Comment by zdw
1 day ago
Ideally the fees would be similar to the Norway model, where some tickets are tied to the income of the driver, in this case the pre-tax earnings of the company that created the driverless car.
1 day ago
Ideally the fees would be similar to the Norway model, where some tickets are tied to the income of the driver, in this case the pre-tax earnings of the company that created the driverless car.
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 got from this advertising tactic, but as it is, I don't see why it should be different from anyone else's ticket. The company isn't likely to enjoy a flood of this administrative work, besides the cost of the actual fines, so they'll work to minimise them anyway
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 purpose. Tesla self driving has an aggressive mode willing to speed and roll through stop signs. Those were deliberate, law breaking, choices.
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
I think a rich person would then do the rational thing and hire a cheap driver who also owns and operates their car.
Noone sane would be willing to assume basically unlimited liability for someone else's software.
Maybe that's good thing - some work for humans after the robots take over, albeit as human legal shields ;)
> 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
Assuming you divide it down to the earnings per car, that makes perfect sense. Of course right now they aren't making any profit at all, and by the time it is relevant it is likely that the cars will commit substantially no violations at all.
Driverless taxi services are all blowing through venture capitol, so does having a negative income mean that they get a payment, instead of a fine?
I think this could be a good compromise. Could have a floor value but the ceiling can vary accordingly.
Agreed. We need to look at reforming fines in general.
Fines should be scaled to income and the value of the vehicle and should exponentially increase for reoffense when in the same catagory of offense.
Isn't Norway only for drunk driving? Finland has it for massive speed excesses, but it is based on net taxable income taking out business expenses for taxi drivers, and Waymo is still negative.
If they become profitable you'd want to normalize by number of miles, unless you just want an incentive system to get more people on the road (extra drivers) and increase chance of humans suffering road injuries to boost employment in an internal service sector.
But even then coming out with a more efficient fleet than a competitor for higher margin would be penalized. You'd rather disincentivize skimping on safety for margin and not disincentivize better maintenance and fuel economy.