Comment by crazygringo
1 day ago
Ticketing is a weird thing to do with driverless cars.
If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow rules or else cease operations entirely.
If the violations are unintentional but happen only rarely in weird edge-case situations, then just set low frequency thresholds for them to be allowed, the same way we allow tiny amounts of rodent hairs in peanut butter. If AV companies exceed the threshold, then they get fined at first and eventually lose their permit -- but these aren't tickets for individual violations, but rather a yearly fine for going above the yearly threshold.
If the violations are intentional but not easily fixable -- e.g. they're stopping where not allowed because there's no legal place to stop within 15 blocks -- then the laws/regulations are bad, and tickets are essentially an unfair tax. That's the case in my city where moving trucks are essentially illegal, because it's illegal to double-park them, but there's usually no legal parking available within any reasonable distance that movers could carry furniture. So you just know that the cost of moving includes a "tax" of a parking ticket, unfair as it is.
Finally, if the violations are unintentional but happen all the time, the AV company should lose its permit because its software sucks.
I don't see how ticketing AVs for individual violations makes any sense.
EDIT: for those who think I'm letting AV companies get off too easily, it's precisely the opposite. I'm saying that if AV companies are violating traffic rules all the time and can't fix it, they should be banned. Ticketing is not the answer, because ticketing isn't holding these vehicles to a high enough standard. It's letting the companies get off the hook by merely paying occasional tickets instead of improving their software.
In all of your situations except for cases where no good legal option exists, ticketing is just the easier way to apply your suggested idea. It gives a direct incentive to the company to lower the rate as far as is possible. It doesn't allow some minimal amount without a fee, but that doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
The biggest reason for the difference between Autonomous vehicles and peanut butter is that with autonomous vehicles, we already have a compliance system in place....cops. It's not designed for autonomous vehicles, and you are correct that it's not the way you would design it for the ground up for autonomous vehicles, but it's far better to accept the imperfections than to build some new, separate compliance and monitoring system on top of the existing one. The benefits aren't large enough to justify it.
In the far future when the vast majority of vehicles are autonomous? Sure, probably worth scrapping to a new system (by then, my guess is that issues are rare enough to just not have a system at all and just use the legal system in the rare cases of large issues).
Until then, ticketing in the case of traffic violations seems fine and good enough to me.
At some point though those tickets need to actually hurt and no be just a cost of doing business.
After enough violations humans get their license taken away. What happens after autonomous vehicle get enough violations?
Yes that is in the law.
Fleet reductions, new limitations on operating areas/conditions, fines, permit suspension or revocation
> What happens after autonomous vehicle get enough violations?
They put R&D resources toward not getting as many tickets and eventually fix their software to not get tickets? Self driving cars might profit $100/day. Getting tickets completely eats that and ticketing mega corps will be very popular politically so you better believe it will happen
1 reply →
i'd argue Waymo is "1 Driver", and after they get a cumulative 4 points in 1 year, then Waymo would no longer be allowed to drive in the state of California
You make some good points, but here are some counterpoints:
There is an existing infrastructure for ticketing by license plate, payment processing, collection, etc.
You’re describing changes to the law, which require a bunch of procedural hurdles. It’s much easier for the DMV to just promulgate new rules that tap into existing infrastructure, as they did here.
Also, how is the government supposed to assess whether these violations are intentional or not? Tickets are strict liability (you get the ticket if you do it regardless of intent, reasons, etc.) because it is easy to administer.
Of course I'm describing changes to the law. AV's inherently require tons of changes to the law. They already have. Permits for AV companies operate under new law. That is not an obstacle.
No, I think ticketing is the right thing to do. You set a law. Any instance of breaking that law costs money, so the AV company has an incentive to reduce the number of violations. The won't be able to bring the number of violations down to 0 just like we can't bring the number of cockroaches in chocolate down to 0, but that nonzero amount is just a regulatory cost they can decrease by getting closer to the goal of 0 violations.
Obviously, we should also have the option to pull vehicles that are brazenly ignoring the law and just eating the cost of the tickets. Just like we do with drivers who do that. But that should be the second line of defense if regular monetary fines (tickets) fail
The point is, with software you don't need tickets. Either the software is written to try to follow the law or it isn't. If it's trying, then we establish thresholds. If the company is actively trying to break the law, it should be shut down.
Tickets are a silly, roundabout way to go about it. They make sense for human drivers because they're all running different independent "brain software" and it's unrealistic for minor violations to ban someone from driving. But with shared software across a fleet, you can just require the company to fix its driving software directly when possible. Ticketing is actually counterproductive, because it allows these companies to avoid many of these fixes if the tickets are infrequent enough.
> Either the software is written to try to follow the law or it isn't
Then the real world intervenes. Nobody plans to block an intersection. But a lack of planning and shits given will put one into that position even without intention.
> it allows these companies to avoid many of these fixes if the tickets are infrequent enough
Sounds fine? Like, as long as AVs and human drivers share the roads, modulating enforcement with infraction frequency seems fine.
2 replies →
I feel like this trivializises all software development. It happens but 99% of development is done to follow the spec or law in this case. The failures or bugs are usually not intentional. You basically saying if 1 car in the fleet breaks the law shut them down? If thats a strawman im sorry but even in software algorithm have unintentional bugs and make mistakes. The same is true for human drivers but we dont revoke their licenses when they break the law we have a proportional penalty for break. If driverless cars are speeding its a slap on the wrist. If they are driving the wrong way down the freeway the penalty would be revoking licenses
1 reply →
Seems to me like ticketing is a really simple proxy for everything you’ve just described.
Why pass a thousand new laws when the existing laws have an enforcement mechanism?
Ticketing AVs for individual violations like human drivers is the only fair way.
How would your proposal work for personal driverless cars, with/without custom modifications? ie. if my personal car commits violation on its way to pick me up
I'm talking about AV fleets.
If you purchase an AV car then similarly it's up to the state to regulate the manufacturer. How could you possibly be personally responsible for the fact that it ran a red light?
And nobody should ever be allowed to personally modify an AV's software. Such a vehicle should never be allowed on the road.
Yes, I thought AV by design should not voilate traffic laws.
Ok, but why are AVs getting a break on the same tickets a human gets no "low frequency threshold" for them to be allowed.
If a AV runs a red light or a stop sign, it should be the same penalty, period.
If AV companies want to avoid the tickets, they can make their claimed superior drivers avoid violating the law.
No, you're missing the point.
If an AV is regularly running red lights or stop signs, it should be a much worse penalty. It shouldn't be permitted to operate at all.
It shouldn't just be given occasional tickets. Tickets are not the right enforcement mechanism.
They should be ticketed and stopped from operating after certain threshold. And tickets should have some reasonable multiplier as they are much more capable paying say at absolute minimum 1000x. Only high enough tickets are efficient against corporations. As their shareholders sadly can not get those tickets.
1 reply →
They want to make money from the tickets
I think part of ticketing is the state makes money off of it. If they just shut these companies down no one benefits.
Ticketing in California generally results in revenue going directly to the enforcing locality, not the state. It's an important difference, and why you tend to get things like speed traps for passing motorists
Traffic has rules, you violate them you get a ticket
>If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow the law or else cease operations entirely.
I have to stop reading the rest of the comment right there.
If the violations are intentional and easily fixable is an incredibly loaded presumption to start any type of conversation, dialogue, or debate. To the point, asking the question 'how do we qualify intention? How are we measuring difficulty of fix? Costs of payroll, computer, deployment, and potential regression testing? What about the very nature of the context that led up to it? Did an external 3rd party cutoff a robotaxi and require that the robotaxi veer into the oncoming traffic lane, bc sensors indicated it was the best decision to avoid a collision, prioritizing safety and human life over traffic law?
What happens when following traffic law statistically leads to a greater risk of loss of life over violating the law?
I must insist we move the dialogue upstream to reality as-is, and there is plenty to discuss there.
I will in good faith issue a starting point: how should we measure the robotaxi driver license wrt suspension? Do we issue a point system that is averaged across the fleet, e.g. violations/car before suspending all operations until licensure evaluation? Personally I think that is a fair starting point amd am completely open minded to alternative views.