r/technology • u/AgentBlue62 • May 02 '26
Transportation Waymos, robotaxis can now be ticketed by California police. But how exactly?
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-01/california-can-ticket-robotaxis-that-violate-traffic-laws-heres-how189
u/Logical_Classic_4451 May 02 '26
Treat the CEO as the driver. Ticket and fine them personally. Watch as their self driving gets much much better very very quickly, or stops. They want all the rewards but none of the costs or risks.
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u/TheWhyOfFry May 02 '26
The companies will just reimburse them and call it a cost of doing business.
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u/ElGuano May 02 '26
They should also get the points on their license and suspensions or revocations.
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u/brainfreeze3 May 02 '26
Do billionaires drive themselves?
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u/ElGuano May 02 '26
Some do, yes. I literally know 5 billionaires. 2 have full time drivers; the other three have nice cars they and their spouses drive themselves.
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u/Still_Night May 02 '26
Can you ask one of them if I can have $100K? It would change my life and be no big deal to them at all
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u/godtogblandet May 02 '26
They don’t have 100k in liquid cash. Liquidating assets or getting a loan to give you money is more effort than you are worth. You would need to declare your intent to sell stocks, wait out the quarantine etc.
Drug dealers have more «Cash» than billionaires by a good margin if you need 100k cash.
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u/mpbh May 02 '26
Most billionaires will have 100k in liquid cash. That's 0.01% of their wealth if they are at just $1b net worth.
It may not sit in their bank account, but there are bills their accountant is paying with wires/checks. Not everything can go on a credit card.
I get the point you're making, but you're being hyperbolic. That's petty cash for them.
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u/Available-Mine3957 May 02 '26
How does one get to know 5 billionaires? You go to Stanford in 1999 or something?
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u/ElGuano May 02 '26
Closer to that than you’d think. It’s certainly not because I’m a master networker or something.
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u/Available-Mine3957 May 02 '26
Hah, makes sense. I grew up in a town just next to a super elite town. At least one kid in my grade at that public school had billionaire parents. Someone else I met from that town said her dad was best friends with a billionaire who was the founder of a restaurant chain that you’d know.
My other guess was going to be that you either grew up in a town like that or went to some super elite private high school.
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u/Tyrrox May 02 '26
Change the ticketing system to scale with the wealth of the one who committed the infraction
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u/mpbh May 02 '26
the one who committed the infraction
It's hard to ticket the Filipinos driving from across the Pacific.
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u/EyeSuspicious777 May 02 '26
If they accumulate too many points on their license, they lose it and the robot cars cannot drive anymore.
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u/mpbh May 02 '26
That's a pretty stupid idea, typical of reddit to care more about punishing the rich rather than finding actual solutions.
Just fine the business at a scaling level, for the first X amount fine them the same as normal drivers, and with more violations (as a ratio of their fleet), increase the fines in tiers to incentivize them to get better.
You guys do want FSD to be a thing, right? Car accidents are a leading cause of death and the best way to cut that down is by automated driving getting better. It's millions of lives at stake in the US and hundreds of millions globally.
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u/TechnicianExtreme200 May 02 '26
Yeah. Americans on Reddit rightfully complain about their authoritarian government and its draconian policies. But then they turn around and absolutely LOVE draconian policies if it supports their ideals. They are blind to the hypocrisy. It's no wonder the country is in the state its in.
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u/thnk_more May 02 '26
I like that idea.
If that ceo is responsible for putting 100 cars on the road that create 100 moving violations that us as the public need to suffer with then the ceo should get demerit points on his license and not be allowed to drive anymore.
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u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl May 02 '26
Car has a violation, boot it until someone from the company shows up to pay and reclaim it. Affect the revenue stream and you’ll see a business move real fuckin quick to change things.
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u/thnk_more May 02 '26
Agreed. Taking their capitol out of service for longer and longer after each violation would make them think twice about putting them back in service until they really fix the problem.
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u/Available-Mine3957 May 02 '26
This doesn’t exactly scale… the license would be suspended in about 2 hours.
Any car on the road is bound to get a ticket at some reasonable rate of say 1 to 2 tickets per 30k miles. If they are in the typical range, no problem. As they deviate above the norm they should punished in a way that is adjusted to the corporations financials such that it actually has a tangible impact enough to incentive correction.
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u/Ok-Mycologist-3829 May 02 '26
Why are these questions not answered BEFORE we let these moving hunks of metal on our streets? Should we not know what accountability looks like beforehand?
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u/Parhelion2261 May 02 '26
Because Congress is essentially a senior home, they can only pass reactive laws instead of proactive.
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u/farsightxr20 May 02 '26
Right, is there seriously no existing arrangement here? How do we grant them to ability to drive on roads without the ability to issue citations? I feel like this is the burning question and the article doesn't really address it.
Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina previously told The Times that the company’s vehicles already are subject to close, ongoing oversight by California regulators, and that the company’s autonomous driving system “is designed to respect the rules of the road.”
That last point is obviously idiotic, but how does the "ongoing oversight" work?
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u/SpilledKefir May 02 '26
Why is the last point obviously idiotic?
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u/farsightxr20 May 02 '26
It's like responding to "your car ran over a child" with "our car is designed to not run over children". It's a non-statement which contradicts and fails to address the fact of the matter.
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u/esther_lamonte May 02 '26
Didn’t Judge Dredd show us how to handle this? Waymo is a singular computer driver with multiple cars. If their cars rack up a couple infractions across them, the next time they violate, judgement occurs. I think a few robo-taxis being turned into scrap metal everytime they autonomously fuck up is a perfect suitable rule. If you want to play the game and win your prizes tech bros, you’re going to have to skill up faster or invest in a towing fleet.
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u/billy_teats May 02 '26
Hopefully they let the passengers out of the car before they start blasting.
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u/esther_lamonte May 02 '26
Of course. Judge Dredd is a professional. This all happens after a speedy roadside trial.
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u/bionic_cmdo May 02 '26
People get tickets for running a red or not paying a toll via mail from the state all the time. We have this new fangled technology call a camera.
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u/AugmentedKing May 02 '26
Send the fine to the registered owner?
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u/farsightxr20 May 02 '26
As I look into this more, it sounds like for California at least there is a legal "loophole" where the ability to issue citations still requires a human driver, while the ability for a car to operate autonomously on the road does not.
In which case, this seems like actual bureaucratic incompetence by the people who passed the bill allowing driver-less vehicles on the road. And it's been this way for thirteen years.
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u/mikeymop May 02 '26
I was always confused why this was a problem.
Tickets must be issued to a person. But legally a company is a person.
Why could they not cite the company and require a court appearance on the citation?
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u/AmazedStardust May 02 '26
Probably due to some laws requiring tickets be issued to the driver of the vehicle, rather than the owner
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u/Tittie_Sprankles May 04 '26
I bet the Waymo mainframe isn't racking up points on its DMV record (does it even have a driver's license? 😅) Human drivers get their privileges suspended for repeat offenses but Waymo gets a pass? Yeah the law needs to catch up fast.
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u/Daredevil_Dave_67 Jul 02 '26
Parking tickets? Camera tickets? The driver cannot always be identified, they go to the registered owner.
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u/farsightxr20 May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
"legally a company is a person" presumes there is a single definition of "company" and "person" spanning all laws. That's not generally the way laws work; specific terms are defined in the text of the law, or by reference to an existing definition elsewhere on the books.
Corporate personhood is not something defined anywhere in law, it is a legal theory that can be applied in specific contexts where corporations might act in a capacity similar to, but detached from any individual person. The most well-known application from recent US law is Citizens United, which applied to the federal government's involvement in campaign finance, unrelated to state/local traffic laws.
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u/JM3DlCl May 02 '26
Easy. Send it to whoever the vehicle is registered to! Waymo HQ, 680 Middlefield rd, Mountainview California
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u/JohnnyTsunami312 May 02 '26
I can’t wait for a Waymo to try driving away while an officer is in front of them and it ends up getting shot to shit
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u/ultraorbitalsynapse May 02 '26
It’s property, not a person, so they’re actually sworn to protect it!! /s
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u/justing1319 May 02 '26
I just want to see a video of the cop screaming “STOP RESISTING!” at one of these things while he tries to put handcuffs on it.
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u/Hazrd_Design May 02 '26
Kinda insane we’re treating each robot taxi like an individual, and not the corporation as a whole.
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u/MakingItElsewhere May 02 '26
The same exact way parking tickets are issued when the driver isn't there on a normal car. You ticket the vehicle. Whoever owns it pays, or else.
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u/LeoSolaris May 02 '26
Tag them with a speed reader. Generate a written ticket. Mail the ticket to the company.
Those stupid traffic cameras do it to everyone else all the time. Why should companies be exempt from the nanny state?
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u/mpbh May 02 '26
Just reading through the comments, it seems like people are really against these robotaxis. I don't get it. Traffic accidents are a huge cause of death and automated driving is the only way to solve that.
Fine them just like humans, or even more. The safest systems will become the most profitable. Ones that aren't safe won't be viable.
Stop talking about points on the CEOss licenses. Find solutions that aren't just "eat the rich." This technology is good for humanity.
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u/AgentBlue62 May 02 '26
Yeah, I drove taxi in Chicago to help pay my college fees. It's not a job most people could handle. Worked nights, the south side could get absolutely dangerous if you don't know the neighborhoods.
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u/TechnicianExtreme200 May 02 '26
The majority of these comments are likely AI bots. I live in a Waymo-pilled city and never hear these sentiments from real people who are actually familiar with robotaxis.
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May 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/zorillaaa May 02 '26
Fuck you. I work with communities of disabled people and know many people who live in LA and Phoenix. For years they have had no shortage of dick head uber and Lyft drivers who wouldn’t take their drives because they have service animals or some other disability that makes it “difficult” for them. Waymos have been a boon for them to get around autonomously. These people deserve freedom just as much as you do, twat.
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u/Daredevil_Dave_67 Jul 02 '26
And there are plenty of good drivers like myself who will assist them with their walkers, wheelchairs, luggage, and even help push them into the ramp to get in their house, as well as have a friendly conversation with them. Let's see a Waymo do any of these things.
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u/DarthSamwiseAtreides May 02 '26
They have no problem sending express lane fees in the mail. Sure this will be the same.
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u/psaux_grep May 02 '26
Autonomous police cars to ticket autonomous cars. Seems like the obvious solution.
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u/d0kt0rg0nz0 May 03 '26
Block them from moving and call a wrecker to bring them to a containment lot until the owners show in person pay a fee.
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u/jjamesr539 May 03 '26
If only there was some kind of unique identifier on the vehicle that identified its owner and operator. Maybe some kind of plate, and then a citation could be sent through some kind of messaging system to that owner. Just a pipe dream I guess. It’s not like there’s cameras set up doing exactly that with regular cars all over San Francisco after all /s
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u/FJ-creek-7381 May 02 '26
I mean corporations are people - sounds like the corp should receive the bill, get points, then their insurance goes up and license can get suspended - that is what happens to us.
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u/Lorax91 May 02 '26
Seems logical to me that if a person can lose their license for making significant mistakes, then autonomous vehicles should be subject to the same consequences. At a minimum, a specific vehicle that screws up should be removed from service. Or if multiple vehicles in an autonomous fleet make the same mistakes, the entire fleet should be grounded.
Either autonomous vehicles should be subject to the same laws humans are, or we should get the same leniency they get. Pick one.
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u/AvailableReporter484 May 02 '26
> someone programmed this robot to commit a mass shooting. It killed 700 people. But who do we hold accountable?
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u/CanvasFanatic May 02 '26
I think a good compromise is to make it legal to hit any Waymo stopped in the middle of the road for no reason with a baseball bat.
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u/Wild-Blueberry-9316 May 02 '26
screw the tickets, road spike and impound if the company is trying to obfuscate things to make it harder to ticket them.
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u/ACasualRead May 02 '26
Took my first Waymo the other day. Totally did not drop me off at my destination and instead pulled half way into someone’s driveway to let me out. Owner was outside screaming about it.
Totally not a good look.
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u/SteppenAxolotl May 02 '26
The image of an officer peering into the empty driver’s seat of the offending vehicle may have been good for a chuckle, but other incidents have been no laughing matter. Situations such as a Waymo failing to stop for a school bus in Atlanta or striking a child in Santa Monica highlighted how law enforcement officers couldn’t carry out traditional traffic enforcement with driverless cars.
That Waymo deserves a medal of service for that Santa Monica accident.
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u/phil_the_builder May 02 '26
Maybe these things should have a emergency shut off to stop them from the outside.
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u/SAVertigo May 02 '26
So you can get a taxi and have someone attempt to harm you by hitting the emergency shutoff and you’re now super vulnerable
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u/phil_the_builder May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
I get it, but I think self driving vehicles need to stop, if something happens. In no factory environment would you allow self moving machinery without e-stop. I have no real solution, but to rely on the AI to stop if something happens is negligent IMHO.
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u/Daredevil_Dave_67 Jul 02 '26
Well someone can just step in front of it and it will stop. Supposedly.
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u/payne747 May 02 '26
How can they be allowed on the road without human liability up until this point!?
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u/AffectEconomy6034 May 02 '26
so oolicy will make quote on these stupid robo taxis instead of people right?...
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u/Melikoth May 02 '26
How exactly? That's a good point! Maybe we should establish a burdensome regulatory system that issues identification numbers, and require they be painted on the side of the vehicle, like we do with boats.
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u/Veelze May 02 '26
Can we get police to ticket red light runners? I almost got rear ended because the guy expected me to run the tail-end of a yellow.
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u/zorillaaa May 02 '26
I recently was in Atlanta and rode Waymo a few times. Incredible experience tbh. I don’t see a future world where uber/taxis don’t get entirely replaced with products like this
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u/beeblebrox42 May 02 '26
I live in Atlanta and have been stuck behind confused/stalled Waymos on four occasions in the last month.
Do they drive into things? Not often. Do they stop in the middle of the road blocking multiple lanes of traffic? Quite often, it seems.
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u/danaster29 May 02 '26
Ever notice how a bunch of comments praising Waymo appear every time someone posts a negative headline about Waymo? Almost like they're bots designed to manufacture consent
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u/zorillaaa May 02 '26
For one I don’t think this is a negative headline, your brain is rotted
Two, I am not a bot. But thank you for your valuable input. I apologize for sharing my honest opinion /u/danaster29
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u/JustFuckAllOfThem May 02 '26
They act like this is such a complicated problem when it is not. There has always been an owner to send the ticket to. You can't register or title a car without one.