Scarbo

https://www.outsideonline.com/2279676/license-kill

canklecat

Yup. Too much emphasis on individual rights to drive without commensurate emphasis on personal responsibility and liability.

Preaching to the choir, though. We're already converts. The rest can't and won't be converted unless or until they spend some time on two wheels pedaling through the same streets.

Chris0516

Ditto to the article.

providencebikes

Calling for more government restrictions is un american we cant run to the government to fix our problems thats just puttin a cheap band aid on a cracked damn ...

Dave Cutter

We won't have to wait too long..... until autonomous cars become not just an option.... but the LAW. Once society becomes fully aware of the safety on machine/computer/autonomous driving vehicles.... human driven vehicles will be outlawed for safety's sake.

Of course.... with bicycles being strictly human driven.... that might not work out so well for us cyclists.

02Giant 

prathmann

I doubt driving will be outlawed, at least for many decades. But I would expect the availability of autonomous cars to lead to much less leniency for those who disregard traffic laws. Currently judges and juries are very reluctant to take away someone's privilege to drive since it's viewed as almost a necessity to function in today's society. Once use of autonomous vehicles becomes a viable option I expect that reluctance to vanish.

rydabent

Unfortunately any laws that try to correct human behavior are usually connected with huge unnecessary fines. Those laws just result in B'crats getting more of our hard earned money to spent the way they want to.

Dave Cutter

That reluctance you mention does NOT exist everywhere.

wphamilton

I agree and look forward to that - in fact, when the technology matures we may see (I think "likely to see") that in an accident involving an autonomous vehicle the human driver will be presumed at fault. I'd very much like to see that happen, because autonomous vehicles will drive legally, and the common excuse that "everyone does it" will no longer hold valid.

I-Like-To-Bike

You sure of that? With software or hardware or management from organizations with the ethics demonstrated by Uber, Tesla, Apple and VW, and that the vehicles' software instructions and hardware will be impervious to user alteration?

ptempel

Are you hinting at a new "performance chip mod" for my Google car? I'm sure that and more can be hacked and done. Back OT, I do agree some revamp of the driver licensing process needs to be done. And some extra technology could be used to prevent folks driving with suspended or revoked licenses. I just don't know how effective it might be. I can think of two scenarios that could be easily circumvented (smart keyfob and fingerprint for the engine to start). Maybe just change the law to make it a felony for the truck driver case of hitting and killing someone.

Ninety5rpm

Terrific writing, as usual.

Skipjacks

I agree. Calling to federalize driver's licenses? What was the last thing the federal government did well? The Hoover Dam is considered a a bright success story for the feds, and even then something like 15 guys died doing it. That's what the feds call a win!

All because NY laws are stupid? It's not any other state's fault that NY can't charge an unlicensed driver with vehicular manslaughter after killing a kid. NY needs to fix it's law, not force the rest of us to some inane federal scheme because NY can't get it's poop in gear.

And if there were federal driver's licenses, this guy still would have have driven a truck on a suspended one. And still would have killed the same kid.

That's assuming his licensed was even suspended in the first place under a federal system that was tracking 300,000,000 licensed drivers and trying to keep that straight.

wphamilton

Fairly sure, yes. That's what I do professionally (software development). You?

I-Like-To-Bike

I read the news. Do professional software developers really always produce fool-proof/hacker proof software for management that never would wink, wink at shortcuts or deviations that might give them a competitive advantage or boost in the bottom line, on software that always works as promised and expected and never fails or has glitches? Same rate of perfection for the interface with the hardware, and for hardware always responds as programmed by the software. Wow, who knew?

Perhaps you should read this article about a $25 Billion Dollar fraud https://fortune.com/2018/02/06/volksw...dal-penalties/; bottom line: "It was all a software-conjured mirage."

Believe it or not, some business organizations are not run by paragons of virtue and honesty and their software people knew what they were doing, after all they knew who was buttering their bread. Read any article about Uber past(?) management practices for more of the same level of ethics.

wphamilton

You refer to the VW emissions scandal? That's not actually a tech failure, nor from a hack.

We do take measures to ensure security of the software, and data. Primarily that means securing access through a network, and also physical access to data devices. When the autonomous technology is mature (as I specified from the original post), you may expect that the code is encrypted and difficult to physically access.

Architecture and code are designed with security in mind, scanned for every known vulnerability, tested against hacker tools, patched; it's far too involved to really go into here, even being involved in the software engineering side rather than infosec (I'm not an infosec expert). No, professional software developers don't put in back doors for management, themselves, or anyone else. Not when you're dealing with sensitive data or applications. Even the federal intelligence wanting decryption keys (which you probably include in "back doors") is met with resistance. Hacking is likely the lesser of concerns I would have about autonomous driving software.

I would expect that in any accident, that the telemetry information would be available, which will be checked against the software's responses, and the software hash code will be checked to ensure against alterations. My estimation is that someone altering the program or data, to shift blame in a court or to make an accident more likely, is an insignificant possibility.

I-Like-To-Bike

Correct, the criminal activity wasn't some outsider hacking VW code or its vehicles,
the software was designed by the company's software engineers to cheat and produce deceptive results right from the get go; IOW software designed to produce illegal results in order to get a competitive advantage. The only failure as far as the manufacturer and software designers were concerned was that they got caught.
The issue isn't just accident investigations but rather your expectation that autonomous vehicles will always drive legally, and the common excuse that "everyone does it" will no longer hold valid. Do you presume that they can be programmed to never fail to yield when appropriate, never hinder traffic, never unexpectedly stop or slow down in traffic, never drive too fast (or slow) for conditions and recognize every possible hazard that they might encounter and always act appropriately because they are programmed to be "legal"?

Milton Keynes

I can't believe that in NY driving while suspended is a misdemeanor until your 10th time getting caught. Here in my state, I think it only takes 3 times and you get a habitual violator status on your record and it becomes a felony. Been a while since I worked in that job so my memory might be a bit fuzzy, but it was something like that.

At any rate, licensing is a joke. When you take the test to renew your license you also get the answer book, so it's easy to find all the right answers, and nobody should get less than 100% correct. That is, when they actually require you to take the test. The last time I renewed my license a few years back I didn't even have to test.

genec

Not a call for more government restrictions... just some decent training and acknowledgement that the roads do not in fact belong to automobiles.

I’ve said it many times before... road use and ethics should be taught in public schools... road use is after all a lifetime activity... far more than say algebra.

Lower grades should start with road basics and how to ride a bike. Middle grades should move on to riding a bike in traffic, and the history of roads. High school should cover the responsibilities and ethics of road use and driving instruction.

Every driver should understand all of this... well beyond the cheesy 40 hour quick drivers ed classes that now prevail and emphasize “keep up with traffic... “

wphamilton

Now you are in the more reasonable realm. It's not possible for a vehicle to remain in literal compliance of all motor vehicle code in all possible situations. So the literal answer to your question is "No". However, I don't see that as a strong objection.

I have every confidence that an autonomous vehicle will conform to traffic statutes in the most logical, predictable fashion and abrogate those only when necessary to avoid a collision or some other higher priority event - much more so, than a human driver. And why not? The software will not be impacted by ulterior factors, and it will drive without ego, both of which are rare among human drivers. Control is better, analysis of the decision tree will be superior. Faster, more precise, as eventually happened with expert systems in Chess, in Go and so on. Attention will be unwavering. Regarding detection and evaluation of external objects, we're not there yet IMO but I don't see any reason why, eventually, that will also not be superior to human drivers.

Because of this, it will be natural (inevitable, in my opinion) that law enforcement and traffic courts will evaluate the cause of accidents more on the side of the human driver, and the fact that autonomous vehicles are operating more strictly according to traffic code will weigh heavily. In fact, the presumption until shown otherwise is that if any law was violated, it wasn't by the software. I'm not saying that the software is always right and never at fault, but I AM saying that it will become the base line assumption. I think that will force human drivers to be more respectful of the law, and take fewer chances, knowing that speeding, failure to yield and so forth will probably cause them to lose the battle when an accident ensues.

02Giant 

I don't believe this is a consideration of Judges and/or Juries. There are currently many modes of transportation available to those without a license.

genec

Not in some more rural locations... this is where judges often grant “driving to work” exceptions... that may be violated by the offender... hence the “driving while license is suspended.”

Maelochs

it is unfortunate .... why? There are not many ways to penalize people for not playing by the rules .... would you prefer jailing people who run red lights? Maybe go all Saudi Arabia and cut off the hands of people who get three speeding tickets in three years?

Cyclists who break the law? Easy, cut off their legs.

Much better than making people pay money.

And yeah, the money goes to government ... and yeah, a lot of them are crooks. And some of them are cops, teachers, firefighters, and the guys who build the bike lanes they are adding to our roads.

So the simple solution is .... Don't Break the Freaking Law.

Explain please .... why are those fines "unnecessary"? Because you got caught and got angry because it cost so much?

atbman

Absolutely! Just think, if a more restrictive law was in operation when this merely misdemeanouring driver killed a 13 year old boy on a bike, he might have been fined, who knows, several hundred unnecessary dollars. Oh, woe and despair!

Alternatively, you could adopt the UK procedure and take the vehicle off the road, and hammer the idiots who employed him as well as the driver. But that would put money into the hands of the B'crats (sic) who might do things we wouldn't like - oh horrors!. A driver who had had his licence revoked 9 times would not be on the road, but in prison.