7 ms·

Waymo got a ticket and there was confusion about who or what was being ticketed

34 points by lopkeny12ko 2y ago

Two4 2y ago
I read a blog post years ago about a guy who fought a traffic ticket and ran into the undefined legal area of whether they were laying a charge against him or his vehicle, since they couldn't prove it was him driving. I imagine it may be a similar scenario here, but unfortunately I cannot open Twitter links on mobile.
- tim333 2y ago
  I don't know in the US but in the UK the legals are fairly defined. For parking the owner is liable. For driving the driver is and you have the option of paying a fixed penalty, saying who did it or going to court and saying it wasn't me. The latter is dangerous to game as if they can show you were lying it's a worse offence than just paying the fine. Although I've got a friend of Pakistani origin who's gotten away with saying it was various similar looking Pakistani cousins who were speeding.
ghaff 2y ago
It seems obvious it's the car--or more precisely the operator of the car, i.e. Waymo. Certainly, as a passenger, I'm not responsible for anything my taxi or rideshare does--absent specific behavior on my part that causes an accident or other violation of course.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  It doesn’t seem that obvious to me. Let’s say you sit in the driver’s seat of your friend’s Tesla and turn on autopilot. Are you the driver or passenger? Now let’s say you sit in the driver’s seat of a Waymo. Are you the driver or passenger?
  - dag11 2y ago
    In a taxi, the passenger is not the liable party. Teslas aren't approved to operate as taxis, whereas Waymos explicitly are. I think that's the difference here.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Yes. If you have a "FSD" Tesla, you're still supposed to be in the driver's seat and are the responsible driver--whatever claims the company makes to the contrary.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    One of them forces you to engage with the controls, and the other will not let you engage with the controls. I can imagine ambiguous situations, but I don't see how either of these two are ambiguous. As long as you can prove it. Though the easy answer is to not sit in the driver's seat when not driving.
  - Almondsetat 2y ago
    Your hypothetical is about an entirely different situation
idontwantthis 2y ago
Actually what is supposed to happen here and how the fuck are they allowed on streets without simple rules like this in place?
- ghaff 2y ago
  It's entirely possible the rules are indeed established and the officer just doesn't know.
  - idontwantthis 2y ago
    Nope. They are out there with no laws in place. https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/04/self-driving-cars-exempt-traffic-tickets-san-francisco-autonomous-vehicle https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/04/self-driv...
    - ghaff 2y ago
      That article makes it seem as if there are policies in place. They may well not be fully thought out but they seem to be there from the SFPD.
- amelius 2y ago
  And: why the hell did the "FSD" vehicle get a ticket? If it can't complete a ride without getting tickets, then how do we know it's safe?
stevarino 2y ago
I imagine waymo has a government relations team, including traffic control relations. So do cops receive training on these situations? Its only going to get worse (probably).
dag11 2y ago
There's a full bodycam video here[1] of an officer in Phoenix pulling over a Waymo. The driver's window gets rolled down and he gets connected via voice to a Waymo agent and they're able to discuss what was going on. Waymo then kept the car parked there and sent someone out. I'm really curious what the full interaction was like for this SF Waymo. The QR code on the window just links to a couple phone numbers[2] which seems insufficient to me in the case where a car is merely ticketed but not formally pulled over. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1dvsod6/phoenix_police_officer_pulls_over_a_driverless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1dvso... [2] https://waymo.com/emergency-response/ https://waymo.com/emergency-response/
ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
Twitter op responded with this, idk if the cop was just having a laugh or what but kinda lost interest due to this. >The whole situation was a societal Turing test: the car was waiting in a bike lane for me. A parking enforcement officer rolls up and thinks someone parked there. But it wasn’t parked: software was driving and waiting for me. A human wouldn’t be ticketed, so why would AI be?
- davidt84 2y ago
  Why wouldn't a human driver be ticketed for blocking a bike lane?
  - jyap 2y ago
    The human could discuss with the officer and say they were waiting for someone or be asked to move on out of the bike lane. The difference being the human interaction.
  - TillE 2y ago
    There's a difference between parking and standing.
    - davidt84 2y ago
      They both block the bike lane
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        For different amounts of time. You'd want to add more specific timelines for a driverless car, but there's a real difference and there's a reason lots of places allow standing but not parking.
      - TillE 2y ago
        OK? I have no idea about the particular municipal laws about temporarily blocking bike lanes, but that's exactly the difference the OP was describing.
YuccaGloriosa 2y ago
[flagged]
- Joeboy 2y ago
  When did this come in?
pge 2y ago
This situation is not any different from a ticket issued by a speed camera. Since the camera can’t tell who is driving, the fine is issued to the owner of the vehicle (determined by the license plate). The owner is legally responsible for the fine. The only difference between a speed camera ticket and a ticket given by an officer in person is that the speed camera does not result in penalties for driving infraction (eg points on a license or license suspension) only fines. A ticket to a driverless taxi should work the same way; the citation goes to the owner of the vehicle.
- _njyk 2y ago
  Assign one safety driver per vehicle, the remote safety driver is responsible (like a driving instructor and its driving student, except the AI is the student). This way, the internal safety drivers will do everything they can to have the company act responsibly, and refuse the work if the system is not reasonably safe. It can also solve other problems: In Estonia we have delivery "robots". On the paper it is "AI", but in reality they are actually remotely controlled by students aka "Robot operators". The law makes the other drivers guilty if you hit one of these "AI-robots", which really sucks, because the law was changed due to intense lobbying. I'd rather have people designated as drivers to be responsible.
  - mynameisvlad 2y ago
    The point of Waymo is that human intervention is only used in exceptional circumstances. There isn't a one-to-one mapping on purpose, because it's not needed in a system generally controlled by AI.
    - rvnx 2y ago
      Yes I agree, Waymo is real, and very nice tech, but if there is such high confidence, couldn't we find drivers who can remotely monitor the rides for safety ? It could potentially solve the double-speech: "oh no no no, never willing to be the legal driver it's not a safe system", and at the same time: "oh but this system is very safe, we can put it in real traffic with real lives on the line".
rqtwteye 2y ago
Makes me wonder what happens if a self driving car kills somebody because of a fault on the vehicle software or hardware. Can the big corporation behind it just pay a fine and nobody else will get prosecuted? How do you prove that a corporation was negligent?
- ghaff 2y ago
  Probably. Otherwise, absent a paper trail that senior executives knew the product was unsafe and deliberately concealed it, you're chasing after junior people who made a mistake somewhere--perhaps unknowable. Drug side effects kill people all the time but, absent effects that should have been foreseen, they're considered just part of how things are.
- pests 2y ago
  Well, that's how it works when when humans kills others by accident. You don't go to jail, you might not even get a fine. It's just a fact of life we live with in our car-centric world. It's when negligence gets involved is whwre I have questions.
  - rvnx 2y ago
    True, but only if you are a large corporation, because if you are an individual you are in deep trouble.
    - pests 2y ago
      It is not as serious as you think despite the seriousness of the topic. If it was a true accident, no negligence, etc it would be very common to get away with just a fine or a ticket, not even going to jail. We (USA) are a culture very accustomed to cars and what they impose on society. A friends relative got killed after a car lost control on an embankment turn and crashed into their living room - driver walked away unscathed and without even a ticket.
- gretch 2y ago
  This isn't really a new thing in our society, just because of driverless cars. Big corporations (or even small ones) kill people accidentally all the time. Like when planes or trains malfunction. Or there is a construction site accident. Oil spills. Factory fire. Mine collapse. People rarely go to jail (and I don't think they should in most cases), and a civil suit pays out victims depending on the exactly how negligent the corporation was. You can see Boeing going through this process now
xyst 2y ago
So much for AV never makes mistakes.

34 points by lopkeny12ko 2y ago

Two4 2y ago

I read a blog post years ago about a guy who fought a traffic ticket and ran into the undefined legal area of whether they were laying a charge against him or his vehicle, since they couldn't prove it was him driving. I imagine it may be a similar scenario here, but unfortunately I cannot open Twitter links on mobile.

tim333 2y ago
I don't know in the US but in the UK the legals are fairly defined. For parking the owner is liable. For driving the driver is and you have the option of paying a fixed penalty, saying who did it or going to court and saying it wasn't me. The latter is dangerous to game as if they can show you were lying it's a worse offence than just paying the fine. Although I've got a friend of Pakistani origin who's gotten away with saying it was various similar looking Pakistani cousins who were speeding.

ghaff 2y ago

It seems obvious it's the car--or more precisely the operator of the car, i.e. Waymo. Certainly, as a passenger, I'm not responsible for anything my taxi or rideshare does--absent specific behavior on my part that causes an accident or other violation of course.

zarzavat 2y ago
It doesn’t seem that obvious to me. Let’s say you sit in the driver’s seat of your friend’s Tesla and turn on autopilot. Are you the driver or passenger? Now let’s say you sit in the driver’s seat of a Waymo. Are you the driver or passenger?
- dag11 2y ago
  In a taxi, the passenger is not the liable party. Teslas aren't approved to operate as taxis, whereas Waymos explicitly are. I think that's the difference here.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Yes. If you have a "FSD" Tesla, you're still supposed to be in the driver's seat and are the responsible driver--whatever claims the company makes to the contrary.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  One of them forces you to engage with the controls, and the other will not let you engage with the controls. I can imagine ambiguous situations, but I don't see how either of these two are ambiguous. As long as you can prove it. Though the easy answer is to not sit in the driver's seat when not driving.
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  Your hypothetical is about an entirely different situation

idontwantthis 2y ago

Actually what is supposed to happen here and how the fuck are they allowed on streets without simple rules like this in place?

ghaff 2y ago
It's entirely possible the rules are indeed established and the officer just doesn't know.
- idontwantthis 2y ago
  Nope. They are out there with no laws in place. https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/04/self-driving-cars-exempt-traffic-tickets-san-francisco-autonomous-vehicle https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/04/self-driv...
  - ghaff 2y ago
    That article makes it seem as if there are policies in place. They may well not be fully thought out but they seem to be there from the SFPD.
amelius 2y ago
And: why the hell did the "FSD" vehicle get a ticket? If it can't complete a ride without getting tickets, then how do we know it's safe?

stevarino 2y ago

I imagine waymo has a government relations team, including traffic control relations. So do cops receive training on these situations? Its only going to get worse (probably).

dag11 2y ago

There's a full bodycam video here[1] of an officer in Phoenix pulling over a Waymo. The driver's window gets rolled down and he gets connected via voice to a Waymo agent and they're able to discuss what was going on. Waymo then kept the car parked there and sent someone out. I'm really curious what the full interaction was like for this SF Waymo. The QR code on the window just links to a couple phone numbers[2] which seems insufficient to me in the case where a car is merely ticketed but not formally pulled over. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1dvsod6/phoenix_police_officer_pulls_over_a_driverless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1dvso... [2] https://waymo.com/emergency-response/ https://waymo.com/emergency-response/

ApolloFortyNine 2y ago

Twitter op responded with this, idk if the cop was just having a laugh or what but kinda lost interest due to this. >The whole situation was a societal Turing test: the car was waiting in a bike lane for me. A parking enforcement officer rolls up and thinks someone parked there. But it wasn’t parked: software was driving and waiting for me. A human wouldn’t be ticketed, so why would AI be?

davidt84 2y ago
Why wouldn't a human driver be ticketed for blocking a bike lane?
- jyap 2y ago
  The human could discuss with the officer and say they were waiting for someone or be asked to move on out of the bike lane. The difference being the human interaction.
- TillE 2y ago
  There's a difference between parking and standing.
  - davidt84 2y ago
    They both block the bike lane
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      For different amounts of time. You'd want to add more specific timelines for a driverless car, but there's a real difference and there's a reason lots of places allow standing but not parking.
    - TillE 2y ago
      OK? I have no idea about the particular municipal laws about temporarily blocking bike lanes, but that's exactly the difference the OP was describing.

YuccaGloriosa 2y ago

[flagged]

Joeboy 2y ago
When did this come in?

pge 2y ago

This situation is not any different from a ticket issued by a speed camera. Since the camera can’t tell who is driving, the fine is issued to the owner of the vehicle (determined by the license plate). The owner is legally responsible for the fine. The only difference between a speed camera ticket and a ticket given by an officer in person is that the speed camera does not result in penalties for driving infraction (eg points on a license or license suspension) only fines. A ticket to a driverless taxi should work the same way; the citation goes to the owner of the vehicle.

_njyk 2y ago
Assign one safety driver per vehicle, the remote safety driver is responsible (like a driving instructor and its driving student, except the AI is the student). This way, the internal safety drivers will do everything they can to have the company act responsibly, and refuse the work if the system is not reasonably safe. It can also solve other problems: In Estonia we have delivery "robots". On the paper it is "AI", but in reality they are actually remotely controlled by students aka "Robot operators". The law makes the other drivers guilty if you hit one of these "AI-robots", which really sucks, because the law was changed due to intense lobbying. I'd rather have people designated as drivers to be responsible.
- mynameisvlad 2y ago
  The point of Waymo is that human intervention is only used in exceptional circumstances. There isn't a one-to-one mapping on purpose, because it's not needed in a system generally controlled by AI.
  - rvnx 2y ago
    Yes I agree, Waymo is real, and very nice tech, but if there is such high confidence, couldn't we find drivers who can remotely monitor the rides for safety ? It could potentially solve the double-speech: "oh no no no, never willing to be the legal driver it's not a safe system", and at the same time: "oh but this system is very safe, we can put it in real traffic with real lives on the line".

rqtwteye 2y ago

Makes me wonder what happens if a self driving car kills somebody because of a fault on the vehicle software or hardware. Can the big corporation behind it just pay a fine and nobody else will get prosecuted? How do you prove that a corporation was negligent?

ghaff 2y ago
Probably. Otherwise, absent a paper trail that senior executives knew the product was unsafe and deliberately concealed it, you're chasing after junior people who made a mistake somewhere--perhaps unknowable. Drug side effects kill people all the time but, absent effects that should have been foreseen, they're considered just part of how things are.
pests 2y ago
Well, that's how it works when when humans kills others by accident. You don't go to jail, you might not even get a fine. It's just a fact of life we live with in our car-centric world. It's when negligence gets involved is whwre I have questions.
- rvnx 2y ago
  True, but only if you are a large corporation, because if you are an individual you are in deep trouble.
  - pests 2y ago
    It is not as serious as you think despite the seriousness of the topic. If it was a true accident, no negligence, etc it would be very common to get away with just a fine or a ticket, not even going to jail. We (USA) are a culture very accustomed to cars and what they impose on society. A friends relative got killed after a car lost control on an embankment turn and crashed into their living room - driver walked away unscathed and without even a ticket.
gretch 2y ago
This isn't really a new thing in our society, just because of driverless cars. Big corporations (or even small ones) kill people accidentally all the time. Like when planes or trains malfunction. Or there is a construction site accident. Oil spills. Factory fire. Mine collapse. People rarely go to jail (and I don't think they should in most cases), and a civil suit pays out victims depending on the exactly how negligent the corporation was. You can see Boeing going through this process now

xyst 2y ago

So much for AV never makes mistakes.