How Do You Give a Ticket To a Driverless Car?

FatLittleMonkey writes "New Scientist asks Bryant Walker Smith, from the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, whether the law is able to keep up with recent advances in automated vehicles. Even states which have allowed self-driving cars require the vehicles to have a 'driver,' who is nominally in control and who must comply with the same restrictions as any driver such as not being drunk. What's the point of having a robot car if it can't drive you home from the pub while you go to sleep in the back?"

Comments

All in good time

[PRMan]

We are at the early stages. Look at the laws from the first few years of automobiles. You had to walk in front waving a lantern. And go slow enough that the cop on horseback could give you a ticket. What's the point of a car with laws like that?

Re:Extra safety

[icebike]

You must never have played a game with AI.

Here is a hint, we are actually very bad are creating smart machines. A 9 YO would be a more intelligent driver any most super computers.

In relation to the present discussion, I'd have to say that Google's driver-less cars pretty much put the lie to that statement.
In August 2012, Google announced that they have completed over 300,000 autonomous-driving miles accident-free, typically have about a dozen cars on the road at any given time. Not explicitly stated in their announcement was how often the driver had to take command.

Further, the summary above may be wrong, because the Nevada law also acknowledges that the operator will not need to pay attention while the car is operating itself, which implies the State has no reasonable expectation of holding the driver responsible for accidents.