This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
... these updated regulations further demonstrate the state’s commitment to public safety
No it doesn't. Taking these vehicles, which are clearly not production ready, off the streets would. So now you have these effective 360 degree cameras, systematically roaming public streets, that are legally required to collect and report data on "safety related" incidents (which could be anything these days).
Does Elon pay the tickets?
If they would ticket the cars for driving without a licensed driver, I'd be OK with it.
They couldn't before?
You also need to have a Finnish style progressive fines relative to income, which would also extend to companies.
If fines scaled with wealth that might create an incentive for the police to harass rich people instead of poor people. It won't, because the police serve the wealthy, but it's a nice day fantasy.
We have this in Finland, some rich people have been fined over 200k for speeding. No particular targeting of rich people noted.
In the US, a portion of that fine goes back to the police departments. Giving them a financial incentive to give tickets.
If the fines went to anything except the people giving the fines, then it could work here. But we were so stupid to couple the two in the first place.
Technically? No. The problem is that the existing laws legally speaking all apply to the driver, and tickets likewise are all issued to the driver, which doesn't actually exist in this case. Cops were writing tickets and the company was paying them, but legally speaking it was a grey area and waymo could have disputed the tickets and there's a decent chance they would have won. This legislation removes the ambiguity.
Ah, corporations are people when donating for political causes and when ecxercising free speech, but not when driving a vehicle?
To put it more generally, corporations are people when it’s good to be a person, but not when it’s bad to be a person
Driverless cars are just full of ambiguities. Who’s liable when it kills someone; does anyone go to jail; do they have their license revoked? Do they get points on their license for all these tickets; cumulatively, or per car? If their license gets revoked (do they even have a license?) do you suspend the whole fleet, or just that “version” of the driver software?
These things do not belong on the road.
