to go fishing.
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#7>During a DUI enforcement operation, officers in San Bruno pulled over a car without anyone behind the wheel after the autonomous vehicle made an illegal U-turn at a light. I'd bet a lot of money that the intersection isn't signed or is poorly signed (because if there's one thing these vehicles do pretty well it's obey obvious signage) or not signed and the illegality of the U turn is implicit, the software learned t…
> the illegality of the U turn is implicit, the software learned that the path was valid from other drivers
One would hope that the traffic laws of an area are "hard coded" and not dependent on what other drivers do.
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#8If it is a problem to give a ticket for such minor infraction, how is police going to find a person who is responsible for accident or death? Police will just shrug? Until it is exactly specified who is responsible for what in written law, these cars should not be on public roads.
When people are actually put in danger, the historical response is that the entire fleet gets suspended / pulled off the roads (on top of the making headlines and triggering investigation stuff). 2018 Uber, 2023 Cruise, 2025 Zoox cases.
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#9In most jurisdictions, if a speed camera catches a car breaking the speed limit, doesn’t the ticket go to the registered owner of the car, and it's their responsibility to claim someone else was driving or pay the ticket?
There has to be a positive identification of the driver.
Re: SF police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn
#10>During a DUI enforcement operation, officers in San Bruno pulled over a car without anyone behind the wheel after the autonomous vehicle made an illegal U-turn at a light. I'd bet a lot of money that the intersection isn't signed or is poorly signed (because if there's one thing these vehicles do pretty well it's obey obvious signage) or not signed and the illegality of the U turn is implicit, the software learned t…
> the illegality of the U turn is implicit, the software learned that the path was valid from other drivers One would hope that the traffic laws of an area are "hard coded" and not dependent on what other drivers do.
I don’t think you can really bake that in because the traffic rules can change day-to-day.
For example, there’s a street in my neighborhood that’s normally open for two-way traffic, but one of the buildings that fronts it is being renovated so the street was changed to one-way for about a month, and as of a couple of days ago it’s still one-way but in the other direction. Imagine trying to get a car to work that out on its own.