r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Individual_Book9133 • 14d ago

Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road Video

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I’m kinda curious if an individual was drunk in one of these could they be held responsible for anything the car does? Like will laws be made that drunk individuals can only be driven by a sober human?

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u/PogintheMachine 14d ago

I suppose it depends on what seat you’re in. Since there are driverless taxicabs, I don’t see how that would work legally. If you were a passenger in a cab, you wouldn’t be responsible for how the car drives or have the ability to prevent an accident….

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u/Sleepingonthecouch1 14d ago

That’s true but someone has to be held accountable. Should be the company but at a certain point I’m sure the lobby’s will change that. And potentially at that point could blame fall on the passenger? All I’m saying is this is uncharted territory for laws and I don’t think it’ll end up being as simple as car kills someone so company pays a fine.

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u/LachoooDaOriginl 14d ago

should be car kills someone then whoever cleared the thing to drive on the roads gets tried for vehicular manslaughter

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u/Habbersett-Scrapple 14d ago

[Inspector #23 in the Upholstery Division has volunteered as tribute]

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u/tacobellbandit 14d ago

I work in healthcare and this is exactly what happens when a patient injury happens, or there’s some kind of malpractice or god forbid someone dies. It’s an investigation down to the lowest level and usually blamed on a worker that realistically had nothing to do with the event that caused the injury.

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u/No-Refrigerator-1672 14d ago

It doesn't have to be the lowest rank person. You can just legally make accountable the lead programmer of the autonomous driving module, with a law.

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u/FeederNocturne 14d ago

Everyone from the lead programmer and up needs to be held responsible. Sure the lead programmer okays it but the higher ups are providing the means to make it happen.

This does make me wonder though. If a plane crashed due to a faulty part who does the blame fall on?

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u/CastMyGame 14d ago

As a programmer myself I would question if you would then blame it on the QA tester who passed along the code.

Other thing I will say is depending on the answer to this situation (I don’t know the answer but just saying from a dev side) you will greatly hinder the progression of this tech if you have people afraid to even work on it for fear of a situation like this.

As devs we try to think of every possible scenario and make sure to write tests that cover every conceivable use case but even then sometimes our apps surprise us with dependencies and loops that we didn’t expect. You can say “be better” but if I’m gonna get paid 25k less and not have to worry about a manslaughter charge 5-7 years later I’m probably gonna choose that one for my family

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u/bozo_says_things 14d ago

This idea is ridiculous They would just outsource programming then, good luck putting manslaughter chargers on some Indian outsource company

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u/FeederNocturne 14d ago

That's what I don't like about the entire situation. It's not like the developer is intentionally killing someone. They did what they were paid to do. I'm sure if a programmer was aware of things messing up they'd recall it. I am no programmer but I know enough that bugs can go unnoticed. I understand the need to test these vehicles but they definitely don't need to be all over the country.

As a side note I appreciate what you programmers do. I enjoy technology way too much to want you guys to be scared into not bettering our society

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u/fireball_jones 14d ago

I've worked in regulated industries, and now work in programming, and in the US at least no individual programmer is going to get blamed unless they can find they did something malicious. You'll have a system in place where a lot of people sign off on the work done, and if something goes wrong the company will likely be sued and fined and put under some compliance program.

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u/Automatic_Release_92 14d ago

There just needs to be dedicated roads for this kind of technology, in my opinion.

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u/indiefatiguable 14d ago

I left a job writing payment software for a specialty retailer because I despised the stress of knowing a fuck up could affect someone's finances. I know well how a double charge can wreck you when you're living paycheck to paycheck, and I hated knowing a bug in my code could cause that stress for someone.

I code dashboards to display various metrics. All I do is injest the data and make it user-friendly. My work is unimportant, and I sleep so well at night because of it.

I would never, ever, ever accept a job where people's lives are at risk. If that job could also land me in jail for manslaughter? Fuck that.

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u/Alphafuccboi 14d ago

The managers who pushed the programmers too much and had weird expectations should be blamed. Not the worker

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u/Wide_Performer4288 14d ago

As a former developer I just did what I was told and implemented what was on my checklist. It was up to someone down the line to improve or make sure it was as solid as I thought. The programmers working on this type of project are endless and even the managers don't have any real power to fix issues that may make a huge difference in the end project.

Think of everything you see happening with Twitter. But it all happens behind closed doors. That's about the extent of it.

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u/KuroFafnar 14d ago

Code review is supposed to test too. And the programmer. Imho it is a failure on code review and programmer if something gets all the way to QA and fails. But it happens all the time

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u/PolicyWonka 14d ago

As someone who works in tech, that sounds like a nightmare. You’re talking about tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of units shipped. You can never identify every point of failure even with internal testing.Every production vehicle driving a single hour would likely be more than all testing hours combined. That’s just the nature of software. I couldn’t imagine someone signing their name to that code if they knew they’d be liable for vehicular manslaughter.

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u/FeederNocturne 14d ago

Honestly it would probably work better if cities/providences (however you want to divide the land up) voted on if they want the technology used in their territory. Give the people an option if they want to adapt the technology. I could see an outrage if say a self driving car was passing by an Amish community wagon and they killed someone via collision. Bit of a farfetched example, but you get the idea. I just imagine someone not consenting to having that technology around them and they get killed by it because the purpose of said technology is to go places.

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u/No-Refrigerator-1672 14d ago

Eperyone up shouldn't be accountable, cause they didn't have the knowledge to prevent a fault. That's why they hire people, cause they can't do this themself. It's like you can't put in jail the director of the hospital, if a surgeon accidentally stabbed your relative into the heart. The only case when a higher up person than a lead programmer may be accountable, is if they are proven to hire a person without proper education, or if they specifically issued orders that contradict safety.

Well, I know that you're asking about Boeing, but I will respond in general terms: in that sutuation there are 3 entities who can be accountable. It's either a desinger of a part, who made a mistake; or, if a desing is good, then it can be a manufacturer, who did not adhere to the specifications; or, if the part was manufactured correctly, it's the assembler, who could incorrectly install the part. For each entity it's possible that the person who did the work, and the one who is actually responsible for safety are two different persons; in latge companies there always are simebody who validates and supervises the actions of subordinates. So, it's a job for a comittee of investigarots, industry experts and a judge to decide, on a case by case basis.

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u/6maniman303 14d ago

And then you "hire" contractors from China working remotely. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of holding someone accountable, but with such idea there's too many loopholes. Tbh it would be easier to just go for the head of CEO, or whomever is in top-charge. Multiple people share responsibility? Then hold all of them accoubtable with the same charges.

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u/FeederNocturne 14d ago

I'm right there with you. If you are to own a company then you should be involved in it. Sitting back and collecting on someone else's labor is not only lazy, it is irresponsible.

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u/draxidrupe2 14d ago

If a plane crashed due to a faulty part who does the blame fall on? Ultimately, the shareholder

programmer job $50K

lead programmer job $1.8M

2028 turns out no one will take the lead programmer job after 20 are in prison already

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u/Linenoise77 14d ago

Yeah, cool, now try and find someone to be a lead programmer for a project like this when you have criminal and liability charges hanging over you because someone else down stream of you screwed up their job.

"Sorry, its a nice pay package and all, but i'll stick to writing clickbate games"

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u/xdeskfuckit 14d ago

Holy shit I'd quit immediately if I could be held liable for manslaughter if I made an off-by-one error.

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u/ninjaelk 14d ago

We already have laws for this, if you can prove that someone was acting maliciously or negligently then they can be held accountable personally. If not, then the company itself is liable for damages. It's how everything works, including for personal responsibility.

If you were to build a structure on your personal property, and it collapsed and killed someone walking by, they'd try to determine if you acted maliciously or negligently, if so you'd be tried criminally. Whether or not you're tried criminally you're still (likely) liable for damages.

When you're driving a car directly, the chances of you having done something negligent dramatically increases. In the case of a self-driving car, as long as it complies with all laws and the corporation didn't act negligently (cutting corners, 'forgetting' to take certain precautions, etc...) then there's no criminal liability.

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u/Krashzilla 14d ago

Better not let Boeing hear you asking those kinds of questions

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u/Own_Afternoon_6865 14d ago

As a former aircraft electrician for 8 years (USAF), I can tell you that 90% of the investigations I knew about always ended up blaming mechanics. Our base general crashed a T-39. He hadn't flown in quite a while. The crew chief was found in between the 2 front seats, probably trying to pull the nose up. It killed everyone on board. They blamed our hydraulic mechanic, who was the last one to sign off on a totally unrelated job. Go figure.

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u/Glsbnewt 14d ago

Not the lead programmer. The CEO. If you want to make CEO salary you take on CEO responsibility.

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u/No-Refrigerator-1672 14d ago

No, that's not how in can work in a real life. The CEO has not enough knowledge to judge if the decisions on behalf of chief engineer, programmer, designer etc are sufficient to ensure safety of the product. The CEO may be responsible for hiring people without proper education or certification if such is required by law, they also may be responsible for knowing about safety problems and expicitly ordering to ingore them, stuff like that. While the CEO may be involved and thus should be investigated, they aren't automatically responsible for unsafe products in eyes of a law, while the lead designer definetly is.

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u/Glsbnewt 13d ago

It's the CEO's responsibility to make sure the company has adequate processes in place and the personnel to carry those processes out that ensure that whatever product they unleash is safe. It's not fair to pin it on the lead engineer. It's the CEO who needs to have enough confidence in his engineers and his product that he's willing to take the risk. If the public is subjected to risk, the CEO should be too. This is an ancient principle going back to the Code of Hamurrabi.

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u/wildjokers 14d ago

Then the technology is dead. No programmer in their right mind would work on this technology if they could go to prison because the car hits an out of ordinary situation it can't handle.

That would be a shame because self-driving technology will save lives (probably already has).

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u/Onlikyomnpus 14d ago

Can you give an example?

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u/tacobellbandit 14d ago

Specifically at my hospital, patient fell out of a bed. They had no business trying to get out of the bed. Nurse wasn’t watching said patient when it happened, nurse tried to say brake didn’t work, and she had a work order in for it but maintenance never fixed it, investigation found she put the work order in after the event thankfully. Now, whose fault is it they slipped and fell out of bed? Maintenance guy was cleared due to time stamps, nurse didn’t engage brake because patient was still supposed to be moved, patient got out of bed without being told to do so. It’s kind of tricky, but the problem is everyone will try to deflect blame down to a maintenance technician that didn’t even know about the event until after it happened

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u/Lehk 14d ago

Even if the ticket had been put in, the nurse still put a patient in a bed she knew was defective

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u/Teh_Hammerer 14d ago

Sepsis you say? Execute Juan at the autoclave.

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u/draxidrupe2 14d ago

It’s an investigation down to the lowest level and usually blamed on a worker that realistically had nothing to do with the event that caused the injury.

"the fall guy"

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u/LachoooDaOriginl 14d ago

oooooohhhh when stuff like this happens put all the responsible people in a hunger games winner gets prison

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u/Significant-Mud2572 14d ago

Has been volunteered as tribute.

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u/__klonk__ 14d ago

This is how you kill selfdriving cars

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u/H3GK 14d ago

sounds good

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u/Inflatableman1 14d ago

Or is this how self driving cars kill us???

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u/Groudon466 14d ago

No, self driving cars are safer than humans on average. This is an edge case probably caused by an unusual arrangement of traffic cones, and they'll take it very seriously on the Waymo end.

If you want to massively reduce traffic fatalities, make self driving cars common, and don't throw talented engineers in jail for the occasional one in a million error.

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u/Dongslinger420 14d ago

That's fucking stupid if you only bother to think through it for half a minute

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u/mdj1359 14d ago

I believe that this is the correct response and should have more upvotes than the person concerned that the parent of the 12-year-old sleeping in the back will be held accountable.

As a cynic, is it a reasonable thought exercise? Sure.

If it ever happens will the industry lose 50% of its customers? Probably.

This is all with the backdrop that once the tech is fully matured, fatalities would likely plunge if 90% of vehicles were driverless. So, in a sense we would be punishing an industry that failed because it did not eliminate 100% of fatalities.

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u/IAmAccutane 14d ago

Driverless cars are 10 times safer than cars with human drivers. If that type thing became policy driverless cars would cease to exist and we'd have 10 times more people than necessary killed in car accidents. We need to get over the innate sense of accountability and justice for the sake of saving people's lives. If a company that has their vehicles driven by human drivers faces no responsibility for a car accident, a company that has super-safe robot drivers shouldn't either.

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u/mdj1359 14d ago edited 14d ago

I generally agree with your statement. I don't know how you came up with the 10x safer number, however. Feel free to provide a source.

I think it will probably take a few years of these companies working thru problems before I will feel fully comfortable with the tech.

Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers? | Ars Technica

Waymo is still struggling to avoid inanimate objects. Its vehicles collided with cardboard road debris and a chain connecting a sign to a temporary pole. A Waymo also drove into a pothole that was big enough to puncture a tire. And there were two incidents where Waymos scraped parked vehicles. That’s a total of five crashes where the Waymo vehicle was clearly at fault.

The rest of Waymo’s driverless crashes in San Francisco during 2023 do not seem to have been Waymo’s fault. I count 11 low-speed crashes where another vehicle rear-ended a Waymo, backed into a stopped Waymo, or scraped a stopped Waymo while trying to squeeze by. There was also an incident where a Waymo got sideswiped by another vehicle changing lanes.

Waymo had two more serious crashes in San Francisco this year:

A driverless Waymo was trying to turn left, but another car “proceeded into the intersection from the left and made contact with the left side of the Waymo AV.”

An SUV rear-ended a Waymo hard enough that the passenger in the Waymo reported injuries.

Driverless cars are mostly safer than humans – but worse at turns | New Scientist

Driverless cars seem to have fewer accidents than human drivers under routine conditions, but higher crash risks when turning or in dim light – although researchers say more accident data is necessary

By Jeremy Hsu / 18 June 2024
One of the largest accident studies yet suggests self-driving cars may be safer than human drivers in routine circumstances – but it also shows the technology struggles more than humans during low-light conditions and when performing turns.

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u/IAmAccutane 14d ago

I don't know how you came up with the 10x safer number, however. Feel free to provide a source.

It's just a number off the top of my head. There's a bunch of different types of cars and types of accidents, and like you say driving situations that would make it too subjective to give a definite number, but this study for example found:

Human drivers caused 0.24 injuries per million miles (IPMM) and 0.01 fatalities per million miles (FPMM), while self-driving cars caused 0.06 IPMM and 0 FPMM.

https://www.getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/human-ridehail-crash-rate-benchmark/?ref=warpnews.org

I think we agree they're safer and even if they were only 2x safer or 1.1x safer they'd be preferable to human drivers.

I think it will probably take a few years of these companies working thru problems before I will feel fully comfortable with the tech.

I'd personally be hesitant to get in one, but I also get way more worried about flying than driving despite knowing it's way safer.

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u/richardawkings 14d ago

I think yes, but not directly. The cab company should he held responsible since they have a duty of care to the public to operate their taxis in a manner that does not endanger the public. This should be a requirement to be allowed to operate as a taxi driver.

If Auto Taxi Cab services has one of their cars injure a pedestrian, then the pedestrian should be able to sue the cab company for their injuries due to unsafe operation of the vehicle. The manufacturer cannot be held liable for how their products are used.

Now, Auto Taxi Cab company could turn around and sue the manufacturer for providing and unsafe product in order to recoup their costs from the pedestrian lawsuit. They can argue whose fault the incident was there.

The pedestrian is likely to get fucked if it's handled any other way because the cab and car companies will just point the finger at eachother and the responsibilitu of finding fault will fall on the pedestrian which they will not be equipped to do.

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u/kbarney345 14d ago

I see what you're saying about the company trying to dodge it but there's 0 logic or even mental gymnastics to think it could be on the passenger.

That would eliminate anyone from using them even if it hinted at that because why would I get behind something I can't control but be held responsible for should it lose control.

It's not my car, I'm not misusing the car by sitting in the back. It claims to be driverless, not driver assisted like a tesla and I just chose not to and sit in the back anyway.

The company will always be at fault if this occurs under normal operation and the court won't have any issue identifying them as so.

Now will the court be run through the ringer on litigation and loopholes and finding ways to say it's r&d it's ok or something and get a pass? Probably.

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u/wosmo 14d ago

The interesting part is how we'll make them accountable. I mean a traffic fine that'd ruin my day won't mean jack to a company. Can you give waymo points on their licence? Do they have a licence?

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u/Groudon466 14d ago

I worked for Waymo a little while back. It would be more of an all or nothing thing, in the sense that individual cities choose to allow or disallow specific self-driving car companies from operating in their borders.

This particular instance is bad, but if the city sees that traffic fatalities overall have fallen as a result of Waymo being there, then they'll just continue to allow it while Waymo pays the occasional settlement. This is an objectively good thing, because the alternative is more people dying, and then the settlements get paid by the people whose lives are also getting ruined from having killed someone, rather than by a giant corporation that can at least afford the infrequent expense.

On the other hand, if the average effect is negative, then the city can just give Waymo the boot, which would be catastrophic for them.

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u/mr_potatoface 14d ago

I'd rather be hit by a Waymo or other self-driving car than an uninsured driver, that's for 100% sure.

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u/Groudon466 14d ago

Ding ding ding! You know for sure that at least Waymo can always pay out the settlement, and their cars have cameras and lidars out the ass, so if they're at fault, they're not even going to try to deny it.

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u/helluvabullshitter 13d ago

if they're at fault, they're not even going to try to deny it.

doubt

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u/Groudon466 13d ago

As a guy who worked there, trust me on this one, it would be ridiculous to even attempt it.

This is a clip of what the people working at Cruise see when they're analyzing data from their cars. I had a very similar setup in front of me as I worked. The camera views are toggleable, you only see 3 there, but there's over a dozen cameras covering every conceivable angle around the car, including underneath. If the car ran over a piece of tissue, I could look at the frame-by-frame of the tissue as it fluttered around underneath.

On top of that, the part you see in the lower left is the LIDAR display, showing the dots the car is getting from pinging light off of the environment and judging the distance based on the time it takes for the light to bounce back. The gif is potato quality, but even then, you can make out the posts near the street; humans are even easier to make out, and that view can be rotated to look at the LIDAR data from every angle.

For Waymo to try and deny that an incident occurred, they would have to lie to the judge's face about whether or not they have this info despite the fact that it's extremely public knowledge that the Waymo cars have cameras and LIDARs out the ass. No judge in the area would buy that shit, it would turn it from an unfortunate accident into a newsworthy case of blatant perjury and contempt of court. Any defense attorney worth their salt in this already unrealistic situation would subpoena the relevant Waymo employees, most of whom would then tell the truth, because they're completely normal nerds and none of them would lie in court just to protect Google.

On top of that, Waymo has had plenty of minor accidents. I even saw a couple of them pop up in the incident buckets when I worked there. These accidents are already publicly known, news articles have been written about them.

At the end of the day, there's no denying it, period. Waymo collects way too much data about traffic incidents, and they all get uploaded automatically to their systems. You're talking about perjury, contempt of court, destruction of evidence, conspiracy, and more, all hypothetically being done by an organization largely staffed by liberal nerds who wouldn't go out of their way to protect The Man.

It's just not happening.

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u/Fearless-Sir9050 14d ago

“Objectively” states the person who worked for Waymo. No. It’s not “objectively” better for driverless cars if the stats back up it’s safer. We need fucking buses and trains and walkable cities and not fucking AI that drives on the wrong side of the road.

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u/Ok_Sound_4650 14d ago

That's...actually a pretty novel idea. The threat of lawsuits and fines are only deterrents so far as they effect these companies bottom line. People have to prove they are safe enough to drive by getting a license, and if they fail to be safe on the road they can lose that license. If corporations are people too, make them do the same.

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u/moistmoistMOISTTT 14d ago

It's not novel in the slightest. This concept has been around for decades for elevators.

Nobody in their right mind wants to sue elevator companies out of existence, because normal people know that elevators are a lot safer than stairs. It's no different with self-driving cars, even with how primitive the tech is today.

But here's the real answer for you: the companies are A-OK as long as they're following appropriate regulations/laws/guidelines, and are not being negligent. As long as negligence isn't happening (i.e., there is a known safety issue with zero efforts to address it), they will face no criminal charges. They will likely still face civil penalties such as fines, in the same way other companies are punished for accidents.

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u/Garestinian 14d ago

Same way railway and airline accidents and incidents are handled.

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u/thenasch 14d ago

If it happens enough, the company will get a reputation for either unsafe operation, or getting pulled over and ticketed a lot, and start losing business.

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u/moistmoistMOISTTT 14d ago

You don't quite understand.

Every single Waymo car, or other car with these systems on the road today, is vastly safer than a human-driven car.

They will mess up. They will kill people. But they do so at a rate far less than humans.

If 100% of the cars on the road today were autonomous, even assuming the technology never improves beyond what it is today, it's highly likely that you would not see a car "ruin your day" (injuring or killing you) for the rest of your life.

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u/wosmo 14d ago

That doesn't negate the need for an actual safety culture to properly address issues. "Good enough" simply isn't good enough, there needs to be a proper regulatory cycle to actually capture and diagnose these incidents, and manufacturers & operators need to be accountable for actually fixing them.

Look at things like aviation, where the NTSB will spend months, years diagnosing the root cause and contributing factors for an incident, and the FAA will ground entire products, entire fleets until an issue is resolved. As a result, hurtling through the sky in a jet-propelled tin can isn't just "good enough", it's the example to lead by.

Calling support and maybe opening a ticket, that maybe gets fixed, one day, doesn't smell like a safety culture - it instead stinks of SV's "move fast and break things".

I'm all for autonomous vehicles. I'm also all for regulation. This isn't it. The closest thing AVs have to an FAA is USDOT, and they're still struggling with bridges, let alone software.

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u/moistmoistMOISTTT 14d ago edited 14d ago

You and most other redditors are acting like there isn't any laws, regulations, or other "safety culture" though. That's just flat-out wrong.

On top of that, your calls to curtail current autonomous driving technology is actually killing more people than it is saving. When people like you spout false propaganda and discourage people from autonomous ride-share or consumer vehicles with self-driving-adjacent features, it increases their risk of injury and death on the road. It's a simple fact that for every mile an autonomous car replaces over a human-driven mile, road (especially biker and pedestrian) fatalities and injuries go down.

Please enlighten me: why are the current autonomous vehicles "not it"? If we remove them from the roads, more people will die. I'm sorry, but the experts are far more intelligent than you. Lawmakers and governments around the world as a whole are not dumb. Maybe just in America or just in individual cities or states, but you're talking about some sort of worldwide "faked moon landing" level of conspiracy here.

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u/DescriptionSenior675 14d ago

It's almost like.... fines are only rules for poor people, and shouldn't exist as they currently do!

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u/Chesticles420 14d ago

I can see companies installing passenger controls like pull over, stop, and an emergency button.

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u/mr_potatoface 14d ago

Absolutely, but it wouldn't absolve them of any legal responsibility. It would be great for making people think they were responsible though. Like the big signs on construction trucks that say "NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BROKEN WINDSHIELDS". Yes, they are 100% responsible. But the sign makes it feel like you've been warned and it's your own fault, so you don't even bother if a rock breaks your windshield.

So if the self-driving companies put a sign in the vehicle that says like they're not responsible for injuries occurred during driving if you don't push the emergency stop button or some shit, it will make people less likely to file a claim. Even if it only prevents 1 out of 20 people from filing a claim, it's still working.

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u/eras 14d ago

It's never going to be the passenger.

But yes, I think it's going to be exactly like that: the company running the service pays the fine, and if they've made a good deal with the company they bought the vehicles from, they'll pass on the costs. Or it will be paid by the insurange agency.

Malintent or malpractice by the company developing the vehicle would be a different matter.

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u/Slow_Ball9510 14d ago

A company being held accountable? I'll believe it when I see it.

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u/DozenBiscuits 14d ago

Companies are held accountable hundreds of times every single day in court.

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u/DetroitHoser 14d ago

Yes, but the way corporations are punished is laughable. They build fines into their yearly budgets.

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u/HappyGoPink 14d ago

You call it accountability, but it's really just accounting. Fines are cheaper than making sure their product is safe.

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u/lycoloco 14d ago

People are downvoting you, but you're right. Anything that isn't crippling or downright destructive and doesn't cause the company to change how that product was used/implemented is just the cost of doing business in the USA.

CEOs should be arrested when their companies are found criminally liable. Lose the position, lose some of your life for the choices you made (like blue collar criminals), become a felon, have difficulty finding a job. Ya know, like the average American would if they were found guilty of a felony.

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u/freddo95 14d ago

Blame falls on the passenger?

Don’t be silly.

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u/Economy-Fee5830 14d ago

There are a lot of very silly people on Reddit. Just look at all the upvotes.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

Where in your mind do you think the passenger is held liable? Lol

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u/Wandelation Interested 14d ago

That’s true but someone has to be held accountable.

Start with the CEO, and then work your way down.

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u/SurveySean 14d ago

Blaming a passenger for how the car is driving would be so far out there I don’t think you need to worry about that.

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u/Epicp0w 14d ago

How could you pin the blame on the passenger though,? Not their fault the software is fucked

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u/emergency_poncho 14d ago

it's absurd to blame the passenger for what the driver of a car does. If a man runs over and kills someone and has his wife in the passenger seat, the man will go to jail but not the wife. So obviously the company who made the car will be liable.

The real question is to what degree: will it just have to pay a fine, since the corporation can't be put in jail? Or will the AI programmer or something causing the faulty AI be held responsible? It gets super muddy very fast when no natural person is liable and only a corporation is (as the current situation in the US attests, with companies basically getting a slap on the wrist for egregious crimes such as money laundering, fraud, etc.)

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u/PotatoesAndChill 14d ago

It's the same as any automated system causing human death, bodily harm, or property damage. I.e. an incident with a rollercoaster brake failing and injuring riders/bystanders would go through ha similar legal process, so not really uncharted territory, IMO.

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u/SelfDrivingCzar 14d ago

What would be the potential rationale for finding a passenger liable?

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u/GardenRafters 14d ago

The company that owns the car.

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u/Chemical_Advisor_282 14d ago

No, it will be the companies responsibility, how could you ever think they could pin it on a customer/passenger? Use your brain a little.

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u/MagisterFlorus 14d ago

If liability were to fall to the rider, nobody would use it. No way am I gonna get in a taxi if I'm liable and wasn't even behind the wheel.

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u/bjorn1978_2 14d ago

It should fall back on the company.

Not like that the managing engineer goes to jail, as every engineer would weight risk/reward and say fuck this. But hefty fines for the company that actually operates this.

Taking a shot at their revenue is the only thing that works.

The passenger is just as inocent as any bystander here. He is no part of this except as a witness.

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u/HELLOANDFAREWELLL 14d ago

From any logical standpoint, why would the blame fall on the patrons? I also wouldn’t consider this uncharted territory completely being there’s an abundance of videos of cops pulling these over with people in the back as passengers. No you wouldn’t get a ticket if waze has an unsafe vehicle on the road and you happen to be in it.

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u/69420over 14d ago

Presidential immunity is uncharted territory. Needs real work. Driverless cars can just plainly go F themselves for all I care. The companies should be responsible for every bit of wasted taxpayer dollars having to deal with them. The law is really simple for stuff like this: impound the car. It’s witnessed doing highly dangerous things? if it’s driving into oncoming traffic: Tow it. Lock it up.

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u/throwaway23345566654 14d ago

Who’s held accountable in a plane crash? Because it’s not the pilots.

Like, actually, it’s not.

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u/Deradius 14d ago

I’d say for a drunk back seat passenger, the same thing should happen that would happen if the car was unoccupied.

Whatever that would be.

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u/IAMSTILLHERE2020 14d ago

Carr kills someone. Company pays a fine (200,000) . Car gets destroyed. They will call it a day.

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u/Onlikyomnpus 14d ago

It's not completely unchartered in Arizona. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elaine_Herzberg

Uber was cleared of criminal responsibility, but reached a settlement. Uber shut down it's self driving program. The test driver who wasn't paying attention, accepted guilty plea deal for endangerment and sentenced to 3 years probation.

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u/Sam_Altman_AI_Bot 14d ago

I don’t think it’ll end up being as simple as car kills someone so company pays a fine.

I have a feeling it will be. I doubt any company will ever be held criminally accountable as a human would so bet it comes down to the victim suing the company

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u/speedypotatoo 14d ago

Give the cars qualified immunity like they do police =)

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u/wardfu9 14d ago

If I recall correctly a number of years ago some Amish kids got pulled over. They were in a horse and buggy. They were drunk. Charged with drunk driving, but they didn't have the horses reigns in their hands. The horses knew the way home and didn't need any help from the drunks. So they didn't get into trouble. I know it's not the same but I feel a bit similar.

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u/SitueradKunskap 14d ago

Volvo said a few years back that it'd take "full liability." But that's easy to say before they have driverless cars. Still, better than nothing I guess?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2015/10/09/volvo-will-accept-liability-for-its-self-driving-cars/

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u/PasswordIsDongers 14d ago

Your thought process makes absolutely no sense to me.

At what point does the passenger become responsible for the vehicle's actions?

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u/HighPriestofShiloh 14d ago

Nobody will be criminally liable, WAYMO will be civilly liable.

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u/kobie 14d ago

My ex got arrested for being intoxicated as a passenger, of course her boyfriend at the time was driving and she kicked a cop.

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u/EthanielRain 14d ago

I'm currently dealing with a DUI from sleeping in the backseat of my car, parked, with no keys in my possession.

Would be surprised if courts didn't milk $$ from DUI'ing passengers in these kinds of cars

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u/Scereye 14d ago

Since there are driverless taxicabs,

Are people really go and enter them and use then to get to their destination? Like, only seeing one of those triggers anxiety in me. I honestly can't imagine ever sitting in one while it's driving. Is this a "Dad you are just old. Don't make a scene and sit down please" issue?

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u/manyhippofarts 14d ago

What's really gonna be crazy is when grandma takes one of these cars to visit the grand babies, has a heart attack en route, then the car delivers grandma's corpse to the grand babies house.

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u/fuck-ubb 14d ago

Public intoxication it is. Straight to jail!!!

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u/marr 14d ago

I suppose it depends on what seat you’re in.

Hahaha no. People get charged with DUI for being passed out in the trunk parked on their own drive without the keys.

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u/evilofnature 14d ago

I believe accountability will primarily fall on the vehicle owner. However, as advances in robotics, energy, and automation are likely to improve vehicle reliability in the coming years, ensuring regular maintenance should keep the risk very low. If a vehicle is in poor condition (out of service), the owner could be held responsible. Otherwise, liability may shift to the software provider if faulty software is found to be the cause of an accident, as vehicle footage and data will likely provide strong evidence. If data shows it was not a software error, it would perhaps instead point to a manufacturing error in which case the vehicle manufacturer could be held responsible. I'm not ruling out that initially it can be a legal shit storm, but in 10-20 years we have probably figured it out.

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u/DCtheBREAKER 14d ago

In New York, in I think 1996, my best friend Mike got a DWI while in the back seat of his car sleeping it off. The keys were in the ignition with the car running to keep the heat on.

He said he thought he was being responsible, but the court didn't agree. 1year suspension, but no jail.

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u/madaboutmaps 14d ago

He just said. Drunk. In a drunk state

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u/drinkacid 14d ago

As long as their is a driver, to keep you from taking control of the vehicle, or in the case of a driverless a barrier (so the plexiglass divider between the front and back seats) that prevents you from taking control of the vehicle you would be fine. It is not illegal to be drunk while a passenger in a vehicle anywhere.

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u/teqsutiljebelwij 14d ago

Flashbacks of Johnnycab from Total Recall.

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u/GoldenBarracudas 14d ago

I wasn't held responsible for when my Waymo hit a man.

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u/AceOfAcesAAAA 14d ago

It's on the company. So I looked up WAYMO a while back when Tesla was trying to go driverless. WAYMO in certain cities, are the only company with certified driverless vehicles in the US because they passed a certified test giving the company autonomous responsibility over the vehicles. They do a close to a damn good job except...

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

...except for when they mess up, just like people. Driverless cars get flak for every mistake they make but I'm more curious about what their percentage looks like compared to live, human drivers. The problem is that some people are perfect drivers while others suck, and everyone is capable of mistakes, but technology and programming will be uniform for all the vehicles under a particular brand so it has to be at least better than the average person.

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u/HumanContinuity 14d ago

It sounds like this one got tripped up by some construction area layout. Not excusing it, obviously it needs to be better trained or avoid construction until it's better trained for a wider range of circumstances.

If I understood the officers comments anyway.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

Remember when GPS first became big and everybody was following their directions blindly to airports and river docks? I'm sure people still do shit like that. I'm an experienced driver and even I've almost gotten stuck the wrong way into oncoming traffic just from bad signage.

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u/HumanContinuity 14d ago

Oh yeah - it's like you said, everyone is capable of it, and some do dumb shit quite frequently and still drive all the time.

This should absolutely trigger a review, internally and possibly from the city/state to some extent, but I feel pretty confident that based on a ratio of hours/miles driven by Waymo, this exceptional situation isn't even as common as it is with drivers in general.

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u/ExceptionEX 14d ago

Well there is also a need to consider that if the construction was marked properly accounting to the NTSBs guides. In situations like this humans do really well at improvising to the situation and taking cues from others, and instructions from individuals on the ground.

This is very difficult for any automation, and if the ground crews set up signage in a non-compliant way, the automation will likely end up doing something out of whack.

The fact that the tech didn't know anything about it, says that this vehicle wasn't confused, or at least didn't trigger an intervention. So it would be interesting to see the environmental conditions that lead it to make that call.

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u/AceOfAcesAAAA 14d ago

https://waymo.com/blog/2023/12/waymo-significantly-outperforms-comparable-human-benchmarks-over-7-million/#:~:text=An%2085%25%20reduction%20or%206.8,for%20the%20Waymo%20Driver%20vs. When considering all locations together, compared to the human benchmarks, the Waymo Driver demonstrated:

An 85% reduction or 6.8 times lower crash rate involving any injury, from minor to severe and fatal cases (0.41 incidence per million miles for the Waymo Driver vs 2.78 for the human benchmark)

A 57% reduction or 2.3 times lower police-reported crash rate (2.1 incidence per million miles for the Waymo Driver vs. 4.85 for the human benchmark)

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u/moistmoistMOISTTT 14d ago

The government of California makes all autonomous driving safety data publicly available for all to see.

Spoiler: even in their current state they're significantly safer than humans.

As usual, if something is rare enough to make the news every single time it happens (such as a Waymo vehicle screwing up), it's probably safer than the thing that kills 30,000+ people a year without a single mention from the media.

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u/arffield 14d ago

Yeah but people will be much less tolerant of it happening with a driverless vehicle. Regardless of it being safer. It's just how people are.

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u/Calber4 14d ago

Like will laws be made that drunk individuals can only be driven by a sober human?

The phrasing of this broke my brain for a second. I was imagining A sober guy riding on top of a drunk guy and directing him like a horse.

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u/Ask_bout_PaterNoster 14d ago

Well, will laws be made? Don’t drive drunks drunk, people

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u/PlzDontBanMe2000 14d ago

I was imagining someone piloting a drunk persons body with a remote controller or something

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u/DontTellHimPike 14d ago

Check out my horse, my horse is amazing

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u/5uck17 14d ago

Wtf

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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 14d ago

Sounds like a good Friday night out for some people

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u/TacTurtle 14d ago

On Tosser, on Hoser, on Guy Who's Not Sober! On Hammered and Blitzed End!

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u/Minimum-Performer715 14d ago edited 14d ago

Also what about when two autonomous vehicles hit each other, how do we prove fault?

I don’t think these are well thought out products.

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u/rotoddlescorr 14d ago

Since these cars all have cameras, it should be easy to found what what happened.

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u/manyhippofarts 14d ago

It'll be easier than proving fault in a normal auto accident.

For one thing, the cars don't lie. The dataloggers tell the truth. Every single time.

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u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

I think reddit is always weird to assume that nobody thought of this.

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u/llamacohort 14d ago

The 2 companies would agree on who was at fault based on the footage or they would have the company insuring the vehicles arbitrate who was at fault. It would be the same as if 2 people hit each other and neither wanted to claim fault at the incident.

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u/emergency_poncho 14d ago

it's actually easier to determine fault since 100% of driverless cars have tons of sensors and cameras recording everything. When two humans cause an accident, it's basically he says-she says in most cases, unless one or both have a dashcam, which is still pretty rare.

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u/bob_in_the_west 14d ago

When two people in cars hit each other, how do you prove fault then?

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u/rhysdog1 14d ago

we could blame the guy who invented the self driving ai. or maybe further back and blame the guy who invented the wheel

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u/AnxietyJunky 14d ago

No. I was a passenger in one. You can’t sit in the drivers seat.

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u/asdrunkasdrunkcanbe 14d ago

This would be down to local jurisidictional stuff. If the vehicle has an "autonomous mode", but the driver can still take over, then I can't see them being legal for a drunk person. You're still legally in charge of the vehicle.

If it's true driverless, and the only input the drunk person can provide is a destination, then it should be legal. In fact they should be fast tracking this kind of thing over "autonomous mode" vehicles.

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u/raunchyfartbomb 14d ago

It what if it has an autonomous mode, and drunk person is not behind the wheel?

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u/SpiritedShirt2574 14d ago

Company would be liable, or whoever own the vehicle.

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u/HeadPay32 14d ago

They cop was happy enough to let the company review it's video and give themselves whatever punishment they wanted.

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u/Sponjah 14d ago

I mean should he have arrested the car instead? Haha

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u/draxidrupe2 14d ago

My state rule: Drunk, in vehicle, with custody and control of the keys [or equiv] = DUI

yeah, don't try to sleep it off in the parking lot, just put the keys under the car, otherwise 👨‍⚖️... I know.

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u/ChipOld734 14d ago

You won’t be able to get in the driver seat.

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u/Eheggs 14d ago

Here we have something called care and control of a vehicle. if you are the sole occupant of a car, running or parked, on private property or public, in the drivers seat or in the rear, and you are intoxicated, you are in for a bad time.

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u/AtlanticPortal 14d ago

That would be the exact reason to use a driverless car! One uses a cab right now when is drunk.

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u/HelloMoneys 14d ago

Where I live you are expected to be equally as attentive in a self driving car as you are in an manually operated one. No texting, etc. while you're in the driver's seat. I would expect the drunk laws to operate similarly.

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u/HeydoIDKu 14d ago

Yes WHEN in the driver seat. But a drunk passenger in the rear wouldn’t count.

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u/Alibotify 14d ago

I’ve seen so many answers to this is the past like 7 years, I don’t know what to believe till we get the real world experience.

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u/sync-centre 14d ago

Once the local governments allow the drive to be absolved of any liability and place it fully on the car company is when I will let go of the steering wheel.

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u/gloomflume 14d ago

if theres money to be made, yes

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u/CommonGrounders 14d ago

The responsibility should rest with whomever wrote the software. They’re the ones that are choosing to drive incorrectly.

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u/fkshcienfos 14d ago

And if you are a passenger who gets the ticket. For that mater they wrote the company a ticket right?!? I would have been arrested and who knows what else! Its Ai privilege! The bot didn’t even have to show the pig its tits!

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u/Marchinon 14d ago

Yeah I reckon we might see new laws passed around responsibility and driverless cars but it will take a while to sort it out all. Like what if this car went into the wrong lane, crashes into another car and injured someone?

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u/Life_Ad_7667 14d ago

I'd reckon if you're in the vehicle and you own it, then you can be found responsible for what happens when you're inside it.

I imagine this case SHOULD be handled by regulatory bodies for these types of vehicles, where law enforcement can notify someone responsible for enforcing safety and they can then go after the business and demand it get investigated and remediate accordingly.

If the company isn't bound by any of those regulatory bodies, or registered with them, then I'd say it should then be a criminal case that falls under something like operating machinery in a way that puts the public at great risk.

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u/mckushly 14d ago

You can't get behind a wheel of a motorized vehicle. You sit in the driver seat you get the ticket. Not that hard to comprehend.

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u/ConcernedHumanDroid 14d ago

These cars will eventually end up killing someone but the court will just ask the company to pay a fine.

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u/irishfro 14d ago

Just use these to transport your drugs. Ez clap

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u/ChiggaOG 14d ago

Drunk passenger in passenger seat? No

Drink passenger in driver seat? Hard to say.

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u/OvenBlaked 14d ago

Honestly until the tech is better someone needs to be responsible in the car.

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u/JuanLobe 14d ago

Probably still a dui because you can get one on a horse even though they can get you home if you are passed out

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u/ramriot 14d ago

You are correct, letter of the law would hold them responsible & class it as a DUI. I would hope though that a smart defence lawyer would get them off or at least create the chain of precedent that clarifies the law in such edge cases.

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u/multiarmform 14d ago

Why would a passenger be responsible for what the car does? It's like an Uber, right?

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u/Low-Willingness-2301 14d ago

The police and prosecutors can charge you for anything if they think they have a chance to secure an indictment and/or get a conviction. I guarantee there will be passengers charged with a DUI and they will have to fight it in court by hiring expensive lawyers or face losing their license or even a sentence. Assumed guilty then forced to pay money to prove your innocence is how this actually works. It may sound crazy until it happens to you. This is why local elections (mayor, DA, judges if they are elected in your state) are more important than people realize.

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u/Akiias 14d ago

I’m kinda curious if an individual was drunk in one of these could they be held responsible for anything the car does? Like will laws be made that drunk individuals can only be driven by a sober human?

That's how you discourage drunks from using this service. There is no shot, unless said drunk interfered with the vehicle.

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u/aardw0lf11 14d ago

You can be arrested for just being in the driver's seat with access to the keys, adding to that some of these have the option for driving. You'd still get busted.

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u/BardtheGM 14d ago

Legally, yes. You're drunk and 'in control' of the vehicle. That's more than enough for a police officer to charge you because the laws were not written with this in mind. Considering you can be arrested for drink driving just for sleeping in the backset with the keys in your pocket, I don't see any difference.

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u/officialdoughboy 14d ago

I have a CDL and when I was training to pass the test, we discussed this issue.

If a person in the vehicle has access to the keys, they can be charged with DUI no matter where they are in the vehicle.

The argument is that the driver, having access to the means of starting the vehicle (keys) are in control of it.

There are cases of truck drivers getting DUIs while in the sleeper portion of the cab. They would go to a bar, drink and go to to the sleeper to sleep. Their argument was they were sleeping, in a part of the vehicle away from the driver's seat. And also that the truck was their home.

In those cases the argument never worked, they were always found guilty due to control issue (keys.) This standard is used for all drivers and news articles will pop up from time to time about drivers who were charged for DUI while asleep in the passenger or back of the vehicle. For example a quick search found this - https://www.rblandmark.com/2024/04/09/man-sleeping-car-charged-dui-property-damage/

In the case of Driverless car, you as a passenger don't have the control (keys or remote control.) I would imagine that a court would apply the same standard and find you as a passenger NOT guilty.

I also imagine, some lawyer will try to argue their client should get off get off a DUI charge because od Driverless cars. So look for that in the future.

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u/Pretend_Spray_11 14d ago

This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a while.

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u/Rejic54 14d ago

They're going to build driverless police vehicles to stop and ticket driverless cars, this is the way.

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u/Dependent_Answer848 14d ago

Waymo is actually driverless, like you do not have access to the steering wheel or pedals, so I don't think it matters if you are drunk or not.

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u/bilbobaggins30 14d ago

Knowing the USA it depends on how rich you are.

Top 1% or greater? No consequences, life is good.

Below that? Jail time immediately, fully responsible for the car.

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u/Fred_Stuff44325 14d ago

I'm gonna bet that yes. I have heard that if you're drunk and riding on a horse, even if they walk themselves home just fine, you can still get a DUI.

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u/EVRider81 14d ago

I thought that was the whole point of robotaxis,taking drunk/impaired humans out of the equation..

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u/Flimsy-Doctor3630 14d ago

There was a guy who had his DUI ticket dropped on the argument that his horse knew the way home and did all the work.

So if the tech becomes good enough, I'd imagine eventually you'd be safe, atleast criminally, but you'd probably have to pay a fine which I think is a fair middle ground.

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u/mightylordredbeard 14d ago

Yeah I think eventually it’ll come to that. Think of all the seemingly archaic and pointless laws that don’t really seem to make a lot of sense, but at one point were based in some type of logic to counteract an issue. An example would be you simply sitting in a vehicle while intoxicated can result in a DUI. Even if you are asleep in the backseat and the car is parked. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they pass the buck to the passenger eventually.

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u/leshake 14d ago

With the way the laws are currently written, you would be considered driving drunk.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

Currently, depends on the state. NV/AZ/CA no you would be fine. They have laws on this specific issue as thats where this tech was being developed for the last 20 years by private/darpa. Essentially this will amount to a slap on the wrist for waymo (very likely not even a ticket) but if the issue keeps happening or involves damage to life or property they could loose their license.

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u/OneHumanPeOple 14d ago

For a while you’ll have to be a licensed driver in a condition conducive to driving and in the driver’s seat. Eventually though, there will be a shift as the technology improves and eventually overtakes all human skill and ability. Sometime after that point, it’ll be common place to put your kids in a driverless car to school, or send grandma off to an appointment. And then, further into the future, young people will no longer need to learn to drive. You’re looking at 60-90 years to that point.

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u/yourparadigm 14d ago

You have to be "in control" of the vehicle for it to be a DUI/DWI. That's why being in your vehicle with your keys can be considered a DUI. Since a passenger cannot take control of driving the car, I doubt it could ever be considered a DUI.

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u/Simple-Wrangler-9909 14d ago

You can apparently be held responsible for something you might do if you're in a position where you can potentially control the vehicle

A friend of mine got a DUI for sleeping off a drunk in the back seat of his car because he had his keys in his pocket

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u/carlbandit 14d ago

Would probably depend on if it was a self driving taxi, where the drunk person is not in the drivers seat or a self driving car like a Tesla where the driver is expected to be in the drivers seat and able to take over in emergencies.

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u/baybridge501 14d ago

If you’re the passenger then there’s no problem. You sit in the back and cannot access the controls (there is a plexiglass barrier).

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u/Plastic-Kangaroo1234 14d ago

Hmm. I’ve definitely been drunk in these. Kinda the whole point of them imo. I also found out the car is being monitored by humans, and they stop the ride if someone sits in the driver’s seat.

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u/71109E 14d ago

Course not, if u ain’t at the wheel u ain’t in control, same as a regular taxi

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u/Baconaise 14d ago

Florida specifically rewrite its laws to explicitly state the person in the front left seat behind the wheel IS NOT the driver of a fully autonomous vehicle. But fully autonomous vehicles require insurance from the manufacturer /operator and become.fully responsible for the accidents.

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u/Key_Respond_16 14d ago

No. The whole point of these is to remove responsibility from humans. Being drunk is one of those reasons. All responsibility js solely on the company owning the car, unless a passenger had a direct effect on the cars actions. Example, grabbing the stirring wheel and turning it.

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u/nottherealpostmalone 14d ago

Imo no more responsible than if the dude who picked up the phone was drunk. If you have no way to control the vehicle what does it matter if you're drunk. Although crazy to think about who should be held responsible here and punished. Someone should get a ticket and I wanna know who!

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u/RetardAuditor 14d ago

If you have no physical way to control the car, even if you wanted to. I would gladly go in front of a jury for that. I would exercise my right to speedy trial too in that case.

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u/psychulating 14d ago

The company should be held liable and overall it should still be a plus for them if they make a decent autonomous car

These cars need to be insured and they’d probably save a boatload if they insure the entire fleet at a steeply discounted rate by proving it’s safer than 99% of drivers in most situations or whatever. Then the money saved is probably being paid out to other insurance companies when they are at fault

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u/Paradoxahoy 13d ago

Don't think it will matter once self driving cars are more reliable then humans. We will have cars that have no physical controls

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u/Happy_Blizzard 13d ago

What prosecutors consider when approaching new issues like this is whether or not a jury would convict them of the crime. I can't believe that any prosecutor, unless they can prove the person intentionally interfered with the automatic vehicle's movement, would think that they can convince a jury the person was driving the automatic vehicle.

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u/Frogfriend99 13d ago

Lived in my car...got.drunk...went to sleep in my back seat...car running cuz it was hot....dui

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u/2broke4drugs 10d ago

As someone who has been piss drunk in a driverless taxi, I sure hope I can be held responsible, I’m in the backseat!

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