But will the courts see it that way. We already see that it is difficult to hold any human in Waymo responsible when their cars fail to obey traffic regulations.
A human at Waymo would likely not be found responsible, except if actual negligence or intent could be traced to that person. Waymo the corporation would be responsible, if their vehicles caused damage or injury. For traffic violations, presumably they could be fined, or even their permission to operate could be revoked if there are persistent problems.
For an example of how that plays out with a malicious corporation, look up how much Fed Ex and UPS pay in parking fines/tickets in NYC.
Urban myth is that a previous version of the ticket paperwork required that the vehicle manufacturer be accurately filled in, and this was one of the reasons for UPS trucks being so plain/unmarked, and since that could not be derived from the (lack of) badging or the registration paperwork (which version for trucks did not have the matching entry requirement), UPS didn't have to pay tickets while other services did.
UPS trucks are custom-built for UPS, and they are destroyed at EOL, not sold off. So, safe to assume any UPS truck you see is owned and operated by UPS.
Yes, but UPS is not the manufacturer, and the version of the story I was told noted that they specifically retained a lawyer to argue that the tickets need not be paid because the manufacturer field was not correctly filled out (why NYC city police weren't able to subpoena that and then inform all their officers of the the name of a manufacturer for a particular VIN was not a part of the story).
Judges usually don't take kindly to arguments on technicalities when the facts of the matter are clear (UPS truck, licence # and VIN matching UPS registration and ownership). I'm surprised they prevailed.
Maybe they didn't --- it was presented to me as an urban myth, and I've never really liked the idea, and it seems that instead, there is a "Stipulated Fine program", which allows large companies like UPS to waive the right to contest tickets in exchange for agreeing to pay a preset, reduced amount per offense.
I live in a rural area and have only seen a Waymo a few times when travelling for work. Does Waymo require the user to have a driver's license? If they did, and get agreement of responsibility, that's one thing, but generally if not wouldn't it be Waymo's responsibility for bad programming or broken devices?
They don’t need a license and you are not supposed to touch the controls, so I don’t really see how you would be responsible. Waymos do seem to break traffic laws every once in a while, and I always wonder if mine will get pulled over and what will happen there.
The human isn't the one responsible for the traffic violation, Waymo is. Could you give an example where a Waymo committed a traffic violation and they weren't cited?
So they were cited. So what? When you are extremely wealthy fixed penalties become simply part of the cost of doing business. Now if the fine were a substantial fraction of income it might make some sense, as is done for speeding fines in Scandinavia.
But unless you hold the chief executive and the principal investors personally liable the commons will be exploited always. Fines are supposed to correct one's behaviour by making one suffer and that does not happen if you fine a corporation unless the fine is large enough to affect the top management and the investors; this only happens if the fine is so large as to risk destroying the company.
