one passed a stopped school bus that was unloading kids in Atlanta. That’s a violation that normally garners $1,000 fine and a court hearing, but nothing was issued to the company.
“These cars don’t have a driver, so we’re really going to have to rethink who’s responsible,” said Georgia state Representative Clint Crowe to Atlanta news station, KGW8.
No? The company has a mail address. Send them the notice and summons to court, just like you would for the owner of a regular vehicle.
Probably a waste of time until you review how the law was written. Odds are it just doesn’t apply. It’s a job for lawmakers at this point, not a judge.
Now, if it hits a kid before the law gets written, a judge would preside over a civil case. There might even be a civil case against the legislature, depending on how that works in the jurisdiction.
I can only speak for German law: When a car breaking a traffic law is identified (by number plate), the registered owner of the car gets sent a letter notifying them and ordering them to identify the driver.
If the owner can’t or won’t name the driver, the owner has to pay the fine. The law assumes that either you let someone drive the car, then you must know who it was, or at least be able to help the feds in their investigation. Or the car was stolen, but then it was on you to report the theft immediately.
It does get trickier when it’s a criminal case, cause in Vaymo’s case, it’s difficult to determine who is personally responsible. This is where new laws are required. One possibility would be looking to the data privacy laws: Here, every affected company needs to appoint someone responsible for data privacy. In case of a violation that person is personally responsible and can be punished, including prison time, if they haven’t done their due dilligence.
So for self-driving cars, every company would need to have a “traffic safety director” who is legally required to be in the loop for all decisions regarding traffic safety, has to report any legal violations to their superiors and the public, and is personally responsible for ongoing gross violations. (It’s a very well-paying job.)
Sure but if ”just the cost of doing business" becomes their official policy on this variety of traffic incident, they could end up paying $1000 a dozen times a day. That ads up pretty quickly.
Weigh that against how much it costs to develop, test, and deploy a fix. If you get fines like that 10 times every day, you could have spent all that money on developer wages and the problem would have been fixed in a month or two. If it’s only one ticket a month, it’s cheaper to leave it as it is.
Per infraction. That’ll put a cost on violating traffic laws and incentivize them to fix their software in order to cut cost.
And if you can prove intent (they were aware of a dangerous bug but chose not to fix it), then ground the fleet until it’s fixed and/or punish whoever’s ultimately responsible, personally.
I propose taking that 1k, measuring against the average income of anyone who makes under 1M, and use that percentage of cost of living to fine the company appropriately.
Example: 1k fine for someone who makes 10k/yr, that 1k is 10% of their yearly income, whereas a company that makes 10,000,000,000/yr, that’s only 0.0001%
It would make sense to scale it to what one car makes the company, since you’re fining them for a violation done by one car.
With your suggestion, it would be a lot easier and cheaper for the state to simply ban Waymo, since that would be the result.
I’m tired of state leadership taking bribes from big businesses instead fines and taxes.
Too many have been taking the “easier and cheaper” route for too long, and that’s a big part of why we’re in the capitalist hellscape we’re currently in.
If they have a much higher standards then the times they do fail, it’s reasonable the fine should be multiplied a few times.
I was only fined once in my life for speeding (going 5km/h over the limit on a downhill), since I always respect the speed limit.
Would it make sense to multiply my fine by the average number of violations other people commit in their lives?
No? The company has a mail address. Send them the notice and summons to court, just like you would for the owner of a regular vehicle.
When it’s time for money: COMPANIES ARE PEOPLE TOO!
When it’s time for punishment: but you can’t hold a company responsible, it’s not just one person.
Probably a waste of time until you review how the law was written. Odds are it just doesn’t apply. It’s a job for lawmakers at this point, not a judge.
Now, if it hits a kid before the law gets written, a judge would preside over a civil case. There might even be a civil case against the legislature, depending on how that works in the jurisdiction.
I can only speak for German law: When a car breaking a traffic law is identified (by number plate), the registered owner of the car gets sent a letter notifying them and ordering them to identify the driver.
If the owner can’t or won’t name the driver, the owner has to pay the fine. The law assumes that either you let someone drive the car, then you must know who it was, or at least be able to help the feds in their investigation. Or the car was stolen, but then it was on you to report the theft immediately.
It does get trickier when it’s a criminal case, cause in Vaymo’s case, it’s difficult to determine who is personally responsible. This is where new laws are required. One possibility would be looking to the data privacy laws: Here, every affected company needs to appoint someone responsible for data privacy. In case of a violation that person is personally responsible and can be punished, including prison time, if they haven’t done their due dilligence.
So for self-driving cars, every company would need to have a “traffic safety director” who is legally required to be in the loop for all decisions regarding traffic safety, has to report any legal violations to their superiors and the public, and is personally responsible for ongoing gross violations. (It’s a very well-paying job.)
In the case of Waymo the responsible fiscal person is Waymo.
Only a 1000 bucks? That’s just the cost of doing business to them.
Funny how most laws are incentivized to punish the poor, by setting static monetary fines that rich people and corporations would scoff at.
It’s just the system working exactly as intended. Poor masses remain subjugated by the rich, and history repeats itself.
Sure but if ”just the cost of doing business" becomes their official policy on this variety of traffic incident, they could end up paying $1000 a dozen times a day. That ads up pretty quickly.
Weigh that against how much it costs to develop, test, and deploy a fix. If you get fines like that 10 times every day, you could have spent all that money on developer wages and the problem would have been fixed in a month or two. If it’s only one ticket a month, it’s cheaper to leave it as it is.
Per infraction. That’ll put a cost on violating traffic laws and incentivize them to fix their software in order to cut cost.
And if you can prove intent (they were aware of a dangerous bug but chose not to fix it), then ground the fleet until it’s fixed and/or punish whoever’s ultimately responsible, personally.
Good thing you mention a ‘fleet’, as the aircraft industry is a great model of what self-driving cars could become.
fleet also refers to ships, and cars wierdly enough. i would call it an armada, if suddenly hundreds show up in one place.
I propose taking that 1k, measuring against the average income of anyone who makes under 1M, and use that percentage of cost of living to fine the company appropriately.
Example: 1k fine for someone who makes 10k/yr, that 1k is 10% of their yearly income, whereas a company that makes 10,000,000,000/yr, that’s only 0.0001%
It would make sense to scale it to what one car makes the company, since you’re fining them for a violation done by one car.
With your suggestion, it would be a lot easier and cheaper for the state to simply ban Waymo, since that would be the result.
No, keep it scaled to the company.
I’m tired of state leadership taking bribes from big businesses instead fines and taxes.
Too many have been taking the “easier and cheaper” route for too long, and that’s a big part of why we’re in the capitalist hellscape we’re currently in.
If they are truly so much safer, one could say they have much higher standards for drive safety.
If they have a much higher standards then the times they do fail, it’s reasonable the fine should be multiplied a few times.
There are some current examples where commercial higher standards lead to bigger penalties.
Bar owners can be criminally charged for over serving alcohol to drunk clients. Citizen hosts don’t face that same legal responsibility.
Similar with Financial advisors vs your crypto uncle.
I was only fined once in my life for speeding (going 5km/h over the limit on a downhill), since I always respect the speed limit.
Would it make sense to multiply my fine by the average number of violations other people commit in their lives?
Then not what I said,
Neither do you as a private citizen qualify to be held to a higher standard like the real world examples I gave.