Driverless cars are becoming more common in some California cities, but when the autonomous vehicles violate traffic laws, police haven’t been able to ticket them - until now. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has announced new regulations on autonomous vehicles (AVs), including a process for police to issue a “notice of AV noncompliance” directly to the car’s manufacturer. The new rules, which will go into effect 1 July, are part of a larger 2024 law that imposed deeper regulation on the technology. There have been a number of reports of the cars breaking traffic laws, including during a San Francisco blackout last year. The California DMV is calling the new rules “the most comprehensive AV regulations in the nation”. Under the new rules, police can cite AV companies when their vehicles commit moving violations. The rules will also require the companies to respond to calls from police and other emergency officials within 30 seconds, and will issue penalties if their vehicles enter active emergency zones.
Wait, does this mean they got a free pass til now?
Yep… If I understand correctly, in California fines have to be issued to the driver of the vehicle. But since self-driving vehicles have no driver, there is noone to issue fines to, legally speaking.
Why is it even considered a legal, controlled vehicle as opposed to just projectile or junk that needs to be cleared from the road?
motonormativity
US relies heavily on a legal system. Big systems are slow to adapt to change.
Yes.
You’d think that if the system hadn’t adapted to driverless vehicles it would just treat them as if someone abandoned their vehicle in the middle of traffic
That’s sorta fair, so I’d have to argue that the status quo biases toward consumerism or hope or capitalism then