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Comment by ShakataGaNai | Hacker News Reader

In general I agree with the general concept, Scale up standard punishments to be in line with corporations.

* 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".

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> * Robotaxi violates traffic laws like blocking a fire engine? Fine of $10,000

$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

I don't think these actions take place enough times for your numbers to have any impact on the robo taxis. At that point it wouldn't even be a slap on the wrist.

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

> Since Jan. 1, the Fire Department has logged at least 39 robotaxi incident reports.

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.

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