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Comment by crote | Hacker News Reader

If a human did this, they would probably be arrested and lose their driver's license. Stuff like this is something you just can't do.

But self-driving cars get away with it because we haven't figured out how to hold them responsible yet.

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Honestly human drivers in SF do this quite often. How many Door Dash drivers are double parked picking up a food delivery and block an emergency vehicle? SFFD doesn't keep a record of it.

When roads are closed, I see people trying to maneuver around cones and get through as if the rules don't apply to them.

The self driving cars are much safer drivers than a very high percentage of SF drivers.

But the GP was about pre-certification. We do that to some extent in the form of driver’s licenses, but as far as I know getting one is more or less a formality in many parts of the US in particular.

>>self-driving cars get away with it because we haven't figured out how to hold them responsible yet.

We have a liability model in place. Fine the company

This may not work out, as the fines may be lower than the costs of development to address the underlying issues, while it's at the same time all about basic safety of the community. (The fines would have to be higher than the cost of "oops, we have to employ human safety drivers and put them into every car.")

push the robotaxi out of the way with the engine (in the one way street example; this doesn't work with all of them) and bill the company for damage to the engine's bumper. If you park your (human) car in front of a hydrant they'll break your windows with an axe or a halligan and run the hoses through it and you'll be on the hook for fixing your car.

Simplest thing to do is to confiscate the vehicles and levy fines large enough that its in the financial best interest of these companies to ensure that basic road safety situations are at the top of their priority lists.

The state should confiscate or remove the vehicle, bill them for storage or for the removal operation and also fine the company and take it to court if something goes wrong because of them.

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