Self-driving cars in California are reportedly immune from traffic tickets despite mounting accident reports involving the autonomous vehicles.
An NBC Bay Area report revealed that police are unable to ticket driverless cars due to a loophole within the Golden State’s law, which says that only drivers may be ticketed for a wrongdoing on the road.
“No citation for a moving violation may be issued if the [autonomous vehicle] is being operated in a driverless mode,” read an internal memo from San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott obtained by NBC.
The moving violations Scott referred to includes speeding, running a red light and reckless driving, though self-driving cars are still eligible to receive parking fines.
“Technology evolves rapidly and, at times, faster than laws or regulations can adapt to the changes,” Scott reportedly added.
An internal memo from the San Francisco Police Department obtained by NBC Bay Area revealed a loophole in California law that makes self-driving cars immune from moving traffic violations, like speeding. nadl2022 – stock.adobe.com
Representatives for the San Francisco Police Department didn’t immediately reply to The Post’s request for comment.
The San Francisco Standard said in a June report that a part of the rationale the town doesn’t cite self-driving cars for moving violations was that there wasn’t actually a driver to cite.
“Once you’re a police officer on the market in the sphere, and there’s a vehicle that has violated the vehicle code, which happens daily in San Francisco, who do you give the citation to?” Jeffrey Tumlin, director of transportation on the SFMTA, told the outlet.
“There may be additional work that should be done to make clear what happens when an autonomous vehicle breaks the law.”
Texas and Arizona, meanwhile — fellow testing grounds for self-driving vehicles from the likes of GM subsidiary Cruise, Tesla and Google’s Waymo — have already passed laws holding firms who operate autonomous vehicles answerable for any driving infractions.
California has yet to follow suit despite a string of concerning incidents involving self-driving cars.
In October, General Motors’ embattled Cruise self-driving cars were forced to stop operations after one in every of the autonomous vehicles mowed down a girl, who needed to be saved with the Jaws of Life. AFP via Getty Images
In October, a girl needed to be rescued with the Jaws of Life after she was mowed down on a San Francisco roadway by two cars, one in every of which was a Cruise autonomous vehicle.
The human-driven automobile that struck the lady fled the scene, and there have been no passengers contained in the Cruise automobile, leaving officials having to piece together what transpired.
For the reason that accident, which forced Cruise to suspend operations, it has struggled to remake itself while reducing costs within the meantime.
Last month, the corporate cut over 900 jobs, 1 / 4 of its workforce — a day after it confirmed that nine key leaders are not any longer with the corporate amid an ongoing investigation into the October crash.
Months prior, a self-driving Waymo automobile ran over and killed a small dog during a test drive in San Francisco.
“A test driver was present” in the driving force’s seat, however the vehicle’s automatic driving system (ADS) “was engaged in autonomous mode” in the course of the deadly accident on May 21, per an online DMV report.
Last month, Tesla issued a recall of nearly all its electric cars over mounting concerns in regards to the safety of its self-driving system, called “Autopilot.” AFP via Getty Images
As recently as last month, virtually every Tesla on the road was recalled over regulators’ concerns that its “Autopilot” system is unsafe, a part of a years-long National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation into Elon Musk’s cars.
Musk had been the largest public booster of the concept of the automobile doing the driving, first promising immediate “full self-driving” in 2016.
The Autopilot system allows Teslas to self-steer, speed up and brake, but needs a driver within the front seat. Tesla is updating the software but has insisted the system is protected.
Nonetheless, Austin, Texas-based Tesla has not gone so far as others, which have launched live trials on city streets of cars with empty driving seats.
