[callc]

I am, in general, hoping AV will reduce road deaths in the future.

The last hurdle is regulatory. We can’t let AV manufacturers use “there’s no driver” as a way to escape responsibility, externalizing the harms AC cause onto society.

The question is how to achieve fairness. If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book. What about AV? $10 million? Executives go to jail? What if $10 million fine per X AV miles driven is an OK cost of doing business?

[loeg]

> If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book.

Hah. Do they, though? https://sfstandard.com/2026/03/20/mary-lau-sentenced-probati...

The standard for human drivers is through the floor.

[Aurornis]

The reason that’s a news story is because the outcome is unusual.

When things are normal and happening all the time, they’re not reported as abnormal outcomes.

The world is a big place. Being able to think of a counter-example does not negate a general point.

[jcranmer]

No, it's actually fairly common in crashes between motor vehicles and pedestrians (or cyclists) to place most or all of the blame on the pedestrian.

When the Uber self-driving car struck and killed the pedestrian, not only did the internet peanut gallery largely blame the pedestrian for the first 24 hours or so after the death, but the local police force did as well for a couple of days. I rather suspect that without the national spotlight of being the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving car, the local police force would have been happy to absolve Uber and the driver of any liability.

[AnthonyMouse]

It should obviously be possible for a pedestrian to be at fault in a collision. If someone without the right of way steps in front of a moving car, there is often nothing the vehicle could physically do to prevent the collision at that point. That's what right of way is for -- you have rules that, if everybody follows them, nobody gets hit, and then if someone gets hit because someone wasn't following the rules, the fault is with the person not following the rules.

[jcranmer]

The dominant cause of pedestrian fatalities is not "pedestrian steps right in front of a moving car," but things like "driver didn't see pedestrian in middle of crosswalk" (usually because, e.g., looking instead for vehicle traffic to make a right turn on red). Sure, it's possible for a pedestrian to be at fault, but even if they step out from behind an occluded object, if a driver is fast enough to kill them, then the driver is almost certainly already at fault because they were driving faster than conditions warranted.

[lelanthran]

> Sure, it's possible for a pedestrian to be at fault, but even if they step out from behind an occluded object, if a driver is fast enough to kill them, then the driver is almost certainly already at fault because they were driving faster than conditions warranted.

That's not true: 30km/h is enough to kill, and that's a very sedate speed.

Whether we like it or not, pedestrians and cyclists have to also follow the rules.

If you want change the rules, well that's a different argument to the one you appearing to make which is that certain entities should not be bound by any rules.

[sandworm101]

The dominant cause of pedestrian deaths is the same as drivers: alcohol. But unlike drivers, pedestrian are allowed to walk around drunk. So we dont even talk about it. We pretend it doesnt happen. It does. It happens all the time. The drunk pedestrian being hit by a car is the norm.

>>2008, nearly 40 per cent of pedestrians killed on Canadian roads were impaired, with two-thirds of them having a blood alcohol concentration more than double the legal limit. In fact, of all the fatally injured pedestrians with alcohol in their systems, fewer than one in five was at or below the legal driving limit of 0.08 blood alcohol concentration (BAC), according to the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators* (CCMTA).

https://canadasafetycouncil.org/impaired-walking/

And just try discussing drunk biking and you will be run out of town by a spandex army shouting about thier "right" to use the roads while drunk or high.

[WalterBright]

> it's possible for a pedestrian to be at fault

When I use a crosswalk, I wait until the cars stop before I cross. It's nuts to step into it assuming the cars will stop.

[AnthonyMouse]

> The dominant cause of pedestrian fatalities is not "pedestrian steps right in front of a moving car," but things like "driver didn't see pedestrian in middle of crosswalk" (usually because, e.g., looking instead for vehicle traffic to make a right turn on red).

And the driver is at fault in the cases where the driver is at fault. 18% of pedestrian fatalities are cases where the driver was drunk. Meanwhile 30% of pedestrian fatalities are cases where the pedestrian was drunk.

Your example is actually a pretty rare cause of pedestrian fatalities because even if someone doesn't see a pedestrian, cars turning right on red are almost always traveling at low speed.

> if a driver is fast enough to kill them, then the driver is almost certainly already at fault because they were driving faster than conditions warranted.

There is a double digit percent chance of a fatality if a vehicle hits a pedestrian at 25 MPH. The vast majority of roads allow speeds of 25 MPH or more. That doesn't mean you can stop if someone without the right of way who you had no reason to expect to step out directly in front of a car suddenly does.

[jibal]

Why attack a strawman?

[AnthonyMouse]

The case in question appears to have been one in which the pedestrian was crossing a four-lane road outside of a crosswalk at night. That seems like as reasonable a case as any to attribute some fault to the pedestrian.

Meanwhile:

> Sure, it's possible for a pedestrian to be at fault, but even if they step out from behind an occluded object, if a driver is fast enough to kill them, then the driver is almost certainly already at fault because they were driving faster than conditions warranted.

"A pedestrian can be at fault in a fatality but the driver would still be at fault anyway" is apparently not a straw man.

[adrr]

Is it? Laura Bush ran a stop sign and killed her friend. No charges. Caitlyn Jenner hit a car and pushed it into on coming traffic killed someone. No charges. I can keep going and going.

[galleywest200]

These people you listed are wealthy and powerful, maybe blame the justice system catering to the rich instead of regulations for car crashes.

[adrr]

And these self driving companies aren't wealthy and powerful? Why treat them differently?

[asveikau]

No, the reason that's a news story is because many people were upset about the accident, which killed an entire family of 4 while they took the kids to the zoo on their wedding anniversary. Even by the standards of auto wrecks it was heart wrenching. A lot of people felt the driver was negligent and deserved prison.

[keerthiko]

there are many[0] many[1] data points like this. even if individual ones seem like outliers, when there's this many outliers, it's like there's at least two distinct lines depicting consequences, one material and one not.

those who probably have exhausted all the various escape hatches built into the "vehicular manslaughter & mutilation forgiveness program" worldwide by the automobile industry, may get a year or so in prison — usually extreme repeat offenders, high profile deaths, homicide cases, or drivers who were already criminals just having the charge thrown in.

most people who "slipped up" are just fined and forgotten, at the cost of global pedestrian safety.

[0]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1856923/do-s...

[1]: https://gothamist.com/news/95-of-nyc-drivers-avoid-criminal-...

[iknowstuff]

You are wrong. The easiest way to murder someone in America and get a slap on the wrist is to run them over in your car.

[mindslight]

If you don't have a lot of money for your legal defense, then make sure to have a bicycle in your trunk which you can place next to the victim afterwards.

[aidenn0]

This was just in my local news 2 days ago; it doesn't seem that strange for California:

https://www.santamariasun.com/news-2/fatal-dui-case-closes-w...

Last year I was on the jury for someone who drove drunk, caused an accident, and fled the scene. They had multiple prior DUIs but still had their license.

[edit]

Some details from the story for those who don't want to click through:

An unlicensed driver drank, did some cocaine, drove on one of the more dangerous stretches of road in the area, crossed the centerline and killed someone. Probation.

[ndsipa_pomu]

> The reason that’s a news story is because the outcome is unusual.

Yes and no.

Here in the UK, I read/post a bit on https://road.cc about road cycling and the perils of traffic and poor road designs. There's a surprising amount of clearly illegal driving that is rarely punished severely and it's notable that due to juries being motornormative, the prosecution will often not attempt to push for "dangerous driving" and will instead go or "careless driving" as it's notoriously difficult to get a jury to give a guilty verdict for "dangerous". I suspect a lot of jurors are thinking "I sometimes don't pay attention when driving, so that could have been me".

There's also a lot of media bias (I'm looking at you, BBC) with reporting of RTCs (Road Traffic Collisions - they should not be referred to as "accidents" as that is loaded language), especially when one of the participants is a cyclist. A lot of stories are framed as "car and cyclist in collision", rather than "driver and cyclist in collision" or even "car driven into cyclist" (that last one may be contentious, though I propose that it is usually factual). The issue is the use of the "passive" framing so that it doesn't give the impressions that a driver is likely to be at fault (percentage wise, driver inattention is the most likely cause of RTCs). See https://www.rc-rg.com/home for more details on reporting guidelines.

Also, most RTCs don't even merit a news report as they are so commonplace.

[Aachen]

Who does it benefit if an accident ruins a second life?

What does a jail sentence deter? ("[no] gross negligence [...] wasn’t engaging in a race or sideshow, was not texting, and was not under influence")

This person was 80 years old with no criminal record, needs to pay $67400 in restitution, do 200 hours of community service, isn't allowed to drive for 3 years but "never intends to drive again". Apologised to the family of the victims. She's taking responsibility and I can't imagine forced labor at that age is fun. What more can you ask for here? The family member isn't coming back if she gets what's not unlikely to be a life sentence

Edit:

> She told a witness at the scene that she was trying to park her car when she accidentally moved her foot to the gas pedal.

This seems to happen a lot. Don't know about statistics but this happened to someone I know at 50yo (thankfully only damaged their own car minorly), and you hear it on the news with some regularity. Maybe the gas needs to be in a fundamentally different spot from the brake? We can jail the people to whom it happens, sure, but I can understand a judge using their head instead of their heart. The real solution must come either from the automotive industry or legislation

[JumpCrisscross]

> Who does it benefit if an accident ruins a second life?

The next person they'd mow down. (Also, retribution. It's a real human need and attempts at philosophising it away degrade trust in our justice system.)

> isn't allowed to drive for 3 years

This is the wild part. No! You don't drive again!

> What more can you ask for here?

For her to have recognised her own limitations before they took lives. Failing at that, her family–or literally anyone who cared about her, and didn't want to see her spend her last years in jail–having taken initiative.

[Aachen]

Huh? We're talking about someone who's not going to drive for 3 years at 80 years old. Who else are you foreseeing they'll "mow down" if you don't jail them for life

> For her to have recognised her own limitations

Surely I don't need to look up the statistics of people under 30 killing others by accident. We're humans, not infallible. The judge didn't think they took any undue risk here

But sure, enact your vengeance on the person that fate picked out. Comment sections are always full of it anyway so I'm sure the voting booth will be too and this is just going to spread

[7jjjjjjj]

Banning someone from driving is basically a nonpunishment as driving on a suspended license is barely enforced. Most people with suspended licenses keep driving.

[FireBeyond]

There needs to be something. I am not saying JumpCrisscross is right, but... I was a paramedic, and the sheer number of geriatric drivers who in zero way shape or form should be anywhere near the wheel of a vehicle is ... staggering. My go-to anecdote?

Called out for an eval with law enforcement, thankfully non injury (however, there -are- about half a dozen vehicles who are going to be filing insurance claims).

Grandma is on her way to the doctor, and is in husband's old Caddy. Problem, she couldn't figure out what to do at "the worst roundabout she'd ever seen" and kept circling it, causing other cars to swerve off the road into drainage ditches, over curbs etc.

Know why it was the worst roundabout she'd ever seen? Because it wasn't a roundabout. It was a T junction and there were those concrete lane separators. According to witnesses she'd been circling it for several minutes, occasionally putting the car into reverse to navigate it.

"Ma'am, where are you headed?" "My doctor, for an appointment". "Where's your doctor's office?" "[insert town name 40 miles away from us]" "And where do you live?" "[insert same town name]" She's nowhere near that town, there's no understood way she got from there to here other than mass confusion.

So LE call her adult kids, while we're assessing her, and figuring out a plan. They've also discovered in the meantime that her license was medically revoked five years prior by said doctor.

Kids: "Oh that? That doctor has no idea what he's talking about, she's perfectly competent, he just doesn't like her. She tells us she's fine to drive and we've been telling her we agree with her" and "What do you mean you're going to have her car towed? We can be there in two hours. Can't she just stay there with the paramedics til we get there?"

Cops: Your mom is about to be hit with at least six or seven insurance claims that are going to argue that the doctor, and the DOL, were right, and that your mom actually isn't medically suited to be driving.

I still guarantee she probably didn't face any legal consequences beyond insurance, though. Certainly we were never called as witnesses. And her family probably still thinks it was a fluke and that her doctor was just an asshole when he had her license revoked.

[mlyle]

> This is the wild part. No! You don't drive again!

She's not going to drive again.

> For her to have recognised her own limitations before they took lives.

This is something that humans suck at.

> Failing at that, her family–or literally anyone who cared about her, and didn't want to see her spend her last years in jail–having taken initiative.

You shouldn't punish her for other people failing to take action.

[JumpCrisscross]

> She's not going to drive again

She gets her license back. That's wild.

> This is something that humans suck at

Not usually with fatal consequences. These were preventable deaths. Not only that, the driver was being incredibly reckless, apparently driving 70 mph in a residential area.

> You shouldn't punish her for other people failing to take action

You're punishing her for being criminally reckless. You're creating an incentive structure that should reduce the frequency of future criminality.

[mlyle]

> She gets her license back. That's wild.

In 3 years, at age 83, if she wanted to... she could try and take the driving test again and become licensed. This is just not going to happen :P In the end, the court can only prohibit her from driving while she is on probation.

Would it be great if this time she could be banned forever? Sure. But there's reasons why we don't just let judges make up arbitrary penalties and permanent restrictions on their own.

> Not usually with fatal consequences. These were preventable deaths. Not only that,

Humans don't misestimate their remaining ability with fatal consequences?

> the driver was being incredibly reckless, apparently driving 70 mph in a residential area.

Yes, by confusing gas and brake. She clearly has significantly reduced capacity.

> You're creating an incentive structure that should reduce the frequency of future criminality.

I do not think that the behavior of 80 year old people will be meaningfully changed by the degree of punishment applied here. This is a person that has lost a significant degree of capacity; unfortunately, humans losing capacity tend not to realize it or correctly estimate how much they have lost.

[asveikau]

> Not only that, the driver was being incredibly reckless, apparently driving 70 mph in a residential area.

I don't defend that woman at all and as someone who walked by that intersection on the day of the incident, 70 mph seems physically impossible there for a reasonable driver.

But it was not a totally residential area, it was a major transit hub of that part of town, where light rail and bus lines meet, a verrry short block away from lots of retail and restaurants.. That actually is an argument to go slower than in a purely residential area, because it's actually a congested area.

[Aachen]

> She gets her license back. That's wild.

Definitely not given back. If I didn't misread it, she needs to take a new driver's test at 83, which she already declined applying for (though it'll be her right; we'd have to see if she stays by the decision or if the examiner deems her a safe driver)

> You're punishing her for being criminally reckless. You're creating an incentive structure that should reduce the frequency of future criminality.

Wtf? Try applying logic somewhere in the process. People don't enjoy killing others by accident, paying 64k, 200h community service, three years of trying to use American public transport before you can start the process of getting a license back, going through a whole court system, and, y'know, guilt that I'd imagine would cripple me for years

Edit: I'm very surprised, reading your other comments, they're overall legit sensible. Really struggling to comprehend how, here, you get from "someone did something by accident" to "you need life punishments or they'll have an incentive to mow the next person down". There's zero incentive for citizens to kill people in any society that I'm aware of, again even ignoring the internal problems it causes

[loeg]

Your full-throated defense of Mary Lau is completely beside the point (and for what it's worth, it would be a fifth life, not a "second" -- she killed an entire family of four). GP claimed that human drivers who commit vehicular manslaughter get the book; they don't.

[Aachen]

Sorry if my throat sounded full to you, just writing what I think fits the context. In this case, apparently an 80yo getting punished in various ways is what GP had as example of how criminals are getting off easy. I see this pattern constantly, where people can't be bothered to read an article with the background info (much less the court case summary itself) but join the march and sign the petitions to lock the person up for life or whatever the outcry is

It feels unfair to me, like it could have been me or the commenter in a parallel universe, and I don't expect either of us are evil and intending to do bad, so I bring up what the article actually says were the circumstances (no intent or recklessness proven beyond doubt) and consequences (at least, besides the guilt factor). Don't you feel this could happen to you tomorrow just as easily as to anyone else? Should you get a worse punishment than all of what this woman got (see above) for getting into an accident with a fatal outcome? (Assuming you drive a vehicle, of course)

[loeg]

> Don't you feel this could happen to you tomorrow just as easily as to anyone else?

No; unlike Mary Lau, I don't choose to drive while incapacitated.

[mlyle]

> they don't.

When there's significant extenuating circumstances or "the book" wouldn't serve the purposes of justice, they don't.

[kelseyfrog]

What would 'getting the book' look like in concrete terms?

[loeg]

If you're familiar with the phrase "throw the book at," it refers to a maximum severity punishment: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/throw%20the%20boo...

Citing a random source for CA vehicular manslaughter law, it looks like you can get up to six years: https://www.kannlawoffice.com/california-penal-code-section-...

So, like, a six year prison sentence? Maybe more for multiple counts here? At least revocation of driving privileges forever (she's not getting any younger)? None of that happened.

[qwe----3]

They intentionally moved assets to their family members to avoid liability, right?

Laws are also meant to deter bad behavior, people who aren't able to drive safely should know there will be consequences

[hiddencost]

People will change their behavior. The function of prison sentences is deterrence.

[JumpCrisscross]

> function of prison sentences is deterrence

As well as incapacitation and retribution.

[Aachen]

As well as making acquaintances with other criminals at a time where you're losing your job, apartment, your social network if the sentence lasts long enough

But, yes, also those two. It's a very multifaceted sword, and thankfully not the only option, not for any of the three goals

[kelseyfrog]

Impulsivity is definitionally the absence of forethought. Deterrence doesn't affect crimes born from impulse.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Deterrence doesn't affect crimes born from impulse

And yet I've seen way more people call an Uber instead of drive home drunk not because they thought they'd kill someone, but because they didn't want a DUI.

[kelseyfrog]

Sounds like the insight is that people have varying degrees of forethought. Crime isn't mono-causal and therefore solutions shouldn't be expected to be monolithic.

[loeg]

To put it another way: crimes of pure impulse, with zero forethought, are a subset of all crimes.

[loeg]

And incapacitation!

[Aachen]

And taking away a license in order to achieve that in the case of traffic offences couldn't possibly be the cheaper option for deterrence or incapacitation

[loeg]

It's both cheaper and less effective. (And Mary Lau didn't even lose her license.)

[Aachen]

And they're the only option, right?

[xnx]

> What does a jail sentence deter?

Other irresponsible drivers.

[Aachen]

How would I know I'm going to kill someone on the road today and stop doing that thing?

[xnx]

Don't drive intoxicated, tired, distracted, or physically impaired by age or other means.

[Aachen]

There's a test every 5 years after iirc 65yo where they check things like response time, if you have enough strength for handling the wheel completely unimpeded, and if you aren't suffering from dementia. At least that's what I've heard from my grandparents about the tests they had to do. If that doesn't cover the age risk, imo that test would be the thing to fix. Not sure how strict those are in the USA

Since the article doesn't speak of her well-being, I don't think we can judge here whether this woman should have taken herself out of society already (from what I hear, the USA isn't exactly public transport or walking friendly, assuming she can still walk distances in the first place, idk what old people are supposed to do there)

The other three factors you mentioned were not at play here according to the linked article. But I agree in general of course, and in those cases I don't disagree with extra punishment (and/or, the better preventor: increasing the odds of being caught)

[wredcoll]

Those are, by definition, things that prevent you from rationally estimating capabilities and risk.

[mindslight]

In a sense you're right, but the problem is that post-facto consequences are all we are left with when there is no political will to pre-regulate. If one started talking about requiring retesting to keep your license starting at age 60 or even 70, the pitchforks would come out. But that is the type of thing it would have taken to avoid "ruining" the first four lives here.

(and the same pattern plays out on a much larger scale in the world of big business)

[dekhn]

How do you get from "trying to park car" to 70 miles an hour? That does not seem consistent with the geometry of the accident.

[tintor]

Apologised for taking lives of married couple and two babies?

[Aachen]

Is that a question? I'm not sure if you're expecting an answer about maybe she should have tried praying for the person to be brought back or what would legit help the situation at that point?

[orthecreedence]

Is it too much to ask for today's pedestrian to wear at least one piece of reflective clothing?

[scbrg]

Odd point to raise in a thread about a family killed while waiting at a bus stop in broad daylight. Do you think reflective clothing would have changed the outcome of the event significantly?

[e40]

Freakonomics did a pod about this, titled “how to get away with murder”.

[nkzednan]

see https://sf.streetsblog.org/2026/03/06/motorist-careens-onto-... and see what the police said to the driver…

[Groxx]

Better than the current standard for AV, which is "what floor?"

[loeg]

Is it? https://www.vice.com/en/article/california-dmv-suspends-crui...

[HDThoreaun]

Cruise was entirely shut down because of an incident that didnt even result in a death. Thats way worse than what people tend to get

[scarmig]

IIRC Cruise got into the most trouble not because of the accident itself, but because it tried to hide evidence from and deceive regulators.

[HALtheWise]

In the context of this thread, it's worth pointing out that "trying to deceive regulators" is quite normal behavior for individual human drivers involved in car incidents, and iirc the Cruise collision itself also involved a human driver performing a hit-and-run who didn't afaict ever get prosecuted or come forward to police.

[fragmede]

"it"; Kyle Vogt, their CEO at the time, is the person that decided to do it.

[oceanplexian]

They have to operate in California though, so I don't blame them.

This is a state that made me a criminal for putting the wrong air filter on my car (Clearly my bad for putting on the 49 State legal version that makes the tailpipe emissions cleaner).

[sagarm]

An incident, by the way, triggered by a human driver hitting a pedestrian and knocking them into Cruise's path.

That driver was never found. It's not clear what efforts, if any, were made to find them. After all the Cruise is covered in cameras.

[input_sh]

It wasn't "because of an incident", it was because they were required to submit a report about that (or any other) incident, did so, and then the security footage proved that they straight up lied in the report about that particular incident.

If they just told the truth, they wouldn't lose their licence, but they couldn't even oblige by this piss-poor regulatory action in which they were required to do nothing but self-report any incident.

[roenxi]

I believe you, but that really highlights how dangerous small regulatory overheads are. One - quite reasonable - frame on what you're saying is that there was no problem with Cruise except they failed to engage with the bureaucracy properly on some relatively minor points.

That sort of behaviour should be an aggravating factor if they're actually misbehaving. If they aren't, then it is poor policy to try and put them out of business over paperwork.

[Hnrobert42]

> The standard for human drivers is through the floor.

The linked article doesn't describe the standard. It describes a single, exceptional example.

[loeg]

It's a representative example. (When you're disputing my evidenced claim, it behooves you to bring your own facts, rather than just asserting.)

[Hnrobert42]

The refutation of your point is in the article itself. The standard, by law, punishment involves jail time or home confinement. The judge explained how those punishments were not appropriate because of the exceptional circumstances.

[lojban]

I'm not sure how that would change things. It is still a representative example.

See also: http://archive.today/2026.03.23-031145/https://www.nytimes.c...

> And there is precedent for the light manslaughter sentencing of an older driver. In 2003, George Weller, 86, killed 10 pedestrians at the Santa Monica Farmers Market after confusing the gas and brake pedals. He received five years of probation. The judge in that case said that Mr. Weller’s age and declining health had contributed to the decision.

[Hnrobert42]

You mean a representative example of an exception? Your example also points out how the judge justified their deviation from the standard.

[vanviegen]

That is not an evidenced claim though. It's an anecdote.

[zuminator]

Evidence is, generally speaking, anecdotal.

[pessimizer]

> It's a representative example.

This is the assertion. You can recognize it because the obvious reply is that it is not at all a representative example, but one that you just handpicked. You're question-begging.

[ctoth]

Here' I'll do the needful:

Twin Cities, 2010-2014: 95 pedestrians killed in 3,069 crashes. 28 drivers were charged and convicted of a crime, most often a misdemeanor ranging from speeding to careless driving. ~70% of pedestrian-killing drivers faced no criminal charge[0].

Bay Area, 2007-2011 (CIR investigation): sixty percent of drivers that were at fault, or suspected of being at fault, faced no criminal charges. Over 40 percent of drivers charged did not lose their driver's licenses, even temporarily[1].

Philadelphia, 2017–2018: just 16 percent of the drivers were charged with a felony in fatal crashes[2].

Los Angeles, 2010–2019: 2,109 people were killed in traffic collisions on L.A. streets... and nearly half were pedestrians. Booked on vehicular manslaughter: 158 people. The vast majority of drivers who kill someone with their car are not arrested[3].

I can literally do this all day. The original statement was correct, the case representative.

[0]: https://www.startribune.com/in-crashes-that-kill-pedestrians...

[1]: https://walksf.org/2013/05/02/investigative-report-exposes-h...

[2]: https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-drivers-rarely-prosec...

[3]: https://laist.com/news/transportation/takeaways-pedestrian-d...

[ryandrake]

As the saying goes: If you want to kill someone and get the lightest possible consequences, kill them with your car.

[ryantgtg]

Now we’re talking. So much misinformation in this thread. There’s a reason that the saying, “if you want to kill someone, do it with a car” exists. Fortunately, it seems like judges are finally starting to wake up to the idea that it’s unreasonable for drivers to claim ignorance about the increased risks (and thus intent) of making poor/illegal decisions when being the wheel.

[tzs]

The original statement was about vehicular manslaughter. You are citing stats that cover a much broader range of things.

[cucumber3732842]

You're likely falling for a red herring.

Criminality is basically just a checkbox for this stuff. Most of the time people wouldn't be going to jail for these sorts of crimes, it'd just be big fines and penalties. There's almost always administrative/civil infractions of the same or similar name that has the same or greater punishment but are far more efficient for the state to prosecute because the accused has fewer rights.

It makes for good appeal to emotion headlines to say these people aren't getting charged with crimes, but that's only half the story. They're likely lawyering up and pleading to a civil infraction that has approx the same penalties.

And this is true not just for this issue but for many subject areas of administrative law. Taxes, SEC, environmental, etc, etc, all operate mostly like this.

It's easy for a writer to pander to certain demographics and get people whipped into a frenzy by writing an easy article about prosecuting rates using public data. Actually contacting these agencies and figuring out what they actually did is hard and in the modern media economy doesn't offer much upside for the work.

[mlyle]

I think it's not too surprising that the law treats people with diminished capacity differently. It's not a bug, it's a feature, even though it may feel upsetting. There's no winning solution in a case like that.

[ctoth]

Well, if the law treats them differently when it comes to punishment, then maybe it should treat them differently when it comes to being able to drive in the first place?

[mlyle]

Yup. And we do have some degree of safeguards here-- admittedly, less in California than many other states. They are: physician required reporting of disqualifying conditions, ability for other people to report concerns about capability to drive, and the requirement to show up and undergo vision testing and not flag other concerns in the process.

There's a tradeoff between reducing the very low rate of unsafe driving by the elderly and the burden added to the very old. People over 65+ are still possibly safer, overall, than teenagers.

[loeg]

I disagree that it is a feature.

[mlyle]

You'd prefer to throw people with dementia and children in jail? Most of us agree that those outcomes are messed up, and the ability to form intent and/or understand the consequences of one's actions is important information to be considered in formulating whether to punish.

Someone got old and hadn't figured out they were unsafe to drive. It's not the same thing as me choosing to drive 100MPH in a city, operate a vehicle drunk, or keeping going after receiving clear evidence that I'm unsafe behind the wheel.

[Tagbert]

No “representative” would mean that was a typical outcome and that is not the case. That is what would be called an “exceptional” outcome.

[wongarsu]

In the US, 11 deaths per billion miles driven (or about 47k per year) is currently seen as an OK cost.

More than twice as much per mile as places like Sweden and Switzerland, and still substantially more than places like Canada, Australia or Germany (all three in the 6-8 deaths per billion miles range). So it's not like there isn't room to improve. The effort to do so just isn't seen as worth the cost at the societal or government level

Turning that into a monetary cost would change the ethics slightly, but it wouldn't be a monumental shift

[scoofy]

The issue here is that a lot of the concerns about AV's are orthogonal to the standard metrics of concern.

I'm a strong transit alternatives advocate, but even I recognize that a firetruck or ambulance being blocked by an AV has the potential to cause an outsized amount of death and destruction, because deaths aren't always linear and a fire that is able to get out of control can do catastrophic damage compared to a single out of control vehicle.

I'm genuinely stunned that AV's do not have the ability to be "commandeered" by Police/Fire/EMS in a pinch, and I'm honestly surprised that regular citizens can't just hit a red button that signal "this is seriously an emergency." These are fairly simple steps to mitigate the tail risk of AV's but the platforms aren't going to prioritize that if there are no incentives.

[hombre_fatal]

We already accept that it’s fine for human drivers to block emergency services and we generally refuse to build, say, bus and bike lines that can be used by emergency services.

So the uproar over AV’s blocking emergency vehicles seems incredibly manufactured or inconsistent, much like the hoopla over AI and water.

e.g. You can take anyone complaining about this and you’ll find they didn’t care about emergency vehicles or water until just now regarding one thing. I’d like to see some consistency.

[scoofy]

The difference is blocking emergency vehicles in predictable, high traffic areas that can be intentionally avoided vs randomly blocking an entire road because you couldn’t handle a weird event.

People actually think hard about these problems. The entire point of my post is that it is trivial to mitigate.

I was in the middle of the SF blackout, and witnessed the Waymos stopped at lights and actually commended Waymo for handling the emergency so well. At the same time, I’ve seen many ambulances get blocked just seconds away from the hospital because of Waymos unable to navigate complex intersections like oak/fell and stanyan.

[Natsu]

> I'm genuinely stunned that AV's do not have the ability to be "commandeered" by Police/Fire/EMS in a pinch, and I'm honestly surprised that regular citizens can't just hit a red button that signal "this is seriously an emergency."

The passenger of a Waymo can, but not anyone outside it. There's a very prominent "call for help" button on the screen when you get inside.

[scoofy]

A “call for help” button is customer service. The ability to say “this is the police, drop everything and attend to this car” button would be helpful.

[Natsu]

I've never actually tried it, but I would expect customer service to be able to move the car out of the way or push it to someone who can remotely pilot it.

[scoofy]

Again, the main issue is that these things can cause problems with nobody is in the car. It shouldn't even be a debate. Emergency services should have a key that unlocks them and allows them to be commandeered. Everyone inside is being filmed all the time, so anyone going for a joyride is being watched, the car could be shut down remotely, and the person could trivially charged with a number of felonies, and then that access key could be removed.

If Waymo can't play well with emergency services, then they've got long term sustainability problems.

[gsnedders]

At least in SF, there’s both a phone number and a QR code on a sticker on the driver-side window, and per what’s linked from https://waymo.com/firstresponders/ it seems like that’s a dedicated phone line.

I wonder quite what the priority matrix looks like for support requests; I’d expect something like:

1. First responders 2. Human-initiated in-vehicle 3. Autonomous-initiated vehicle

But I of course don’t know.

Buttons are something that seem inherently obviously (both internal and external), but I’m also never sure quite how useful they’d be: a lot of the things that have gathered press have involved vehicles driving when it was unsafe to do so, and then any external button is of minimal use.

I also expect they have some level of concern about anything external having an abuse potential? (e.g., deliberately walk in front of an AV just to stop it in the road)

Something like “give first responders some mobile app which provides some level of direct control” feels like it should be doable (authentication there seems unlikely to be harder than the various “educational” authentication gates that Alphabet has in many products) — though of course that doesn’t scale with more AV operators, and thus maybe this just falls into the category of “this should be standardised” (by whatever SDO).

And some can clearly just leverage existing datasets — many jurisdictions have ways to publish things like “this road is closed from X to Y”, and you can imagine a slightly broader case of “close a radius of Z from point A” being something you might want, especially in the AV case (imagine a “police incident” closing an intersection, such as the one a Waymo drove through a few months ago — you probably want to close a bit beyond the interaction itself in all directions!).

And sure, to some extent things can be handled by AVs getting better at understanding their surroundings, but we’ll always have the question of whether they’re good enough, especially when they fail in non-human like ways.

[Natsu]

Interesting, I can't say I've seen that sticker, but I've never looked for one there, either, as you're not supposed to use the driver's seat and it's always buckled up.

[retired]

Don't forget to add rail incidents to that metric. I live in Spain, this year we had 4 derailments for a total of 48 deaths and 195 injured. The USA has had 0 passengers killed or injured from train accidents this year. Portugal had 15 death after a tram derailment. In Amsterdam, the tram is more dangerous than the car.

Also Germany is very high (for European standards) because of the Autobahn. They can save around 140 lives a year by having a limit on the Autobahn but the car lobby in Germany is very strong. Those 140 lives are seen as an OK cost just to go vroom on the Autobahn.

[Levitz]

>I live in Spain, this year we had 4 derailments for a total of 48 deaths and 195 injured.

Which, to be clear, is a considerable outlier. Highest since 2013 and about double the deaths and 4x the injured of a "normal" year.

Not to mention that trains are far safer than automobiles too.

>The USA has had 0 passengers killed or injured from train accidents this year.

Is this a fantastic, magical year or something? The normal number seems to be around 800 a year? https://www.kochandbrim.com/study-train-accident-deaths/

[retired]

Your number includes suicides, trespassing and more. Only 24 passenger deaths in a ten year period.

[HALtheWise]

> Not to mention that trains are far safer than automobiles too.

This claim is situationally true, but not universally so like many people seem to believe. For example, Brightline rail service in Florida has been operating since 2017 and averages (by my math) 29.8 deaths / 100M passenger-miles, while the road system in Florida averages 0.89 deaths / 100M passenger-miles. Those deaths are mostly not suicides, and imo we should treat pedestrian deaths from trains as substantially more morally weighty than passenger deaths, since it's a victim that didn't opt-in to the risk.

For what it's worth, the unusual spike in Spain train crashes this year seems to have pushed them barely over the fatality numbers of Spanish cars (0.91 deaths/100M pax-mi vs 0.73 for cars) but that's pretty clearly an outlier.

If you measure per vehicle-mile rather than per passenger-mile I'm pretty sure trains are always way more dangerous, although that's a less fair comparison.

[lancebeet]

Hm, it's only something like 10% of German traffic fatalities that occur on the autobahn. And according to wikipedia, Germany doesn't rank high in terms of traffic fatalities, even by European standards. France has a similar number of highway deaths. I'm personally not a fan of the autobahn and especially not the unrestricted speed. It seems obvious that it should cause lots of fatalities, but the evidence for it just doesn't seem to be there.

[gsnedders]

https://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/tempolimit-koennte-jaehr... claims a 75% higher fatality rate on unrestricted autobahn v. autobahn with speed limits.

But in general: freeways/motorways (whatever you want to call them) almost never account for the majority of fatalities anywhere — there’s a lot that makes them safer than the average rural road even given comparable speeds, and there’s fewer vulnerable road users around.

[AlecSchueler]

> It seems obvious that it should cause lots of fatalities

That's not obvious at all to me, what would the reasoning be?

[lancebeet]

Maybe I expressed myself poorly. Generally, higher speed is associated with higher fatality rates, all else being equal. So, one would assume a highway without speed limits would cause lots of fatalities. Most people would probably be surprised to learn that this is not the case.

[watwut]

If there is anything remotely potentially dangerous, unlimited speed ends and the road gets well defined and enforced speed limit. If the traffic on that segment of the road gets high, they put in speed limit sign too.

Moreover, there is a question of liability for the insurance purpose. If you go above 130, you are assumed to be caused of the accident. So, most Germans go roughly 130 in those segments anyway.

[andrepd]

What. in god's name are you saying?

> Don't forget to add rail incidents to that metric. I live in Spain, this year we had 4 derailments for a total of 48 deaths and 195 injured.

Yeah and how many in the 15 years prior? 112. Of which 80 were in a single (TGV) crash.

How many people die each year in Spanish roads? Thousands.

> The USA has had 0 passengers killed or injured from train accidents this year.

Can't have rail accidents if you don't have rail *taps side of head*

> Portugal had 15 death after a tram derailment.

Oh my god, after a 140-year old tourist attraction malfunctioned! Hardly representative of any transit system whatsoever.

> In Amsterdam, the tram is more dangerous than the car.

This is just not true, by any metric.

And also, why are cars comparatively less dangerous in Amsterdam than in most other places? Because it is not designed for cars first, there are low speed limits enforced by traffic calming (like speed humps and narrow cobbled streets) everywhere.

[retired]

> Can't have rail accidents if you don't have rail taps side of head

The USA has the world's largest network with 220000 kilometers of rail

> This is just not true, by any metric.

In Amsterdam the tram is 57x more deathly than the car.

https://www.parool.nl/nieuws/al-twee-doden-dit-jaar-hoe-onve...

Trams in Amsterdam should be replaced with busses. Busses stop much faster and don't weigh as much. Trams are literal death machines. It's really scary to ride bicycle in Amsterdam and hear the ding-ding-ding when you are about to be run over by a tram and you quickly have to move over.

Also you seem to be a bit confused, Amsterdam does not use narrow cobbled streets for traffic calming. Maybe you are thinking of France or Belgium.

[gljiva]

No. The traffic rules for trams or tram stop positions should be adjusted and people in Amsterdam should be educated to behave around trams, i.e. in traffic in general if they want fewer deaths.

There are literally marks on every step of their path "tram is going through here, coming from there", so those that die anyway should be the ones at fault. It's horrible that they die, but banning trams is not a valid response to it. After the people have started behaving like that around trams, there isn't really a reason to assume they won't start being (even more) reckless around the less predictable and bulkier busses. You fixed braking time, but cyclists get clipped more often going out of their track as they do already. I mean, look at the description of an accident: allegedly she wore a hoodie with headphones and some stops after the intersections incentivize higher tram speeds.

Start fixing that before banning the safest and the most efficient form of transport (57x more than cars, with the amount of cars they have, number of close interactions with cyclists/pedestrians, and the imposed traffic rules for cars, isn't really a valid multiplier), scrapping all the tram lines and adjusting road tracks widths just to have buses brake harder on asphalt isn't really a fix of the problem, just a reaction to a symptom.

[retired]

You sound like someone trying to justify guns. "People should be educated to behave round them". No. Trams in Amsterdam are very dangerous and replacing them with long busses makes everything better.

Tram is not the safest form of transport, that would be the bus. As stated trams are way more deadly than cars.

And no, trams are not marked. Not in Amsterdam. Trams share the exact same path as pedestrians and cyclists, they don't have their own lanes for most parts of the route.

What about people who are visually impaired? Have hearing troubles? Should those people just stay home?

[aidenn0]

> Can't have rail accidents if you don't have rail taps side of head

Sure the US has low rail-usage per-capita, but it's still enough for 50% more passenger-kilometers per year than Spain.

[ruszki]

There is a reason for that “per billion miles range”.

[biophysboy]

Coming from a bio background, I’ve always been confused why auto fatality stats are normalized per miles driven. Epidemiological metrics like incidence or prevalence seem like they would work fine? Town A would be “safer” than town B if people’s commutes are 20% shorter, even if accidents occur w same frequency

[andrepd]

Because it yields a simple corollary that to make travelling safer you can reduce the number of miles driven. Mostly by giving people viable alternatives to driving, be it long-distance rail or bike lanes to move around quicker and safer in the city.

[Aloisius]

Pretty sure I've seen exposure-adjusted incidence rates used in clinical trials.

Miles is simply a proxy for exposure.

Given risk here does vary by exposure time and trip length varies so much, it seems reasonable to use - at least in combination with crude rates.

[biophysboy]

Fair point - a combo might be the best approach.. I understand the idea of accidents correlating w/ miles driven, but it seems to be optimizing for driving safety rather than human life? Does that make sense?

[_vertigo]

What are some other better ways to normalize?

[gsnedders]

Other common approaches:

1. Per capita

2. Per registered vehicle

3. Per trip

All of these have upsides and downsides (as does “per vehicle km”), and all will paint different pictures with different distortions.

[biophysboy]

Honestly, just per 1M person per year. If this normal incidence went up while the exposure incidence rate went down over 20 years, I'd wanna know.

[cozzyd]

Per trip?

[themafia]

> 11 deaths per billion miles driven

You should calculate how many are "single vehicle accidents" and how many are "multiple vehicle accidents." In the US the majority are single vehicle.

> seen as an OK cost.

You cannot build a system that stops every stupid person from doing something stupid without introducing absolute tyranny.

[JumpCrisscross]

> it's not like there isn't room to improve

Losing one's license means destitution for many Americans. That places practical limits on enforcement compared with less car-oriented countries.

[OptionOfT]

I'm from Belgium, and even with public transportation, there are a large group of people dependent on their driver's license.

But if you ask someone if they'd drive without insurance, or without driver's license they look at you like you've asked them to do the impossible.

Whereas in the US no-one bats an eye when that happens. Half the time the cops just issue a ticket, and don't even tow the car.

And now people who obey the law need to take out extra insurance for under/uninsured motorists.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if you ask someone if they'd drive without insurance, or without driver's license they look at you like you've asked them to do the impossible

To wit: Europe's 1.8% (and Belgium's 0.7%) uninsured-driver rates are a fraction of America's 15% [1][2].

[1] https://www.mibi.ie/ireland-may-have-highest-level-of-uninsu...

[2] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-uninsure...

[retired]

In countries like The Netherlands it is impossible to drive around uninsured. So that is probably why the number is so low.

[JumpCrisscross]

> it is impossible to drive around uninsured

How?

[aziaziazi]

> there are a large group of people dependent on their driver's license

Are there "no licence cars" in Belgium and the US ? Basically a moped motor and a seat inside a box. 45kmh and no highway, but a bit more confortable and fast than a ebike for rural environment.

[tmtvl]

Those do exist in Belgium, but (joke starts here) that's because Belgium is enormous, far too large to get proper public transport going (joke ends). I am seeing more and more cargo e-bikes (e-cargo bikes?), which I find a positive change, though it does differ from place to place (Antwerp's fairly okay for bikes, same for Leuven, Brussels was pretty bad last time I was there).

[Avicebron]

Not really, the cross section of people who lose their license/insurance and those that could use something like an ebike reliably for their commute is practically zilch. The US is really big and a lot of people have rural 30+ minute commutes where it snows ~6 months out of the year.

[aziaziazi]

Oh I was’t clear: I’m not talking about an ebike but a very small and underpowered car like this one https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35210572

There’re somewhat popular here for those that doesn’t have a licence and offer some of the advantage but are less dangerous to others.

[andrepd]

> The US is really big and a lot of people have rural 30+ minute commutes

The size of the country in which a commute is contained is immaterial to the length of that commute. What you mean is not "the US is big" but "things are really far apart in the US". Which they are, but precisely because of car-centric (car-only, actually) design.

[vector_spaces]

You are right that this happens frequently in the United States compared to Europe, but you are overstating the degree to which this culturally and legally acceptable. People who are doing this are not typically broadcasting it to others, and I can assure you that when they do, for the most part people will tend to "bat an eye" at the very least.

Note that motor vehicle insurance in most of Europe is more tightly regulated and generally more affordable than in the United States. Also, I suspect the car-dependent individuals in urban areas with robust public transportation in Belgium are generally vastly higher income than the typical uninsured compulsory driver in the United States. Happy to be corrected though

[JumpCrisscross]

> you are overstating the degree to which this culturally and legally acceptable

In Florida it's a $150 fine [1]. If you do it again within 3 years, they charge you $250. If you do it again within that three-year period, they'll just charge you $500 each time. It's not even a crime [2].

[1] https://www.valuepenguin.com/auto-insurance/florida/penaltie...

[2] https://www.kevinkuliklaw.com/is-it-a-crime-to-drive-without...

[vector_spaces]

What point are you trying to make?

If you can be fined for a behavior, and lose privileges like the ability to operate a motor vehicle, then it is not legally acceptable.

[JuniperMesos]

> But if you ask someone if they'd drive without insurance, or without driver's license they look at you like you've asked them to do the impossible.

> Whereas in the US no-one bats an eye when that happens. Half the time the cops just issue a ticket, and don't even tow the car.

A lot of the people driving without insurance or licenses in the US are illegal immigrants, which means enforcement of driving illegally is caught up in the same cultural-war fight over immigration law enforcement that has dominated American news since Trump got re-elected. "And now people who obey the law need to take out extra insurance for under/uninsured motorists" is specifically an anti-illegal-immigrant talking point.

[jeromegv]

It’s almost like there’s consequences to making it as hard as possible for people to be legalized.

[JuniperMesos]

It's equally a consequence of not immediately arresting and deporting illegal immigrants the moment the government learns about their presence on US soil.

[embedding-shape]

> Losing one's license means destitution for many Americans.

That'd be the same for a Swede who lives in the middle of nowhere too. Although I'm sure both groups, if they'd loose their license, would continue driving anyways.

[pixel_popping]

Clearly, a bit weird to assume that no license would automatically mean that the driver stops driving, that's not true at all.

[danaris]

...But what percentage of Swedes is that? vs the vast majority of working-class Americans.

Remember, outside of its few biggest and wealthiest cities, the US just does not have decent, reliable public transport, and most places don't have any.

[retired]

And how many Americans live in places without any public transport?

As a European I spend some time in LA and Las Vegas and while not optimal I could get everywhere without a car. I could even do a day-trip to Bakersfield by bus.

[jeromegv]

Your anecdata to this one time you took a trip to California doesn’t help.

You can just look at % of urban residents that use transit, which is lower in US than any western country. Clearly transit isn’t built or available in a sufficient way to majority of people

[HDThoreaun]

Tons of options other than removing the ability to drive. More stringent enforcement, higher fines.

[Aurornis]

> So it's not like there isn't room to improve. The effort to do so just isn't seen as worth the cost at the societal or government level

That effort being what, exactly?

Road fatalities per mile driven don’t translate cleanly from country to country because the type of roads and even types of deaths (single vehicle, multi vehicle) are different.

We could set the speed limit at 25mph everywhere and force all vehicles to not exceed that limit and that would make the number go down, but the cost would be extreme for everyone.

So what, exactly, are the solutions you are proposing?

[testing22321]

> That effort being what, exactly?

Off the top of my head you could do any of these or a combination.

- much stricter training and testing to get a license

- vehicles where the safety of others is considered

- ban stupid dangerous cars (my wife doesn’t stand as tall as an F350, let alone a kid

- harsher penalties for drunk driving (see Germany)

- harsher penalties for all kinds of dangerous driving

None of these are hard to implement, the US just lacks the will.

[hluska]

Doesn’t that 11 per billion statistic include commercial drivers as well? And doesn’t the United States have by far the largest percentage of commercial miles driven of any developed nation?

There’s a far cheaper solution available. Log books.

[xnx]

> If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book.

If only! "10 Days In Jail For Drunken Driver Who Killed Cyclist Bobby Cann" https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170126/old-town/ryne-san-h...

[borski]

I almost feel bad for noticing this, but:

> San Hamel was a partner in a business called AllYouCanDrink.com at the time.

…

> Cann, an experienced cyclist who once biked from New Hampshire to Chicago, was heading home from his job at Groupon the night he was killed.

It looks like allyoucandrink.com now redirects to Groupon, in a decent bit of irony.

[acdha]

We subsidize driving by somewhat over a trillion dollars annually, mostly due to lax penalties for negligence which shift liability to drivers’ victims[1]. One way to tackle all of these problems would be requiring drivers to cover the full damages.

Another simple and effective measure would be changing fines from absolute values to a percentage of income. Right now, parking in a bike lane usually doesn’t kill anyone so drivers are only thinking there’s a small chance of a small fine, but if it was a chance of, say, 0.1% of annual income Waymo technology would magically be capable of not doing that. Add a right of private action and enforcement would be high enough to really speed things along, too, and that’d improve safety and travel times for all road users.

1. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/01/18/why-car-i...

[fragmede]

Yeah, making fines relative to income would change behaviors for sure. A $20 ticket when you make $20 an hour hits different when you're making $200 or $2,000/hr. If it was a percentage of pay, then the ticket would actually sting.

[chung8123]

There are a lot of people that just don't pay the fines and ignore suspended licenses as money stops becoming a motivator on the other end as well.

[JumpCrisscross]

> If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book. What about AV?

They get their licenses pulled statewide [1]. Cruise's single negligent manslaughter event carried more consequence than dozens of human cases combined.

[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/news-and-media/dmv-statement-o...

[stavros]

The CEO gets charged with manslaughter? I work in healthtech and the responsible individual is certainly personally liable for any harm that results from reckless behavior, it should be the same here.

Same as if someone were driving, if a person just jumps in front of your car while you're driving under the limit/sober/etc, you aren't at fault, so the AV should also not be at fault if it couldn't reasonably avoid the harm. You balance these things, benefit to society vs harm to society, and you come to an acceptable tradeoff.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

> The CEO gets charged with manslaughter?

Well then forget autonomous vehicles altogether and allow the human joyride to continue, because no CEO is stupid enough to risk that.

[mwt]

Could you provide examples of healthcare executives held personally liable for harm resulting from reckless decision-making? I have never heard of such a thing happening in healthcare so framing CEO responsibility as a solution to the problem sounds like a stretch to me.

Some examples: Elizabeth Holmes got canned for lying to investors, not harming patients. Purdue Pharma plead guilty to misleading regulators and giving doctors kickbacks, not causing some hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths, but no Sackler family members were personally tried.

[stavros]

I work in the UK, where regulations are different, and there have been a few cases. Maybe not as many as there should be, but in theory this is something that exists in law.

[bdangubic]

> The CEO gets charged with manslaughter? I work in healthtech and the responsible individual is certainly personally liable for any harm that results from reckless behavior, it should be the same here.

This is in like China, yes? Certainly not in the US of A, hence Luigi and all that…

[AnthonyMouse]

> We can’t let AV manufacturers use “there’s no driver” as a way to escape responsibility, externalizing the harms AC cause onto society.

There is essentially nothing to be gained from doing this because it will not in either case be manufacturer; it will be an insurance company.

If the liability is paid by the vehicle owner's insurance then things work as they do now. You buy a car, insure it, if there is a liability there is an insurance claim and then the victim has someone to pay them for their injuries. Meanwhile the manufacturers still have a financial incentive to make safer cars because buyers want neither accident prone vehicles as the one they use nor high insurance rates. The insurance rates in particular are in direct competition with the car payment for the customer's available income.

Whereas if you try to put the liability on the manufacturer, several stupider things happen.

First, they're just going to buy insurance anyway, but now the insurance cost has to be front-loaded into the purchase price, which increases costs because now you're paying car loan interest on money to cover insurance five and ten years from now, when you otherwise wouldn't have needed to pay the premiums until the time comes.

Second, what happens to cars from manufacturers who no longer exist? They can't continue paying for insurance if they're bankrupt, so you need it to be someone else. Worse, if a company produces a vehicle which is unsafe, that will tend to cause them to go bankrupt. But then people still have them, and would continue to operate them if they're allowed to point victims at the bankrupt manufacturer, whereas the incentive you want is for the premiums on those cars to go up for the vehicle owners so that they stop operating them.

[mmmore]

> If a human driver commits vehicular manslaughter, they get the book.

I wish this were true. Often they get off with a light punishment, or no punishment at all.

[melenaboija]

> What if $10 million fine per X AV miles driven is an OK cost of doing business?

It’s the same cost/benefit we accept under current rules. Why have cars that can go 3x the speed limit? Why not require breathalyzers in cars before starting them? Why not fine logistics companies if one of their drivers breaks the law? And so on… Because it’s worth it

[fma]

>Why not require breathalyzers in cars before starting them?

FYI Cars will soon detect if you are impaired.

[thinkling]

What tech will be used for this?

I hope it’s better than other sensor tech in cars that think they need to warn you that you’re about to hit something at the front when the car is in reverse, that can't distinguish a bike rack statically attached to the car from the environment, and so on.

[aziaziazi]

Your questions are pertinent but what’s the benefit "worth" you’re referring to? The two first proposals would risk a politician popularity and the last one would be lobbied to he’ll buy the logistic companies. IMHO inconvenience isn’t worth driving among drunk coursier at 200kmh.

[pizzly]

If we consider fairness/retribution/justice then we won't get this future of less road deaths.

1. There will always be a probability of death from a vehicle. This can never go to 0%.

2. If the probability of a AV causing death is many magnitudes lower than human driving then that is the future we must choose.

If 1 and 2 holds and we hold AV manufactures accountable in the sense that Executives go to jail or are personal liable financially for deaths/injuries then AV will never get released or become mainstream even if this results in less total deaths. The sense of fairness/justice/retribution may make us feel better but result in more overall deaths. Logically this means that there must be a standard. Something like x deaths per y cars manufactured. If above the threshold you get big fines as a company. As technology gets better you can lower the threshold. Anything apart from causing deaths either purposefully or negligently would have be ignored.

Can we as a species accept this? That is another question.

[chaos_emergent]

We can look to other forms of automation to get a sense of what to do. For example, planes largely fly themselves and a loss of life due to manufacturing errors from the manufacturer would deem them liable for those deaths. Seems like the solution here is large penalties and generally broad disincentives for incurring harm.

[throwaway277432]

What happens if you build a bridge and it breaks?

These people want to play god with our lives but at the same time move fast and break things. Look at software quality anywhere, it's a mess and only about to get much worse.

We should not let them. Jail time for anyone involved in any of the decision making process, applied at scale with the number of vehicles and deaths.

Why should the standards be any different? They want to change the status quo with tech only so they can get paid and extort us with yet more subscriptions.

AVs will never substantially reduce road deaths. They will optimize to just being slightly better than human, but fail in new and more unexpected ways. There is not enough incentive for them to make it safer.

[BrenBarn]

I think jail time for executives should be table stakes. Another thing would be fines well in excess of $10 million. The fines should be defined as percentages of gross revenue, or maybe even (to target VC-funded operations that operate at a loss) percentages of gross expenses. The penalties should be such that a few crashes can put the company entirely out of business.

[XorNot]

People are killed by industrial equipment fairly regularly.

I'd say we actually have a perfectly functional legal framework for all of this, and the real issue is a lot of new people are about to find out it also applies to them as well.

Whether it was working well in the first place is the real question.

[tim333]

I also hope AV will reduce road deaths in the future but I don't think what will make the difference is regulatory. Rather the tech will advance from doesn't work to works in Waymos but is expensive to works in most cars and has become cheap.

[amarant]

Adjust the fines such that X is some acceptably large number.

The trickiest part will be figuring out how many dollars per mile driven is an acceptable cost of business..

I'd probably reserve the whole executives to jail thing to cases where you can prove negligence or something.

[sandworm101]

Simple. Blame the owner of the vehicle. They relied on automation and it failed. They go to jail for negligent homicide (whatever flavor is appropriate). That will tank sales of any AV tech that cannot maintain standards.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

> What about AV? $10 million? Executives go to jail? What if $10 million fine per X AV miles driven is an OK cost of doing business?

If AVs will save lives, we need to be sure we aren't punitive to the point of making them disappear.

[peyton]

> The last hurdle is regulatory

How’d you arrive at this conclusion? Why would fleet providers accept regrettable losses? Wouldn’t the last hurdle be technical?

> The question is how to achieve fairness

What does that have to do with automotive safety?

[andrepd]

Many things already reduce road deaths and they are infinitely easier to do that driverless cars, namely: viable alternatives to driving! Trains, streetcars, bike lanes, whatever.

[themafia]

> hoping AV will reduce road deaths in the future.

It won't. The majority of fatalities are caused by drugs and alcohol.

> The last hurdle is regulatory.

Indeed. Compare the USAs DUI laws with any other first world country.

[dyauspitr]

Then it’s an okay cost of doing business. $10 million is a lot of money and consequences for these companies are not purely legal they are also social consequences.

[cyanydeez]

Want to reduce road deaths? Invest in public transportation.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

I had to look up a name for this. "Utopian Fallacy."

You don't have to get rid of genuine progress just because your utopian vision has something better. The USA is on the path to autonomous vehicles. They are not on the path to public transportation excellence.

[matsemann]

Yup. Even if "safer per mile", more cars and more miles driven will probably outweigh the benefits. And still be hazardous to cyclists and pedestrians, still make us design stupid cities (built for cars, not people), etc.

Like how electric cars were for saving the car companies, not the planet, autonomous will be the same.

[tim333]

We've had public transportation for a couple of centuries and no where has it really led to a road death free utopia. I like public transport but no harm trying something new.

[mekael]

Societies can already reduce road deaths to nearly zero, it's cheap, it's easy, and it's fun. It's just redirecting all of the cash we spend on vehicles/cars/highways/roadways/signs/etc into public infrastructure that is all encompassing.

A hundred billion dollars a year [0] on construction (reading the definition I'm not 100% sure what is included in this due to how definitions can be hazy) has goes a long way, not to mention the amount we spend on gasoline, car maintenance, etc etc.

The reason I say it's fun, is because I love being on a train. First time I was able to ride one, which due to living in the good old USA wasn't until I was 23, I yelled "I'm on a train" . The Germans traveling with me weren't as into it.

[0] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLHWYCONS#

[dmitrygr]

Just because you like trains does not mean that it is actually a solution to everyone’s problem. For example, until proper law-enforcement starts happening on public transit, nobody in my family is allowed to take it in USA (they are allowed to do so in Singapore or Japan)

[mekael]

We can take the LEO's that would have patrolled highways/city streets and have them patrol on public transport, same job just slightly different environment.

Can I ask why you feel that public transit is unsafe in the US?

[dmitrygr]

Because each of these perps were not on their first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth violent offense and were freely out to kill:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Debrina_Kawam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Iryna_Zarutska

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nypd-men-pushed-subway-...

Many more such cases occur and aren’t widely reported. I’ve personally witnessed a stabbing on a bus

My chances of being stabbed inside my car are much lower

[naberhausj]

This is the same attitude as people who are afraid of commercial flying despite it being the single safest form of transport. I get it. But it's irrational.

You might not get stabbed, but driving is incredibly dangerous. Even just in terms of violence: road rage is tolerated to a large extent in America. The difference is that the news doesn't report even a small fraction of the traffic deaths in this country. In Iowa, the state I used to live in, around 300 people died every year from driving. I don't know a single one of those people despite their death being a tragedy. Whereas the stories you linked were broadcast coast to coast.

[dmitrygr]

I can control the safety of my car by buying a bigger car, driving certain ways, etc. You are comparing risks you have no control over with risks that you do.

But I am in no way stopping you. Feel free to take USA public transit, and (i truly do not know how) look your family in the eyes and encourage them to do the same. I truly hope that I do not read about your or your family in the news in this light (nobody deserves that), but your chances will be higher than mine.

[BurningFrog]

The legal entity driving the AV should of course be responsible in the same way as human drivers are.

My understanding is that that is already the legal situation?

[femto]

Full liability. It's a machine with predictable performance.

The law applied to humans needs to account for their fallibilities. Not so with a machine.

[EnPissant]

Now try applying this logic to elevators.

[m463]

> cost of doing business?

I hate this part, I don't think it is good for society. I think UPS gets lots and lots of parking tickets, and pays them as COB.

Maybe they should have "fix it" tickets, like they get for a burned-out headlight. Except they need a bug to be opened and fixed.

[bluecheese452]

Holding executives responsible for actual violence is considered promoting violence on this site and is not allowed. Cue the handwringing and moralizing from the usual suspects.