Driverless cars swerve traffic tickets in California even if they break the law
theregister.com
theregister.com
LEOs view the initial offense as a lead that gives them probable cause to start fishing for more serious offenses once they initiate the stop. But they're not going to nail a self-driving car for DUI, drugs, weapons, etc.
To a certain degree, all minor traffic stops are pretextual stops. They're an "in" to look for more serious offenses.
One thing I am very curious about, though, is how the system of adding points to a license for certain traffic infractions translates to self-driving cars. Surely it would not make sense to add points on a car-by-car level, since every car in each fleet is presumably running the same software, but applying them to Cruise or Waymo in the aggregate doesn't make sense, either, unless there's some sort of formula for "points per mile driven across the fleet."
Not the DUI, sure, but there’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to place drugs and guns in the trunk of the car and send it along its way to the buyer’s location.
> applying them to Cruise or Waymo in the aggregate doesn't make sense
Why not? As you said, they’re all presumably using the same software so it’s as if the same driver was in all of them. It would also be a way to put pressure on companies to grow slowly and get it right, which is a positive for society.
Right, but then the LEO needs to establish probable cause to search the vehicle. They can't just pop the trunk because they feel like it.
One of the ways they normally establish probable cause to search is by alleging that the driver appears impaired, or by getting the driver's consent, neither of which they can do with a self-driving car. Even the classic "I smell weed" allegation might not pass muster anymore, given California's legalization of marijuana use and the fact that it does not impair the operation of the vehicle, as it might if a human driver is high.
Most common drugs that people get busted with in their car (weed and alcohol) aren’t illegal on their own in most states, they are illegal in relation to the person driving the car. More specifically, could the driver even theoretically access those while driving later, without having to step out of the car? If yes, that’s illegal already, even if the person is fully sober.
For example, if I drive in California with a few joints in my trunk or a case of beer - totally legal. But if i am in the exact same situation, except the joints and the case of beer are in the cabin (even if it is in the backseat and is in fully-sealed original packaging that was provably never opened) - I am in trouble.
But the more serious barrier to this, as others have pointed out already, is that they cannot just pop your trunk to do anything shady with no probable cause. You can easily make up a probable cause that the driver looked impaired, even if that wasn’t the case, and then you can “inspect” the trunk and do whatever shady business you want. But a self-driving vehicle pretty much nullifies the possibility of that, because it eliminates sobriety of the person in the car from the equation.
It’s just as likely, perhaps even more so, that they’ll eventually embrace and advertise baggage-only trips. Because money. You can use services today (similar to food delivery) to have a random person send a random package, it’s perfectly plausible that’ll eventually use the same automated systems.
1) User summons Waymo with the app to Point A.
2) User unlocks vehicle with the app at Point A.
3) User opens the hatch and tosses in some cargo.
4) User taps "Start Ride" in the app, and vehicle leaves Point A with no passengers on board.
5) Vehicle arrives at Destination Point B with no passengers.
Who's opening the windows? That's not possible. Not even the app can open windows. They require a human inside the vehicle. App cannot open doors. Requires a human operating handles. I am not sure, but it does not seem like the app can even unlock doors after the initial pickup encounter. There is no unlock option during dropoffs.
The hatch can be opened with a button from outside, and it's motorized. The vehicle can close its own hatch if need be. The vehicle is NOT capable of closing its own doors. The vehicle may be capable of opening its hatch, but this is not an app feature.
With regards to traffic infractions for self driving cars, I imagine that it would be an overall license for specific manufacturers or companies. If Waymo is causing problems then they could lose their license to operate in that jurisdiction. For personal vehicles like Teslas they would lose their personal license or just be plain banned from operating.
Please don't call it an 'accident'...
> “Accident” tends to imply that no one is at fault — and when it’s used in the context of a traffic crash, it also can give the impression that what occurred is not that serious.
https://www.helpinginjuredpeople.com/legal-blog/its-a-collis...
The "expert" cited is a psychologist, not a linguist, and in particular a psychologist who apparently lost his father in such an accident. This is about choosing more emotional language in the hope that somehow this magically fixes a societal problem, which it won't.
When we re-frame this so that we're emphasising blaming the driver, we go back to the era when nothing was improved because well - it's just the driver's fault, so if they're alive we use retributive justice and if not the problem has solved itself. That simply does not work. We need to identify how we can break the chain because these are accidents, there is no intelligent actor purposefully causing them so such interventions can be effective.
Example: Use of road design to slow traffic => Cars and trucks move more slowly, pedestrians are less likely to be struck by traffic and less likely to die if hit. That would do nothing if this was purposeful, if there was intent, but there isn't and so European nations which use narrower roads to slow traffic see significant reductions in deaths and injuries.
You do raise an interesting point about how these behaviours are repeatable and predictable rather than random oopsies, though. I think it's more defensible to use that to emphasise that every accident a driverless car has, unless caused by a human, is a manufacturing flaw. It may not be inaccurate to say that the Waymo car had an accident where it dragged a person along underneath it, but it is much more accurate to say that Waymo cars had a manufacturing flaw where they would drag people underneath them, and an accident was caused by this flaw.
Lots of causes of human accidents are systemic and repeatable, but that doesn't make them intentional. Take trips and falls for example, it's possible for a human to just get super unlucky and trip over for essentially no reason, but in most cases there are repeatable causes, we can fix those causes and reduce how often trips and falls occur, but the trips and falls were accidents, it's not helpful to pretend that's the wrong word.
There's also a major problem with RTC reporting in general in that reporters often refer just to the vehicle, such as "car hit a wall", or "car plows through pedestrians" which depersonalises it and again makes it seem as though there's nothing we can do about these kinds of occurrences.
There's reporting guidelines here: https://www.rc-rg.com/
I don’t personally get that implication from the word.
Whether I drop and break my coffee mug or rear-end someone at a traffic light, it’s an accident and I’m responsible for it.
There's certain behaviour that leads to rear-ending someone - typically lack of awareness/attentiveness rather than it being a momentary loss of control. It's predictable that e.g. someone using a phone whilst driving will be far more likely to cause a RTC whereas the coffee mug dropping isn't really associated with any particular behaviour.
What I mean is that mug dropping is not really something that we can do anything about, but ensuring that drivers obey traffic laws and are attentive is definitely something that can be influenced (e.g. by police or by public messaging).
Same is true of rear-end collisions/accidents/unscheduled bumper modifications.
People are likely to say "I was late as I'd dropped my mug" and probably less likely to say "I was late as I drove into a car in front of me" rather than the more common "I was late as I was in a car accident". Note that the use of the verb (dropped/drove) carries the implication of being active in the situation whereas saying something like "my car hit the vehicle in front" or "I was in a car accident" is reducing the role of the person.
I was late because I was delayed by something not able to be planned around. That's what I'm conveying by way of my explanation. The person that I'm late to meet (likely) isn't a traffic cop, a DMV employee, my insurance adjuster, a purveyor of replacement coffee mugs, nor an analyst for NHTSA, so they don't care in the least whose fault it was.
I'm not hiding details relevant to the listener in either the coffee or the car mishap.
That's kind of a straw man argument though.
If you instead compare "I was in a car accident" with "I was in a mug dropping accident", you can see how bizarre it can be to use the passive version with a non-car incident. However, comparing "I drove into another car" with "I dropped a mug" and you can see that the active voice works better. (Possibly "I accidentally dropped a mug" could be used, but that's adding irrelevant information as it would be unusual for someone to purposefully drop a mug).
The problem is that our society has over-embraced the car and has absorbed the NACC's use of language to de-personalise road traffic collisions on the car side of things.
It's a sign of motornormativity that we use different language for road traffic collisions as they have become so commonplace that they rarely even make the news. Everyone knows what a "car crash" is, but a "coffee mug crash" is not in common usage.
People like to take credit for their accomplishments and hide their blunders.
In terms of Orwellian control of language, you'd be better off looking at the behaviour of the automotive industry of the 1930s: https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history
It's also notable just how much the media industries are influenced by car manufacturers due to their high advertising spend (e.g. "stop publishing articles about active travel or we'll stop our advertising").
Reducing car use is an entirely logical goal as getting people to walk for short journeys can drastically improve the health of a nation as well as improving the air quality and drastically reducing congestion - it literally helps everyone (except for those involved with selling/fixing cars).
What specific part of the guidelines do you think are biased or misleading? The main thrust of the guidelines is to improve accurate reporting. Also, they aim to have consistent reporting so that the type of language used for different road users should be the same. I don't really see how asking for consistency is the same as being biased.
Perhaps there should be a change for driverless cars but I never thought accident implies no fault, I don't believe courts think of it as no fault either. Accident to me implies that the event was not intended regardless of fault. Thats why usually you will see things like no-fault accident or at-fault accident.
I'm kind of surprised the onus isn't on the operator, with an avenue to sue the manufacturer in cases where liability should follow through.
My brother was not ticketed, though perhaps the rental company was cited for negligent maintenance.
If it was a criminal matter you might be able to get off by demonstrating the defect to the court though, since they generally are punishments for your behavior.
Edit: the scaled fines should get their attention, and using the traffic citation method instead of (in addition to) possibility of later lawsuits is to get their attention to fixes sooner. when the penalties are vague and years-to-decades in the future, they have little effect on current management (see Ford Pinto/Bobcat fuel tank fiasco that killed multiple people).
I bet it is not profitable to enforce such fines!
Speeding tickets are hard to prove. Normal small person just pays fines with zero cost to police. Big corporation have lawyers, and will fight it, with all camera evidence from self driving car...
Are they? Speeding cameras are calibrated regularly, so a company would need to provide video evidence that definitively showed the vehicle travelling slower, which of course isn't possible if the vehicle was speeding.
Extracting money from normal people is nearly automated.
In the real world that never happens. The judge laughs at you, makes a joke about why you’re wasting your time, and orders you to pay the fine.
Don’t want to be fined? Don’t speed.