California Scraps Safety Driver Rules for Self-Driving Cars (nytimes.com) 200
California regulators have given the green light to truly driverless cars. From a report: The state's Department of Motor Vehicles said Monday that it was eliminating a requirement for autonomous vehicles to have a person in the driver's seat to take over in the event of an emergency. The new rule goes into effect on April 2. California has given 50 companies a license to test self-driving vehicles in the state. The new rules also require companies to be able to operate the vehicle remotely -- a bit like a flying military drone -- and communicate with law enforcement and other drivers when something goes wrong. The changes signal a step toward the wider deployment of autonomous vehicles. One of the main economic benefits praised by proponents of driverless vehicles is that they will not be limited by human boundaries and can do things like operate 24 hours in a row without a drop-off in alertness or attentiveness. Taking the human out of the front seat is an important psychological and logistical step before truly driverless cars can hit the road. "This is a major step forward for autonomous technology in California," said Jean Shiomoto, director of California's D.M.V. "Safety is our top concern and we are ready to begin working with manufacturers that are prepared to test fully driverless vehicles in California."
video game with no liability farmed out to cheap (Score:2)
video game with no liability farmed out to cheap remote works or just some kid who put $0.25 into a game at some arcade.
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Serious questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Should the owner of a self-driving car be required to have a driver's license? And if the owner is not required to have a driver's license, and he's not driving the vehicle, should he be required to have insurance? Shouldn't the manufacturer be the one insured against any liability if there is an accident?
and can you get a DUI in driverless car? (Score:4, Interesting)
and can you get a DUI in driverless car?
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That sounds like a good reason NOT to use ethanol fuels in them.
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OK, let me rephrase. Should the person who switches on the self-driving car and enters the destination and then gets into the car for the trip be required to have a driver's license, or should I just put you down as a "no"?
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No
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I'm in a 'no' for that category.
"Should the person who boards an automated shuttle at the airport have an engineer's certification?"
If you're not in charge of driving a vehicle, not expected to jump in in case of emergency, and don't need to interact with it other than pushing a couple of buttons to tell it where to go/stop, why would you need some certification that shows you're qualified to drive it?
For this reason, I'm not really that upset to see CA get rid of the driver requirement. Humans suck at driv
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If these are the only tasks that they ever perform regarding the vehicle, then No.
But we still might want to require even riders show they have a minimum of survival skills before they're allowed to direct a vehicle to a location; in order to be licensed as a "Safe rider" ---- that would include education in what to do in the event of a breakdown for their model of vehicle, and Rider safety rules such as Must buckle seatbelts.
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The passenger on a bus doesn't own the bus.
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What? Owners of regular manually driver cars aren't required to have driver's licenses.
That may be true if they don't drive the vehicle, but they're still required to have liability insurance that covers the vehicle in order to register the vehicle at the DMV and proof of insurance these days has to be shown every time you get inspection stickers updated --- one of the first things they ask you getting insurance on the vehicle is to see your driver's license.
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My DMV has never asked to see my insurance card. Only cops when I get pulled over. And it's not the car's insurance card they want to see. It's the one with my name on it (in the event I borrow a car).
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Wow, just wow. In TX, you must show your insurance card for an inspection sticker. I also need to enclose a copy of my card when getting license plate renewal by mail. I assume in person you need to show the card. I think I had to show it to get my DL renewed too, but it has been awhile (6 year renewal cycle for DL) so not positive.
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Even more shocking. TX is more stringent on cars than CA. Inspection is annual, but a new car gets a sticker good for 2 years. I think they even test drive the car to verify everything works.
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Interesting. What do you do if your car is licensed/insured in another state?
I ask this because we (in WA State) have a company that does utility contracting. And all of their vehicles are licensed in .... Texas*. I doubt these cars have ever actually been to Texas. They have local dealership stickers. So I wonder how they even get plates, renewals, inspections, etc.
*Used to be Florida. But I think they had a rules change and the company just moved their fleet office to TX.
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My DMV has never asked to see my insurance card.
In Virginia, there's a checkbox on the vehicle registration application/renewal where you attest that you have the minimum acceptable insurance on the vehicle or will pay the uninsured vehicle fee.
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Your insurance company wants your license because they are insuring you driving your car.
If you are not driving your car, then the insurance company that is insuring your self-driving car will want to know how reliable that brand of self-driving car is etc, but won't care about who the car is driving around.
I think we can assume that the self-driving car manufacturers, insurance companies, and state regulators will sort this out long before you show up at the dealer to buy one and get it insured.
Re:Serious questions (Score:4, Informative)
You're not even required to have a license to drive. The license is required to drive on public roads. Lots of kids driving farm trucks around the pastures.
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Im waiting on the first fatality in a so called self driving car that is a mistake a computer would make that almost no human would - that ought to really inspire early adoption o
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An analogous example is the tesla crash where supposedly the color of the trailer too closely matched the sky
Honestly... we should have a law that large vehicles must have sides that are Distinctly colored from the environment with bright "Blue" or "White" colors specifically banned, so they are visible at maximal range, even to a computer.
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A lot of the stupid questions that get asked about how computer-driven cars will operate assume that we should keep city infrastructure exactly the same. Maybe that's where we start, but that's definitely not where we should end up.
When we ask questions like, "if the car is going to hit a family, and the only choices are to kill them or swerve into a concrete barrier and kill the driver," we need to wonder why the car had no line of sight to the family until the last second, and how it was able to be going
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Vehicles are required to have insurance, not people. The vehicle policy covers any authorized driver.
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Vehicles are not liable for anything so no. It's the people who are insured, not the vehicle. You could say that the insurance "follows" the vehicle (in some cases) and in some policies the insurance follows the drive.
If my vehicle is the one required to have insurance and not me, then let my goddamn car pay for its own policy.
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Vehicles are not liable for anything so no. It's the people who are insured, not the vehicle. You could say that the insurance "follows" the vehicle (in some cases) and in some policies the insurance follows the drive.
If my vehicle is the one required to have insurance and not me, then let my goddamn car pay for its own policy.
If you're being specific, what is covered for insurance is actually the *relationship* between the driver(s) and the vehicle(s). There is assumed insurance for incidental drivers. If you add a person to your plan, they are associated with one ore more vehicles.
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When our daughter was still on our insurance, she was covered for anything she drove.
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Some policies have no named insureds.
Auto insurance is written on a particular vehicle or vehicles, named insureds can be on the policy or not.
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That's odd. In my state, I carry an insurance policy. I can borrow or rent a car and still be covered.
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Only because your insurance policy allows it. Insurance is against the vehicle, not the driver. If you have more than one car you need more than one policy, even if there is only one driver.
Answer: Both... or none (Score:2)
Now, what I'd _like_ to see is the main reason for mandatory car insurance go away: the absurd high cost of medical treatment following an accident. If we could get the US on single payer healthcare then the only thing left would be pain & suffering and car repair. p&s payouts can be huge but only in pretty rare ca
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There is no law or requirement that homeowners have liability insurance. If you have a mortgage, your lender may require it, but if you own a home outright, you don't have to carry liability insurance.
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Who is responsible for vehicle maintenance and sensor/control upkeep? People already fail to maintain their vehicles now, self-driving cars aren't going to change that -- people are still going to get flat tires, overheating radiators, gunk on the their LiDAR, etc.
Right now, most companies (e.g. Waymo, Uber) are focusing on the service model -- precisely to internalize the process of maintenance (especially while the technology is beta) -- so they would logically be the ones to pay for insurance.
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But those are cars for hire. Do you think there will no longer be private ownership of autonomous vehicles? I suppose it could happen, but I don't see it.
Maybe it'll be like a game console or iPhone, that you don't actually own, you are just granted a license.
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And if the automated car you own should run over someone? Should you be insulated from any liability?
Do you believe the manufacturers of self-driving cars are going to assume all of the liability for their products? Has that ever happened in the history of manufacturing?
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You're liable if someone slips on ice on your property even though you don't control the weather.
The bigger question is this: Do you think car manufacturers are going to assume all that liability? And how much would that built-in insurance raise the price of the vehicle?
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Fair enough. So what happens when two self-driving cars collide? Who pays for the damages? Who is liable if someone is hurt or killed?
And the big question: Do you think car manufacturers are going to in any way assume that risk? Will all auto accidents become matters of product liability?
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What if you, the owner, allowed the tires to get bald and the car skidded and hit someone? What if you, the owner, failed to keep the brakes in working order? What if you, the owner, continued using the car after being informed there was a defect that needed repair? You'd have to be pretty dumb to think you won't still need at least liability insurance.
what happens when the signal is lost? lags out? (Score:2)
what happens when the signal is lost? lags out? someone get's hit with high roaming fees say video at 2.5-5 meg per camera over 5-10+ of them?
Effective date (Score:2)
Why wait for April 2, when April 1 would be so much more appropriate?
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Safety is your top concern? Bullshit. (Score:2)
"Safety is our top concern and we are ready to begin working with manufacturers that are prepared to test fully driverless vehicles in California."
With the elimination of the human safety net behind the wheel, safety is about as much of a top concern as security is in the IoT market.
And speaking of IoT, can you say rush-to-market-capitalistic-greed? It's not too fucking hard to paint the picture as to where autonomous solutions are going and how fast.
You do you, California. Good luck with your beta testing. Hope it doesn't get too bloody.
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That's a nice emotional outburst you have there, but it doesn't match the facts. Facts are that there is no "human safety net behind the wheel" most of the time.
If you look at fatalities per mile driven, automatic cars are safer.
If you look at the occurance of accidents due to distracted driving, they are going up rather than down.
As much as it makes you uncomfortable and unhappy, this is not a net negative in terms of safety.
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On the other hand, I do beli
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So, maybe automated cars aren't going to work for BLM dirt roads or blizzards. It doesn't mean they don't have a place, and can't replace a lot of the cars on the road.
We really are new at the self-driving thing at this point. And it's already better than a lot of drivers in a lot of situations. I think we're on the exponential upswing in self-driving tech, and not at any sort of plateau. The amount of money and engineering that's being poured into it now is already rapidly producing results, and will conti
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That's a nice emotional outburst you have there, but it doesn't match the facts. Facts are that there is no "human safety net behind the wheel" most of the time.
If you look at fatalities per mile driven, automatic cars are safer.
If you look at the occurance of accidents due to distracted driving, they are going up rather than down.
As much as it makes you uncomfortable and unhappy, this is not a net negative in terms of safety.
Let me clarify my concerns, in priority order:
#1: The security of the autonomous network that all vehicles will likely use.
#2: The amount of damage one can incite if the equivalent of a DDoS attack was ever done on an autonomous network.
#3: The ability to paralyze an entire economy with such an attack in a future that is completely dependent on autonomous transport. (Consider this in the future; one good attack that kills 10,000 people would likely be enough to incite mass fear across a society that doesn'
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Wow, you have a really dystopian world-view. So because bad things could theoretically happen in the future, you're against....everything? All technological progress?
Because all of these things are equally applicable to the stock market, banking system, online commerce, IOT, cell network, etc.
While I don't disagree about the problems that could happen, I fail to see a situation where "Hackers murdering 20,000 people per year in the future" is a real possibility. That's not how any company stays in business.
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Echoes from the past (Score:2)
"Safety is our top concern" (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm amazed she could even keep a straight face when she said that.
She immediately followed up with:
"One of the main economic benefits praised by proponents of driverless vehicles..."
ah ha. NOW we're getting to why this legislation passed.
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How the hell is "safety" a "top concern"? (Score:2)
When they're removing an active driver as a failsafe?
Just rename these fucking things to "Suicide Booths".
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Exactly how frequently do you think that humans stop automated cars in order to prevent a fatal accident?
I'm aware of exactly 0 times that this has happened.
I'm also aware of several occurrences where human drivers failed to stop automated cars from getting into fatal accidents.
So what's the point of a driver? Especially given that automated cars are safer than human drivers?
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I'm also aware of several occurrences where human drivers failed to stop automated cars from getting into fatal accidents.
Clearly if it is the case that the accident wouldn't have happened were the human driving in the first place, then humans are fools for trusting self driving. The driver isn't necessarily bad in this case, it is just as likely that control was passed back at an unreasonable time.
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Clearly if it is the case that the accident wouldn't have happened were the human driving in the first place, then humans are fools for trusting self driving.
That's a rather obvious failure in logic, and I'm surprised you didn't notice it before hitting submit.
Single accidents aren't things you can base policy decisions on. If they were, we'd have no large ocean liners (Titanic), no planes, and obviously no cars.
What you can sensibly base policy and decisions on are the aggregate rates of accidents. If autonomous driving cars cause more accidents on the whole than self driving, I agree, it's somewhat foolish to trust self-driving cars. But if they do not, then i
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#Citation needed#
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Attracting that new car investment in a safe way is the gov top concern.
Just like the film industry was attracted to move to the west of the USA.
AI is stupid (Score:2)
Re:"operate the vehicle remotely" ?!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
If we set aside the security considerations, I wonder if this offers a reasonable compromise. Until a car can be made fully autonomous, they could run on auto pilot until the computer encounters a problematic situation. For example, it approaches a construction zone on the highway. The car connects to a human driver in an op center that takes control, navigates the obstacle, then returns control to the computer. I wonder if this is what companies like Uber and Lyft are working toward?
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If we set aside the security considerations, I wonder if this offers a reasonable compromise. Until a car can be made fully autonomous, they could run on auto pilot until the computer encounters a problematic situation. For example, it approaches a construction zone on the highway. The car connects to a human driver in an op center that takes control, navigates the obstacle, then returns control to the computer. I wonder if this is what companies like Uber and Lyft are working toward?
You better have pretty low latency in these situations, because these can be the kind where every millisecond counts!
Re: "operate the vehicle remotely" ?!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, cross-country latency can be as low as 40ms and in these situations it would be perfectly acceptable to slow down and proceed cautiously. The car can stop and wait for instructions if it's so congested or pretty desolate.
My concern would be dealing with roads where the network doesn't reach. If you use 4g, you are going to find long stretches of PCH pretty undrivable.
satellite in motion link will have high pings (Score:3)
satellite in motion link will have high pings
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RT time 10ms or so doesn't seem to be a problem
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The operator may not even need to drive, just instruct the computer on the safest path. If a cow walks onto a country road, the remote operator can see that the shoulder is wide enough, and update the route.
The more rural roads may be a problem, but this is just a first step. So driving across country is out, but a semi-autonomous ride from Washington DC to Boston could be within reach of current tech.
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A car suddenly slowing to a crawl (or worse stopping) can be a dangerous situation in and of itself with other motorists.
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Re:"operate the vehicle remotely" ?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
You better have pretty low latency in these situations, because these can be the kind where every millisecond counts!
"Your journey is very important to us. Your driving emergency will be processed in the order it was received. There are currently THREE passengers before you. Thank you for your patience. Your journey is very important..."
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You are now being transferred to the Public Relations call queue.
Feel free to use the complimentary blood absorbing towelettes while you wait...
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Yes, every ms counts, because a car can move an inch in a millisecond
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With proper sensors, the latency could be less important.
I almost rear ended a truck this morning. I was switching lanes by checking my rearview, and got distracted by a box van in the opposite lane carrying a load of wood on the busy highway with it's back door open. My mind went to what would happen if those boards fell out. When my attention came back to center, I was uncomfortably close to the pick-up in front of me that was stopping for traffic without brake lights. A quick lane change is what save
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Driving is not some poky video game that one can pause.
Tell that to the people on the CA 405.
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... they could run on auto pilot until the computer encounters a problematic situation. For example, it approaches a construction zone on the highway. The car connects to a human driver in an op center that takes control, ...
Kind of like a reverse Clippy: "It appears that I need to navigate through a construction zone. Can I get some help?"
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The car connects to a human driver in an op center that takes control, navigates the obstacle, then returns control to the computer.
That would be an incredibly high-stress job. Can you imagine working the "call center"? Perpetually being thrown blindly into real-time situations that require you to assess the situation and act immediately with dire consequences for failure... That would royally suck. These cars had better fail safe.
Who is Liable? (Score:2, Redundant)
When the first Self Driving Car kills someone?
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the renter will be doing hardtime in san Quentin leaning how to be a good con for there revenge when they get out. In the movie of the week.
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Who is liable when the car you are driving kills someone?
Same answer, it depends.
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Ticketed for what? There are plenty of cases where the driver does not get ticketed if he has not broken any laws, even if someone is killed. Now, if you're speeding, or distracted, or drunk, etc then yes, you will (and should be) ticketed even if the pedestrian shares in the fault.
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Not sure a driving test is such a low standard for a 'perceptually challenged' self driving car.
Pretty sure they couldn't pass one.
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Nothing! Is good idea!
- Not a Russian hacker
best hope is an Criminal Case with an hard judge (Score:2)
best hope is an Criminal Case with an hard judge who will jail people on contempt of court when they try any NDA or EULA BS to hide logs / configs / source code / etc.
Also the power to force any subcontractor in to court as well so they can say we are not at fault we framed that out to jay's staffing that holds nothing.
Just wait for a bad crash in a small town that wip (Score:2)
Just wait for a bad crash in a small town that wipes out say a school bus where the local Sheriff is out for justice. otis you can go now I need the cell to hold this CEO till he can see the judge on Monday.
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Just wait for a bad crash in a small town that wipes out say a school bus where the local Sheriff is out for justice.
Or the self-driving car drives through a school and the local Sheriff is too afraid to go in after it. [What, too soon?] :-)
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There simply is no way in hell that the remote monitoring and operating will be fast enough to respond to a real world accident until after it's happened.
True. But I suspect there are other reasons for remote monitoring and control. Autonomous cars already will not evade or outrun law enforcement. That has to be a primary function in their control system: Pull over to the right and stop. And there has to be a failsafe in the event of an onboard problem. Again, pull over to the right and stop.
I suspect that the remote monitoring and operation regulations are for population control. This is California, after all. You will be confined to I-5. The coast highwa
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The idea that a human can drive better than a computer with the correct types of sensors in snow, rain, ice ,etc. is purely human hubris.
You know there was just an article about how they can't even drive with water spots on the lenses, right? At this point snow, rain (hard enough to blur camera vision) and ice is not possible.
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Terrorists. (Score:3)
Soon the NSA will be able to drive people away to their secret bases for "interrogation".
Soon the terrorists will be able to simultaneously turn THOUSANDS of cars, all over the country, into drive-through-the-crowd projectiles - without requiring thousands of suicidal drivers to operate them.
AND without even having to pay for a rental.
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A human can't maintain the level of vigilance needed to take over in an emergency for more than a few minutes. It's better to lift the "human driver" requirement explicitly than it is to pretend that the passenger sitting in the front-left seat is a safety measure.