Dewg
Active Member
For now, until laws catch up with technology, robotaxis are okay:There's an important point here, which is that real-world driving is quite a lot about having the general intelligence to know when and how to bend the rules, and equally important, when not to. Mechanistic adherence to the rules will always feel un-humanly robotic. There's also a social aspect where you're going to probably give a human Uber driver the benefit of the doubt for doing something slightly out-of-bounds (like doing a 3-point turn using a private driveway), while with a non-human Robotaxi such fudging is more apt to be reported and penalized. Until the car has the ability to literally explain its actions (and I do believe KITT-style conversational FSD will one day be a thing), there's going to be a double standard here.
An NBC Bay Area investigation reveals autonomous vehicles in California cannot be cited for moving traffic violations since transportation laws require tickets to be issued to actual humans.
If your L3 or higher system bends/breaks the traffic laws (rolls a stop, cuts a yellow too close and runs a red, changes lanes over a solid white line, speeds, etc.) they cannot be cited. Our L2 FSD obviously can be cited, since the driver would get the ticket.
However, things could change soon, and then I think robotaxis will not be able to bend/break the rules:
The two bills cover different aspects of autonomous vehicle legislation. Senator Dave Cortese’s bill SB-915 empowers California cities to write their own individual regulations relating to autonomous vehicles, and Representative Phil Ting’s AB-1777 aims to make the driverless car companies liable for moving violations that their cars commit on California roads. The Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association which represents most major autonomous vehicle companies, unsurprisingly opposes both bills meant to hold its members accountable for the actions of their products.