California To Join Nevada With Rules For Autonomous Cars 194
thecarchik writes "As of now, the only state where self-driving cars are legal on public roads is Nevada, thanks to its vast expanses of open space and lightly traveled byways. California, recognizing that autonomous cars are an inevitable progression of technology, is moving to establish its own rules for driverless vehicles. A bill proposed by California Senator Alex Padilla would set guidelines for the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles within the state. As California is home to Google, Stanford and Caltech, all of which have active autonomous vehicle programs, the state is positioned to be a leader in driverless car development. It stands to reason that self-driving cars will be allowed on California's roads, probably in the near future."
so it begins (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just too awesome. It looks like we're solving the parking, traffic, and driving death (drunk driving and otherwise) issues in my lifetime. The microchip is the gift that keeps on giving.
in the words of al swearengen (Score:0, Interesting)
how the fuck did that come to be inevitable?
Re:As California is home to... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I agree. Rome may be a mad house but, I loved driving in Italy. There are far fewer rules (and often a lack of lanes) but I interpreted it as "We trust you -- just don't crash into anyone." It was a breath of fresh air to not have a million signs like in the U.S. that you simply tune out.
There are some experiments in Germany where they are getting rid of all but a couple signs and simplifying the rules to just a couple rules (like yield to the right). They (last I heard) have found it to be far more effective as people don't tune out the few signs they see.
Re:I look forward to becoming rich (Score:3, Interesting)
You can try... Until the onboard video is played in court and shows you staged it, at which point the judge begins to legally sodomize you.
Re:Liability mitigation is the crucial rule (Score:5, Interesting)
The vaccine injury system is designed to deal, as efficiently as messy compromise allows, with the fact that vaccines(as with other drugs and procedures) tend to have risks that show up at the population level that couldn't have been detected in clinical trials of any feasible size and/or are substantially lower than their benefits. The logic is that these cases have victims deserving of compensation; but arise without culpable negligence or malice.
It doesn't, and isn't intended to, cover other risk/liability issues arising in medicine that incidentally involve vaccines. If, say, your doctor stored a vaccine improperly and administered a contaminated or spoiled dose, that wouldn't be a vaccine injury, that'd be malpractice that happened to involve a vaccine rather than some other drug. In such a case, the damages would be partially to compensate you and partially to punish them; because there are both damages and culpable negligence or malice at play.
In the case of an autonomous car, the 'vaccine analogous' set of risks/compensations would only cover the set of risks inherent to the system's operation(corner cases where physics simply doesn't allow for a safe solution on the navigational system's part, system defects sufficiently rare and esoteric to have escaped reasonable diligence on the manufacturer's part, and so forth). It wouldn't usefully cover negligence on the part of either the manufacturer(in, say, corner-cutting on testing or design of safety critical systems) or the operator(operating a vehicle despite sensor or system faults, defeating safety-critical systems in order to achieve faster trips, etc.)
When dealing with small, essentially unavoidable, risks there is a strong logic in favor of efficient compensation purely on the basis of injury(assuming that those risks carry benefits sufficient to justify their broad imposition...); but one must be careful not to immunize negligence and malice in a system designed to handle mere accident...
I suspect that there will be fewer impaired computers than there will be impaired drivers; but I suspect that operators running cars with the sensor equivalent of shot breaks and dead turn signals will hardly be unknown, and corner cutting by some manufacturer or other is just a matter of time.
Re:Liability mitigation is the crucial rule (Score:4, Interesting)
The only issue I see with and autonomous car is there are times here where a person has to guess where the road is. I'd like to know how the car would track the road when it's more or less just a blanket of white.
Re:Liability mitigation is the crucial rule (Score:5, Interesting)
What you're proposing is a No Fault liability scheme. Circa 1989-1992, the insurance companies attempted to get a proposition passed that would have established No Fault insurance. Their pitch was very similar to your list of advantages plus they said that since their costs would decline, our rates would have as well.
Despite the idea making a lot of sense, the personal injury lawyers succeeded in killing it as they viewed the proposal a direct threat to their livelihood which of course, it was. The proposition was aimed at cutting their take out of the transaction.
Your post makes a lot of sense but unfortunately, I think the political climate in California has gotten more bizarre over the intervening 20 years and what makes logical sense doesn't mean too much in California.
Re:so it begins (Score:4, Interesting)
You forget the cost problem. I can not afford a half million dollar car and people in canada have to drive rediculous distances all the time so our cars do not last very long.
Half million dollars? That's like saying Intel's next chip won't catch on because they spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing it and who could pay that much for a computer.
You said you drive a 95 neon and an 06 Dodge 3500. What do you mean your cars don't last long?
The driving conditions you describe actually seem an ideal place for AI to start to become feasible. Replacing a truck driver with an AI would save over $30,000 each year (I don't know about Canada but U.S. truck drivers start around $30,000).