alt Hacker NewsTicketing is a weird thing to do with driverless cars.
If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow rules or else cease operations entirely.
If the violations are unintentional but happen only rarely in weird edge-case situations, then just set low frequency thresholds for them to be allowed, the same way we allow tiny amounts of rodent hairs in peanut butter. If AV companies exceed the threshold, then they get fined at first and eventually lose their permit -- but these aren't tickets for individual violations, but rather a yearly fine for going above the yearly threshold.
If the violations are intentional but not easily fixable -- e.g. they're stopping where not allowed because there's no legal place to stop within 15 blocks -- then the laws/regulations are bad, and tickets are essentially an unfair tax. That's the case in my city where moving trucks are essentially illegal, because it's illegal to double-park them, but there's usually no legal parking available within any reasonable distance that movers could carry furniture. So you just know that the cost of moving includes a "tax" of a parking ticket, unfair as it is.
Finally, if the violations are unintentional but happen all the time, the AV company should lose its permit because its software sucks.
I don't see how ticketing AVs for individual violations makes any sense.
EDIT: for those who think I'm letting AV companies get off too easily, it's precisely the opposite. I'm saying that if AV companies are violating traffic rules all the time and can't fix it, they should be banned. Ticketing is not the answer, because ticketing isn't holding these vehicles to a high enough standard. It's letting the companies get off the hook by merely paying occasional tickets instead of improving their software.
Replies
You make some good points, but here are some counterpoints:
There is an existing infrastructure for ticketing by license plate, payment processing, collection, etc.
You’re describing changes to the law, which require a bunch of procedural hurdles. It’s much easier for the DMV to just promulgate new rules that tap into existing infrastructure, as they did here.
Also, how is the government supposed to assess whether these violations are intentional or not? Tickets are strict liability (you get the ticket if you do it regardless of intent, reasons, etc.) because it is easy to administer.
No, I think ticketing is the right thing to do. You set a law. Any instance of breaking that law costs money, so the AV company has an incentive to reduce the number of violations. The won't be able to bring the number of violations down to 0 just like we can't bring the number of cockroaches in chocolate down to 0, but that nonzero amount is just a regulatory cost they can decrease by getting closer to the goal of 0 violations.
Obviously, we should also have the option to pull vehicles that are brazenly ignoring the law and just eating the cost of the tickets. Just like we do with drivers who do that. But that should be the second line of defense if regular monetary fines (tickets) fail
Seems to me like ticketing is a really simple proxy for everything you’ve just described.
Why pass a thousand new laws when the existing laws have an enforcement mechanism?
Ticketing AVs for individual violations like human drivers is the only fair way.
How would your proposal work for personal driverless cars, with/without custom modifications? ie. if my personal car commits violation on its way to pick me up
Yes, I thought AV by design should not voilate traffic laws.
Ok, but why are AVs getting a break on the same tickets a human gets no "low frequency threshold" for them to be allowed.
If a AV runs a red light or a stop sign, it should be the same penalty, period.
If AV companies want to avoid the tickets, they can make their claimed superior drivers avoid violating the law.
They want to make money from the tickets
I think part of ticketing is the state makes money off of it. If they just shut these companies down no one benefits.
Traffic has rules, you violate them you get a ticket
>If the violations are intentional and easily fixable, then just pass laws/regulations requiring AV's to follow the law or else cease operations entirely.
I have to stop reading the rest of the comment right there.
If the violations are intentional and easily fixable is an incredibly loaded presumption to start any type of conversation, dialogue, or debate. To the point, asking the question 'how do we qualify intention? How are we measuring difficulty of fix? Costs of payroll, computer, deployment, and potential regression testing? What about the very nature of the context that led up to it? Did an external 3rd party cutoff a robotaxi and require that the robotaxi veer into the oncoming traffic lane, bc sensors indicated it was the best decision to avoid a collision, prioritizing safety and human life over traffic law?
What happens when following traffic law statistically leads to a greater risk of loss of life over violating the law?
I must insist we move the dialogue upstream to reality as-is, and there is plenty to discuss there.
I will in good faith issue a starting point: how should we measure the robotaxi driver license wrt suspension? Do we issue a point system that is averaged across the fleet, e.g. violations/car before suspending all operations until licensure evaluation? Personally I think that is a fair starting point amd am completely open minded to alternative views.
In all of your situations except for cases where no good legal option exists, ticketing is just the easier way to apply your suggested idea. It gives a direct incentive to the company to lower the rate as far as is possible. It doesn't allow some minimal amount without a fee, but that doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
The biggest reason for the difference between Autonomous vehicles and peanut butter is that with autonomous vehicles, we already have a compliance system in place....cops. It's not designed for autonomous vehicles, and you are correct that it's not the way you would design it for the ground up for autonomous vehicles, but it's far better to accept the imperfections than to build some new, separate compliance and monitoring system on top of the existing one. The benefits aren't large enough to justify it.
In the far future when the vast majority of vehicles are autonomous? Sure, probably worth scrapping to a new system (by then, my guess is that issues are rare enough to just not have a system at all and just use the legal system in the rare cases of large issues).
Until then, ticketing in the case of traffic violations seems fine and good enough to me.