My Waymo in L.A. parked blocking a lane to drop me off. Is ticketing the best way to deal with this?
Brad Templeton
A recent update to the California regulations around self-driving cars “fixes” a flaw in the earlier rules--it wasn’t clear how to cite a self-driving car if it violates the traffic rules, a situation where an officer would give a human driver a traffic ticket. The old rules demand you hand moving violation tickets to a driver. It was not intended to make the robotaxis immune to traffic citations, but it frustrated police departments and cities who have found themselves without weapons in the back-and-forth with the robotaxi companies. At the same time, the traffic ticket system, designed for humans, makes very little sense for robocars, so this was the wrong fix.
Human drivers break the law all the time, usually knowing they are doing it. Tickets are meant to strike fear into their hearts. Enforcement is random, but scary and it keeps people (somewhat) in line. Robots have no fear, obviously, but companies that run them can have fear. Generally, the companies spending billions to make this technology have no fear of random traffic fines. They are very afraid of things that could cause them to lose their permits or get their whole fleet shut down in a city. They are also afraid of generating distrust among the riding public--it is essential the public feel the vehicles are safe to ride in.
Generally, most situations where a robocar would violate the traffic rules and deserve a ticket will be mistakes. The company doesn’t want the vehicle violating the code, and once informed, will work quickly to fix it, and it won’t happen again, at least not for the same reason. This is not about fear, it’s about their plan to make a conforming vehicle.
There are some situations where a company might want to deliberately violate the law, however, and how society should react to that varies.
There are many violations of the law that are routine. The vast bulk of people speed a modest amount. They roll at stops. Everybody crosses the double yellow line if somebody else is parked, blocking the road, or to pass garbage trucks and the like. The latter is necessary for smooth flow of traffic, so almost nobody gets ticketed for it. In fact, having things everybody does but nobody gets ticketed for is a bad situation from the civil liberties perspective. It lets the police pull over anybody they like, rather than real offenders, leading to the “rule of men” dominating the “rule of law.”
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Another big one is doing ride pick-up and drop-off in the lane, temporarily blocking it, typically during light traffic at night. Uber drivers and cab drivers all do it. We don’t want a situation where new vehicles come along who are better, and better behaved, and will obey what you tell them, and end up punishing them for having those virtues. Never punish virtues. The law should be adjusted, or special exceptions granted to the robots as long as they follow the “real” law, well, like robots.
Some laws are just wrong. Companies don’t get to just decide that for themselves, but there should be a process to streamline revision and repeal of these laws when this is made more clear by the robocars. For example, the law says that a car is parked if no driver is inside it, but the robocar “driver” is always present, and can always move the vehicle if needed.
Waymo reportedly has been getting tickets because they felt that it was reasonable for them to park in “street cleaning” zones before the cleaning truck comes. If the vehicle can guarantee it will pull out before the cleaner gets close, why not? We should want them using that otherwise wasted space, rather than taking other parking away from people who need it. But the cities issued lots of tickets because it was their only tool, since the law makes regulation of vehicles a state matter, not a city matter.
Most of the rules in the vehicle code are there for humans, who can’t be trusted. Robocars are different. You can call all the lead developers of all the different models of robocar in a state and get them all in the same meeting. You don’t need to write complex laws, you can just talk it out, find a good solution, and get all to agree to follow it, with teeth to punish them if they break that agreement. In reality, the whole vehicle code can be summed up as “be safe, and don’t unfairly block traffic.” Robocars can do some things safely that humans can’t, there is little reason to regulate them the same way. Some will protest that it must be done for “fairness” but we have lots of laws on the roads that regulate trucks, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, cars and more in different ways because of different capabilities.
We want a system to make it easy to improve the law to meet our goals of safety and good traffic flow, and technology is bringing about fast change. While not in the vehicle code, the robotaxis have had problems because of laws that demand they make the humming sound when going slowly, and that they beep when backing up. This has annoyed the neighbors of their depots. But if a robocar is backing up in the forest, and nobody is there to hear it, should it make a sound? Unlike traditional vehicles, these vehicle know what every pedestrian around them is doing and where they are looking. They had better! They know when the sound is needed and when it’s wasted. The law should recognize that.
It also should be understood these vehicles are still immature, and learning. They are making mistakes, but they are truly mistakes, not things done with malice.
A company might decide it’s above the law. That’s where tickets aren’t very helpful, they are just a cost of doing business. When it’s identified that a robocar is breaking the law, the company needs to appeal, or fix it. And show that they’ve fixed it. They will, because to not do so should mean a risk of losing their licence. If there ‘s a good reason the law can’t be followed, there should be a rapid and open appeal process, not random enforcement and traffic court. You just don’t regulate companies the way you deal with individuals.
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