* Robotaxi violates traffic laws like blocking a fire engine? Fine of $10,000
* Robotaxi drive into an active crime/fire scene? $100,000 fine
* Robotaxi actively hinder emergency services (ex parking on a hose)? Confiscate the vehicle.
Corporations are the same anywhere, until a problem becomes too expensive, they don't do anything about it. So sure, let them drive anytime anywhere, but if they make egregious mistakes the cost is not "oh darn, an minimum wage 'automation engagement specialist' will have to drive out to the car and move it", it will be a "We were fined $1 million last night due to interactions with emergency services".
$10,000 seems fair. A blocked fire engine could only lead to delay firefighters to get where they’re going. What’s the worst that could happen? A few building burn down? Somebody has to wait to receive medical intervention?
In the scale of things that’s a small price to pay to uh, eventually avoid small talk with Uber drivers. /s
You'd have to add at least 2-3 zeros before any action would be taken, and the action would likely be something else then what you are expecting. These things just don't happen often enough for this to ever be addressed without the original point of piercing the corporate veil and making management personally responsible for these crimes.
But at that point you'd likely still end up with the dynamic of people getting paid to become the fall guy
Assuming they are all the lowest "class" of incident with a $10k file each, that's $390,000 . A not insubstantial fine but maybe not huge impact. Though we know several of these incidents (because they were in the news) were of a more severe class. So lets assume that's half a million in fines at least.
So a million dollars a year in fines just to operate at limited times and in limited locations. Open that up to a lot more cars in a lot more places? Those fines will add up to be quite substantial.
If an ostensibly normal car were to block an emergency response, would its occupants be off the hook if they all denied having driven the vehicle to its current location, and said they have no ability to move it out of the way? I doubt it. They would be at the very least charged with something.
The same thing should go for alleged robotaxis—“But we don't control the car we're sitting inside of!”... not the city's problem. The car you were in was blocking an emergency response.
Would this be unfair? Yes it would. Would this make people fearful of using robotaxis? Absolutely yes it would. And would that put economic pressure on the robotaxi operators to fix these issues as fast as possible? Damn right it would.
This is certainly in San Francisco’s tradition. Given the economic depression those policy’s are putting it in, one might wonder if chasing away this industry, too, is smart in the long run.
Yikes.
Montreal has no qualms going for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCT74Szg_sA
If a robotaxi gets in the way of your fire appliance, chop it up.