Legal question about self-driving cars

[DetlefK]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by eppur_se_muova (a host of the Science group).

What would indeed happen if a self-driving car were to violate traffic-laws? (e.g. he only knows the laws that are programmed into him)

Not even an accident. Just speeding. Or parking in the wrong place.

Who would be ticketed?

The passenger, for not interfering with the law-breaking car?
The company, for not adequately programming the car?
The owner, for not installing the latest/correct patch?

[NV Whino]

1. Excellent question

But the fact that driverless cars are programmed to abide by those annoying little things that get us all stopped, it probably wouldn't happen. Something major is a different ball of wax.

[DetlefK]

2. How does a self-driving car know how fast it may drive?

Someone programmed that knowledge.

Now, what if there's a change in the speed-limit on this one road and the car doesn't know it?

Or what if the self-driving car parks somewhere where there's no parking between 9AM and 5PM, except on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays and except for deliveries, but only if those deliveries don't take longer than 5 minutes?

[NV Whino]

3. To be honest, I don't know how self driving cars work, but

There has to be some optical recognition stuff going on that sees red lights, stop signs and even informative signs.

Eventually, all that stuff will be programmed into the roadways, but for now, I'm betting it's optical.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. The driver would be ticketed, I think.

But they could sue the owner or manufacturer.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. How is this a Science Group post ?? Locking. nt