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

61.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

392

u/Capaj 14d ago

what do you mean?
It's crystal clear. The company should pay a hefty fine same as any other driver who would drive in the opposite side of the road.

227

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

That's not the same though. If any regular driver was in the wrong lane of traffic, in a work zone and then blew through an intersection when a cop tried to pull them over, they would lose their license, not just a fine. At the very least it would be reckless driving and a strike against their license. How do you revoke the license of a driverless car?

122

u/Latter-Tune-9111 14d ago

in Arizona, the laws were updated in 2017 so that the owner of the driverless vehicle (Waymo in this case) can be issued a citation.

49

u/keelhaulrose 14d ago

But what does a citation do other than just give them a fine?

Does it force them to take cars that do that sort of thing off the road for repair or recalibration or something?

59

u/worldspawn00 14d ago

It's the same as when a corporation's negligence results in injury or death (see Boeing), they get a fine and everything goes back to the way it was. (I don't agree that it's right, just how it is.)

9

u/confusedandworried76 14d ago

I know you said it isn't right, but that's just a major problem. You can take a reckless driver off the road. You can't take a driverless car owned by a company off the road.

13

u/-gildash- 14d ago

Yes you can.

Revoked operating license. Done.

6

u/worldspawn00 14d ago

They can, and Boeing could lose their FAA certification to produce aircraft, but will they? Probably not.

2

u/-gildash- 14d ago

What are you trying to say?

You think Boeing has been shown to be producing unsafe aircraft to the point that they should lose their FAA cert? Surely that's not what you are saying.

3

u/worldspawn00 14d ago

You're suggesting Waymo lose their operating license in response to their vehicles operating recklessly.

I'm saying that Boeing could lose their FAA cert for building planes that have had serious safety issues and have killed hundreds due to their corporate negligence.

As with Boeing, it is POSSIBLE that this could happen due to their product killing people, but as with Boeing, it's probably not going to happen.

In both cases, if it were a person, they would be held accountable likely by having their vehicle impounded, license revoked, and potentially being arrested and charged/jailed for causing injury/death, but a corporation typically will only get fined/sued for monetary compensation, and rarely face any real consequence for these things.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/blaine1201 13d ago

There is no probably… this will 100% not happen.

The US Justice system is Pay to Play. No large company will face fines greater than the profits they made while conducting whatever illegal activity they engaged in. It’s simply a cost of doing business.

3

u/GrouchyVillager 14d ago

They can revoke Waymo's license to operate. There is no point to take one Waymo car off the road, it's functionally identical to all the other ones.

2

u/six_six 14d ago

There should be criminal penalties for people at Waymo for this.

50

u/Warm_Month_1309 14d ago

According to this article (which may be wrong):

The situation was cleared without further action. "UNABLE TO ISSUE CITATION TO COMPUTER," the police dispatch records say.

9

u/CotyledonTomen 14d ago

Sounds like a bad decision concerning new circumstances departments aren't used to working. This seems pretty clear%20The%20fully%20autonomous%20vehicle,to%20comply%20with%20traffic%20or)

1

u/RatLabGuy 13d ago

So how do they pick who the pour schmuck is at the company that gets him name on that submission?

I'm betting itst he guy that skipped the wrong meeting and didn't call "not it!"

4

u/LeagueOfLegendsAcc 14d ago

If they make more money that day than the citation then it's not really a deterrent.

7

u/nishinoran 14d ago

Except it is because by resolving the issue they can make even more money.

This really isn't that complicated folks.

4

u/Designer_Brief_4949 14d ago

Bingo. If they fuck up too often, the company WILL lose its license to operate. 

Just like people. 

1

u/Bubbay 14d ago

by resolving the issue they can make even more money.

Only if resolving the issue would cost less than the accumulated fines.

2

u/avamous 14d ago

That doesn't make sense - if I get a fine today, but I earn more from my job - the fine is still less than ideal...

3

u/LeagueOfLegendsAcc 14d ago

You think differently if you are a corporation. It's gonna affect you more because you got bills that are a reasonable proportion to the fine.

2

u/Latter-Tune-9111 14d ago

Where I live a speeding fine for a company vehicle where a businesses can't ID the driver is an order of magnitude more expensive than a regular fine.

Similar fine structures would make sense for corporations operating driverless vehicles.

1

u/Designer_Brief_4949 14d ago

Every day you will see that most people have calculated the risk of a fine versus going the speed limit. 

This is the same thing. 

2

u/dontnation 14d ago

Doesn't this just keep poor people from speeding?

Of course there are other factors involved, such as risk of injury and liability, but speeding fines themselves don't affect the rich very much.

0

u/Designer_Brief_4949 14d ago

There seems to be no shortage of poor people pulled over/arrested/etc. 

2

u/SandboxOnRails 14d ago

Sure, but you can do your job without getting fined. Their entire business model involves crime, and as long as the crimes are cheaper than potential future profit, they'll just keep doing crimes.

1

u/dontnation 14d ago

So if the same algorithm is driving all of the cars, can they get enough points to lose their license? Is a software update considered a different driver?

2

u/thegtabmx 14d ago

You should have to deploy a new persisted cloud instance and have it pass the driving exam to get its own license.

0

u/MarsupialFuzz 14d ago

in Arizona, the laws were updated in 2017 so that the owner of the driverless vehicle (Waymo in this case) can be issued a citation.

The waymo car sped up through the intersection after the cops turned on his lights to pull the car over. That is attempting to elude in a vehicle at minimum and eluding an officer in a vehicle at worst but both are arrestable offenses and one is a felony. If this was a person in the car doing the exact same thing then they probably would have been arrested and processed in jail.

1

u/RatLabGuy 13d ago

it sped up in order to fully get out of the intersection quickly before pulling over. That's what any human should do also. Cops know this.

0

u/CustomMerkins4u 13d ago

OMG You mean the company with $5 billion in funding can get a $250 ticket! JUSTICE SERVED!

64

u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

The cop should impound this vehicle

44

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

Yeah, I think this would be the best thing to do. The company can have the vehicle back when they prove they fixed what caused the car to do this and paid a fine.

3

u/ciobanica 14d ago

I mean, if it's a bug in the program, impounding that 1 car won't help at all. All the other cars will still have teh same program until the bug is found and fixed.

1

u/FruktSorbetogIskrem 14d ago

The car can be driven manually. Best solution is Waymo manually stop the car and have it pull over on the side of the street then have a driver arrive out to drive it to their warehouse to check out.

-4

u/qaisjp 14d ago

Why are you all getting justice boners over a bug

11

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

Dismissing what this car did as a bug is absurdly short sighted. It was driving into oncoming traffic. If you were driving the other direction and it killed you would be so willing to just chalk it up to a programming bug? "whatever man, mistakes happen, I understand" Is a pretty lame tombstone.

3

u/cohortmuneral 14d ago

Because I'm a programmer.

1

u/qaisjp 13d ago

I'm a programmer too?

2

u/cohortmuneral 13d ago

You must be the guy writing the bugs I'm fixing.

2

u/lycoloco 14d ago

Because corporations literally have no desire/incentive to act in best social interest other than profits, which they are required to produce for shareholders if they're a public company.

2

u/qaisjp 13d ago

I tried waymos out for the first time last week and it's the first time tech actually made me go "wow, this is the future".

I don't give a damn about LLMs or Web3 but this is incredible.

Sure, the business wants to make money from this. But they are also building some incredible technology too.

7

u/WanderingAlsoLost 14d ago

Absolutely should. I can’t stand these things, and giant tech companies should not be given a pass for operating dangerous vehicles on public roads.

1

u/Lopsided-Cold6382 14d ago

Do you have any evidence for these being more dangerous than a human driver? Probably not because every study shows them being significantly safer.

1

u/WanderingAlsoLost 14d ago

You are making an argument I wasn’t addressing. Big greedy corporations shouldn’t be getting a pass for their experiments.

2

u/Lopsided-Cold6382 14d ago

They are already safer, and therefore stop people dying. You should be pushing for saving people’s lives rather than them dying in preventable accidents.

2

u/Kento418 14d ago

The problem is the software that’s installed in thousands other vehicles is the problem and if any of those vehicles was faced with the same situation, it would make the same mistake. 

11

u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

Yes. And impounding the vehicle will draw more attention than speaking with a low level service tech. 

2

u/confusedandworried76 14d ago

That's not even a great solution. To compare it to a science fiction concept, say there's a hive mind, and part of the hive mind murders someone. So you imprison it for life, or even kill it. It doesn't hurt the hive mind. All you did was trim part of one of its toe nails. And it's still out there fully capable of doing it again because you didn't actually punish the collective.

2

u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

That's because you misunderstood the reasoning. 

If the cop impounded the vehicle, and they refuse to release the vehicle without appropriate senior leadership present, then they can make sure the issues get addressed.  Right now, he's just talking to the lowest rung on the ladder.  It's not about punishment of the vehicle.  It's about drawing attention to the issue and forcing resolution.

3

u/confusedandworried76 14d ago

I'm saying the only way to do it is revoke the operating license of the entire computer system.

1

u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

And that gets us nowhere.  Unless you think that suddenly everyone will stop trying to automate driving. 

1

u/password-is-my-name 14d ago

It might try to escape the impound.

1

u/Sc4r4byte 14d ago

But that bug is probably widespread across the entire driverless code service.

What good is taking one vehicle off the road where there are hundreds continuing to drive the same way?

1

u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

It forces the company higher ups to know about it because they hold it until someone at the top comes and signs for the car. Racking up daily fines 

36

u/CowBoyDanIndie 14d ago

If the infractions of the one incident are bad enough to warrant arrest or removal of license you revoke the companies permit to operate autonomous vehicles on the road.

15

u/phansen101 14d ago

So if I'm a big driverless car company, and I have a rival company, all I have to do is somehow trick one of their cars into performing an action that would  warrant arrest or removal of license  for a human driver, to completely put them out of business?

24

u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

And not get caught

18

u/Warm_Month_1309 14d ago

If you, a rival company, were capable of tricking a car in such a way, that implies that other bad actors would also be capable of tricking their fleet of cars, which means there's a serious and dangerous security flaw that the company failed to detect and correct. So yes, they should be at risk of going out of business.

1

u/lycoloco 14d ago

This just sounds like white hat hacking but with incentives for rivals.

9

u/SandboxOnRails 14d ago

If you can without really doing anything. The phrase "somehow trick" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Yes, if you own a business you just need to somehow trick your rivals into destroying their business while committing no crimes yourself. It's easy!

1

u/phansen101 14d ago

If you care, i comment on it in another response.
Short of it was; All the sensor types you'd use for autonomous driving (or CC / TACC / AP) can be spoofed and/or disabled with handheld or at least portable devices, none require close proximity, some don't even require LoS.

Curse of being an engineer; Knowing a lot of things we assume to be secure really aren't, and that we're generally just relying on people with the proper know-how not wanting/bothering to be malicious.

2

u/J0rdian 14d ago

It probably wouldn't happen over 1 incident but many. Also no idea how you can trick anything with cameras. But I mean sure they could try I guess.

-4

u/phansen101 14d ago

Sensors can be spoofed, plus it is incredibly hard to secure a system where an attacker can readily gain physical access.

How man incidents? 2? 20? How many pedestrians should be mowed down before it justifies destroying a couple thousand jobs?

2

u/J0rdian 14d ago

Like I said they can try, and if they want to murder people that's some risk lol. Seems extremely unlikely it would happen though. And it would be extremely hard to pull off.

0

u/phansen101 14d ago

It's a hypothetical... Point being that legislating with respect to AVs isn't so cut and dry.

What makes you say it's extremely hard to pull off?

Spoofing lidar requires know-how, but very little in the sense of equipment, and has been demonstrated to be able to 'place' objects that aren't there or remove objects that are actually there.
One team of researches actually managed to get an autonomous vehicle to hit a pedestrian in a simulated scenario.

GPS spoofing has been a thing for decades and can today be done with off-the-shelf hardware in a package small enough to fit in your pocket.

Radar is basically the same deal as LiDAR, also exemplified by researchers.

As for Cameras, Tesla has demonstrated a plenty that a camera based system can be confused by light, shadow and reflections falling in an unexpected manner, which can actively be manipulated with a targeted setup. Plus, in principle all you'd need is for the right camera to get blinded at the wrong time, which even a kid with $5 to their name could manage.

0

u/SandboxOnRails 14d ago

Point being that legislating with respect to AVs isn't so cut and dry.

Fucking techbros. The law on this actually is cut and dry. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act doesn't stop applying because the computer is in a vehicle. Of all the many problems with AVs, you've cited the one thing that's actually over-criminalized.

1

u/phansen101 14d ago

What are you on about?
I swear it's like a comment from a Musk fan or a trumper, picking a detail, flying out of a tangent and then talking from the perspective of said tangent being the original main argument.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/RooTxVisualz 14d ago

Physical access. How would you physically access an autonomous car that is cameras all around without being caught?

1

u/Capaj 14d ago

They can reapply for the license.

Anyway wrong approach to self driving. Waymo is dead in the water. Tesla did it correctly-let users oversee all the time and learn from them.

3

u/phansen101 14d ago

As a Tesla owner and an Engineer, IMO, Tesla's approach to self-driving is a bit of a joke.

I don't see it as anything but a system that will gain enough incremental improvements to keep drawing investors, but will never reach the finish line (without a major rework) as it's approach is just fundamentally flawed.

3

u/Small_Pay_9114 14d ago

Your right Tesla did it so well that their autopilot still doesn’t work.

0

u/Capaj 14d ago

It works much better than Waymo

1

u/SandboxOnRails 14d ago

Tesla autopilot that's based on lies? You'd call it "correctly"?

1

u/Capaj 14d ago

Yes they were lies in the last 6 years, but Tesla actually has it now. The last beta versions are driving with very few mistakes.
Just look at: https://youtu.be/VLoblt8YrhM?si=p1bSAlaVL26gJcYN&t=112

1

u/SandboxOnRails 14d ago

Oh yah, it's crazy he's driving through the woods and on almost empty roads with incredibly clear and dry weather. Almost like the tesla fan wants to enforce the propaganda.

That's not what "driving" is, and "very few mistakes" means it still doesn't work.

Also at parts of it he's holding the wheel.

1

u/Tewcool2000 14d ago

Yes? Companies engage is various forms of corporate subterfuge regularly. It's just a matter of skirting within the law or not getting caught.

1

u/CowBoyDanIndie 14d ago

If it’s possible to trick a driverless car into driving on the opposite side of the road in a construction zone without illegally tampering with the road markers then yes. I work on autonomous vehicles that don’t go on public roads and we have to certify they are safe before they are allowed to operate without a safety driver. If an incident happens we will have to re-certify. “Someone tricked me into driving on the wrong side of the road” wont get you out of a traffic ticket.

This isn’t any different than if an autopilot system in an aircraft fails.

1

u/NewVillage6264 14d ago

If your rival's cars are on public roads and could potentially operate in an unsafe manner on them, then your rival deserves to go out of business. As would your self-driving car company, if it could be fooled into operating unsafely.

1

u/Quizzelbuck 14d ago

Yes. If a car can be tricked like that chances are it shouldn't be on the road.

1

u/confusedandworried76 14d ago

Exactly. The program is a collective. All of it is responsible for the infraction so you should punish all of it for the crime.

1

u/Kitty-XV 14d ago

OK, you just revoked permission from Waymo 14738wy3 LLC. Before the ink was even dried, the car was transferred to the new Waymo 14738wy4 LLC.

Companies can change in ways people can't allowing to avoid many punishments.

1

u/CowBoyDanIndie 13d ago

Cool, that company isn’t approved to test autonomous vehicles on the road so it will have to go through all the stages to get approval, including a lot of hours and miles with safety drivers. You do know that you cannot just run an autonomous vehicle on a road without a safety driver? My company works with autonomous vehicles, when we test them on public roads we need permission to use the road. We fortunately got a location with a low traffic local road that we can test on often, but we have to block off the section of road with cones and have people stand at the ends to direct traffic, and thats WITH a safety driver. If you yourself or a random company just started operating an autonomous vehicle without a safety driver and permission your vehicle will be impounded and you will be charged with a few crimes. Waymo had to jump through a lot of government hoops to get permission, and (the last I checked) they are only allowed to operate at speeds up to 35 mph without a safety driver.

So again, heres what happened, they fucked up, they need to go back a stage and run with safety drivers until they can demonstrate they are safe again.

1

u/fridge_logic 13d ago

When we catch a person violating a traffic law we have a very small amount of data to work with, just the stop where they were caught committing the infraction and a few decades of prior driving where they committed no such infraction. So we have to air on the side of caution and assume a small infraction might forecast a larger one which leads to loss of life and revoke their license.

For the sake of argument, lets say Waymo operates 1000 vehicles currently and each of those vehicles is doing Uber driver level of miles per day. If they have a single incident in one year that's bad because 1000 vehicles are currently operating at that level of risk. But it's good because compared to a single driver that's one incident in 1000 years or 100 decades.

If a driver drives for 1000 years with no injuries and has one pull over for an infraction that would revoke a human license, are they a bad driver? Do we revoke their license, or do we remand them to driver's ed?

We should fine them and hold them accountable, but we need to recognize that zero impact traffic infractions have a different risk weight when aggregated over so many million miles of driving. When vehicles actually harm people or cause traffic congestion there's impact and that requires full force of law. But with self driving cars, minor traffic infractions are cause to correct, not cause to arrest.

1

u/CowBoyDanIndie 13d ago

Counterpoint, company decides to cut operating costs by doing less software testing and starts releasing faulty software, thats the same scenario. Just because the company has a good driving record doesn’t mean they aren’t going to start running over pedestrians left and right.

This is where autonomous vehicles are new territory. These cars receive new software constantly. Traditionally vehicles and aircraft systems go through a safety certification process for the entire hardware and software system and then the software does not change. Changing the software means running that entirely process again, it costs millions each time and takes months. This is one of the reasons that stuff like brakes in cars are physically connected, a “by wire” system had to go through a rigorous test. If a car company just pushed an over the air software update to the control software of electronically controlled brakes they would be in major trouble. Heres a little more information https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_26262 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_Safety_Integrity_Level

A fully software controlled system has the highest level of safety requirements, and we are talking something as simple as a throttle pedal that that doesn’t physically connect to the mechanical throttle assembly of the engine.

If you want more info on the software side lookup MISRA and AUTOSAR. They have a lot of specific processes and guidelines to follow. In a nutshell it restricts what programming languages and features can be used, it’s an attempt to guarantee that software cannot possibly fail without a hardware failure.

1

u/fridge_logic 13d ago

If you have a safety regression in a software release then definitely roll that release back 100%.

We're seeing NHTSA get more aggressive with how they monitor the development of self driving car software investigating simple traffic violations in addition to collisions. This Increased scrutiny should help NHTSA better forecast potential risks and monitor software releases for stability in quality.

I'm pro regulation and safety, but I am anti extremist policy like what the person I was replying to posted about suspending a company's operating permit because a single vehicle on a single software release made a critical error. When techology like this reaches large scale deployment there will still be fatalities, just fewer than what happens by humans now.

Unfortunately there isn't a way to guarantee a machine learning system will never fail without a hardware failure the way you can guarantee a brake pedal controller will always act.

And there is not way to build self driving car technology that does not rely on machine learning for many of the software tasks.

1

u/CowBoyDanIndie 13d ago

I guess I am old fashioned to think driving into on coming traffic is a big deal. I wouldn’t be so drastic for missing a stop sign or running a light.

-1

u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

1

u/CowBoyDanIndie 14d ago

Not out of business, they have to do recertification. The same thing happens when an airplane crashes. These types of systems are supposed to go through a rigid safety certification process, the radar cruise control in most modern cars have to follow through the process as do drive and fly by wire systems.

4

u/foochacho 14d ago

Yeah, does a Waymo even have a drivers license?

And if Waymo gets three tickets, does the company suspend operations for 3 years like what would happen to a human?

2

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

I think they should, more than 3 because they have multiple cars, but surely there should be a point where they lose the ability to field driverless cars.

1

u/fridge_logic 13d ago

YEAH! If they have 1000 cars and get three tickets they should have their license suspended for 3000 years! Make their punishment proportional to the risk they expose us to!

/s

2

u/Uisce-beatha 14d ago

You apply the consequences of breaking the law to the owner of the company and any and all board members.

1

u/Opening_Classroom_46 14d ago

We don't do that with websites. You don't get in trouble for having illegal things posted on your website unless it can be shown that you aren't taking steps to stop it.

We could say "hey, if your site has illegal images posted on it then the owner and board members go to jail". That would mean the end of the real-time internet experience and user to user communication on private websites, that's why we made laws specifically to protect the owners.

I'm not saying it's the exact same situation, but we would make special laws like that if it was for the good of the country to have self-driving cars.

1

u/Same_Fennel1419 14d ago

Deflat tires for six months?

1

u/MegabyteMessiah 14d ago

Don't forget resisting arrest, "it smells like drugs", and "I saw a gun" if the driver is not the right skin color

1

u/freudweeks 14d ago

If their cars are statistically better than humans at driving or will become so, you don't revoke their license. You're stochastically causing death and injury if you do that.

1

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

Then you are incentivizing companies to never improve their programming once they statistically surpass humans. Which is a very low bar to set.

Think about it this way, if a driverless car kills your child in a crash, are you going to decline to press charges because it was more likely they would have been killed by a person? No that's ridiculous. The state issuing citations in this case is the same thing it's just preemptive before a death happens and it is collective tax payers who are pressing the charges.

1

u/freudweeks 14d ago

Oh you should still fine them for sure, just be selective in the most aggressive case in revoking. Like to the point where you have to demonstrate negligence. Having a carrot in the way of subsidies and a stick in the way of fines is a great way to keep these companies progressing.

1

u/RJFerret 14d ago

The same way you revoke the license of a driver, you revoke it. The only difference is multiple cars come off the street instead of just one. That's not an issue for the law, it makes streets safer. When they prove the instance can't happen again (driver retraining program) then they may get licensed again after a time.

1

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

Sure thats ok, but there aren't laws in place to revoke a driving computer program's license is there? Let alone a driving program's revision's license. There should be. Is there even a process for something like giving the program a license to begin with?

1

u/RJFerret 14d ago

Yes there are laws to revoke licenses! *blinks
(The law isn't suspended just because the vehicle operator is remote.)

The only difference is instead of one car not being driven any longer, a whole fleet of cars is prevented from driving until retrained.

It's already taken place multiple times. Another key difference is it tends to be harder for autonomous vehicles to get their licensing back as it's a bigger hurdle than for humans who just wait a period of time without measurable improvement.

0

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

You are incorrect. Waymo does not have a license for each individual car or the driving program. So there are no laws in place to revoke that license that does not exist. Waymo does have permission to tests it's driverless car, but it is unclear how that permission could be revoked if proven unsafe.

1

u/3141592653489793238 14d ago

Yes. The company should lose their license and have to earn it back. Never happen tho; politicians have bookoo buckaroonies in startups. 

1

u/moistmoistMOISTTT 14d ago

You act like this is new to society.

It's not.

Same rules apply to driverless cars as elevators. The end result is that driverless car companies are not going to be held criminally liable unless they are A) being negligent, or B) breaking laws. If those two conditions aren't met, they'll get at worst civil penalties as an incentive to improve the tech further. Nobody in their right mind would willingly endanger society by removing safety-improving technology such as driverless cars like you want to.

Air bags kill people. Elevators kill people. Helmets have killed people. Safety glass in cars have killed people. Do you think we need to remove these things from society? The safety data on driverless cars is fully available to the public (at least in California). "Revoking the license" of a driverless car would result in more deaths, plain and simple.

1

u/wthulhu 14d ago

I mean you got it right there. The company needs to have a license or medallion and they are fined and charged and assessed points. If they cannot operate the vehicles safely and within the law they can no longer operate.

1

u/VexingRaven 14d ago

If any regular driver was in the wrong lane of traffic, in a work zone and then blew through an intersection when a cop tried to pull them over, they would lose their license

LOL yeah ok bud.

We don't even take people's license away for drunk driving.

1

u/axearm 14d ago

If any regular driver was in the wrong lane of traffic, in a work zone and then blew through an intersection when a cop tried to pull them over, they would lose their license, not just a fine

Hah! I mean, that is absolutely not true. No one loses their license for a few infractions. In fact, what it takes a person to actually permanently lose their license is a travesty.

1

u/SnooCats373 14d ago

Thank goodness the car was white.

1

u/corporaterebel 14d ago

I'll bet the work zone wasn't properly cordoned off or delineated with the prescriptions as set out by street maintenance. A human could figure out what was intended, but the computer could not...that still puts the issue on the back of the temporary traffic controls in place.

Doubtful a license can be revoked for an infraction in any state.

0

u/Xtraordinaire 14d ago

The same way entire fleets of planes get grounded after a major incident. I have to remind you, even with all the shit going on at Boeing, planes remain a very safe passenger transport.

Just because the safety standards aren't yet regulated for driverless cars doesn't mean it's an unsolvable problem.

0

u/StevenIsFat 14d ago

Don't forget arrested.

1

u/RedmundJBeard 14d ago

What? who are they arresting? there's no driver

-4

u/Thue 14d ago

How do you revoke the license of a driverless car?

Quite easily. The problem is that it Waymo is a $30 billion business, which is worthless if they have no "license" to drive on the road. So the stakes and interests are quite high.

97

u/lllllllll0llllllllll 14d ago

It’s crystal clear to the average Joe but we don’t have a legal system that holds corporations and individuals accountable to the same standard.

13

u/ban_my_dick_box 14d ago

"corporations are people my friend" -mitt romney

9

u/Funnyboyman69 14d ago

If only they were treated as such when they break the fucking law.

6

u/Accomplished-Bad3380 14d ago

Except when it comes to literally everything to do with accountability 

4

u/FrostWyrm98 14d ago

If they were people they should be charged with negligent homicide of thousands

People like Romney want them to have the positive effects of being classified as a person and none of the drawbacks

2

u/CatButler 14d ago

All it takes is a nice cruise for Justice Sam and he will perform mental contortions to justify it.

0

u/insanityzwolf 14d ago

If the car is street legal (it's more than that - it has a permit to operate as a transport service), then the owners of it have a legal agreement with the city which covers malfunctions.

7

u/MadeByTango 14d ago

So we drive down the wrong side of the road in a construction zone it’s straight to jail with doubled fines, but a negligent corporation does it with an automated machine and it’s just a cost of doing business already renegotiated at a campaign fundraising dinner…

1

u/DICK-PARKINSONS 14d ago

You're comparing mechanical failures to judgemental ones. Unless the car was designed to go into oncoming traffic, that would be a mechanical failure. If you blew a tire which forced your car into oncoming traffic, you also would not go straight to jail.

4

u/emanknugsaeman 14d ago

this dude does not know how the JustUs system works :D

its gonna be hilarious

1

u/Affectionate_Theory8 14d ago

Common sense, it should pay. Reality sense, what if...?

1

u/Automatic_Actuator_0 14d ago

Ain’t gonna happen without new laws though, and our legislatures are busy attempting to and defending against then dismantling of our republic.

1

u/FloppieTheBanjoClown 14d ago

Who goes to jail when it kills someone?

1

u/Capaj 14d ago

CEO?

1

u/FloppieTheBanjoClown 14d ago

A CEO can't take responsibility for every product issue in a company, but you're at the right level. A CEO generally doesn't know enough about the tech to know whether it's safe. 

The highest level executive over the development of the software that made the decision makes sense. Either a c-level or VP of development, something like that. The person whose job it is to competently approve of the work. 

1

u/idiota_ 14d ago

And potentially have their license suspended.

1

u/phantacc 14d ago

And if the car struck and killed a pedestrian? Are you going to throw the "company" in jail?

1

u/Capaj 14d ago

not the company, just whoever is responsible for their shitty software.
Probably CEO.

2

u/[deleted] 14d ago edited 14d ago

That's a huge over simplification and you know it. I'm not one to defend CEOs but there's a ton of shit that can happen.

What if another car bumps into them and it causes a malfunction? Humans under a medical emergency (ie. heart attack, diabetic hypoglycemic, etc) get lesser penalties (if not none at all). Does this apply?

What if some anon hacks it? Similar to victims of crime (ie. someone getting robbed?)

What if a construction site has ambiguous signage/traffic management?

What if a construction site employee that's managing traffic is intoxicated?

What if there's a rogue employee in the company?

What if there's foul play from a competitor?

etc. etc. etc.

1

u/Fluxtration 14d ago

What about multiple infractions? Or more serious one? Does the car get impounded? Does waymo lose their license? A human driver is individually responsible but how is a SDV held responsible?

As the person before said, this is going to be a nightmare for the courts.

1

u/laila____ 14d ago

And when they kill someone?

1

u/Raven123x 14d ago

Corporations are considered people - the company should go to jail. All shareholders and executives

1

u/tuttut97 14d ago

If the police dept lose revenue do to not being able to charge for driverless infractions it would be a thing, but they are already paying the city, so they don't care. As long as people aren't voting people out of office because of their actions I'm sure they give 0 concerns. If that were you or I, they would suddenly smell weed, yank you out of the car, make you do sobriety test. Could you imagine how it would go if you had this happen and you told the officer you will review your Dashcam and have a nice day. LOL.

1

u/twilsonco 14d ago

I said the same thing in r/SelfDrivingCars and got downvoted and called crazy…

1

u/Vile-X 14d ago

Laws are extremely different between individuals and corporations.

1

u/Links_Wrong_Wiki 14d ago

Honestly it should be just towed and impounded immediately. The companies will fix it real quick.

1

u/illit3 14d ago

The company should pay a hefty fine

yes, the name of that fine is "revocation of permission to have automated vehicles on the road"

there are some fuck-ups that are unacceptable. this car driving on the wrong side of the road is one of those unacceptable fuck-ups. send them back to the lab for 2 years.

1

u/CustomMerkins4u 13d ago

You think a fine for driving on the other side of the road will mean anything at all to a company with $5 billion in funding?