This is not how labor laws work. The role description needs to be fair. A employer cannot just shift all the blame to the employee. The employer needs to take the needed actions and provide the needed equipment and procedures so the employee can do her task.
But, let's see what the result of the trial is. I am not an expert and the trial will clarify this point.
Indeed, the employers are very much liable for negligence by their employees and its scope is much wider than labour laws. This is called Vicarious liability[1] in common law.
I'm not saying the company should be able to shift the blame to the employee, I'm saying they're both at fault. Labour Law in Australia does in fact recognise this and individuals can be held criminally liable for negligence on the job. I understand that this happened in the United States, but my intention is not to predict the outcome of the case, but to make a statement about who should be held liable in a just system.
Labor laws are irrelevant. They were grossly negligent in operating a vehicle, which is the domain of criminal, not labor, law.
Principal-agent aspects of criminal law may also provide liability for the employer, though apparently they haven't been charged. Which, to the extent they could be, is unfortunate because it is only employer liability, civil and/or criminal, that is likely to substantively effect the likelihood of recurrence, because while the individual is absolutely culpable, it's not the kind of behavior where individual criminal liability is likely to be an effective deterrent without better employer supervision, which won't happen unless she employer has a reason to pay for that cost.
The thing is that there are plenty of precedents for jobs that require staying alert behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle without supervision (e.g. taxi, bus, truck drivers). Whether the vehicle is equipped with safety/convenience technology is beside the point.
The taxi/bus isn't given a tablet with instructions to watch the tablet (monitoring the self driving), only to be accused later of not watching the road.
Are you saying this was the case here? Are you you familiar with the protocols used at the time or are you speculating?
I see e.g. cruise and waymo SDVs around SF with only one person on board. What of those?
My very layperson protocol would be "watch the road while the car is in motion, only use tablet when car is safely parked". My understanding is that SDVs store all the data it collects, so I see no reason to require operating a tablet while the vehicle is in motion. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Unless Cruise has changed recently, they require a primary and backup person in the car, and the rules seemed strict. I remember they were super serious about it, iirc you weren't allowed to talk to either of the drivers after you put your seatbelt on (or maybe it was after the car was on?).
SF is also an easier place to be watching an SDV in the sense that there's more happening to keep your mind occupied (weird intersections, construction, people doing stupid things). It's a lot easier to lose focus when you're watching a car drive itself around deserted highways in the middle of the night.
I can't say much about what their actual protocols are supposed to be, I can only offer my personal anecdata. I do occasionally see cruise cars around the Japan Town area with only one person in the car. They often park at the safeway across geary. The waymo cars, I see them roaming around closer to downtown, also with single driver, though they don't seem to concentrate in any particular area that I can tell. I also occasionally see unbranded SDVs, sometimes w/ two people, sometimes w/ one. Not sure which company those are from.
> SF is also an easier place to be watching an SDV
Well, from a regulatory perspective, one shouldn't be able to get away with saying "well I was not in a crowded area to keep me attentive, that's why the accident happened". I'd even argue that if the job involves looking at a tablet while the car is motion, then being in a crowded area would make things _more_ dangerous.
Previous articles mentioned that the driver has some tablet device(s) to watch, to monitor what's happening with the AI.
The last PR piece seems to omit that. Next piece maybe we will find out the driver was watching hulu on their phone on their lap... while reclassifying objects on the AI tablet also on their lap.
Ok, but what I'm curious is whether the monitoring/classifying/whatever was done in real time with the vehicle in motion, or after the fact. Presumably one would be able to do a far better job at whatever they were doing when they are able to play back/slow down/pause different data channels from a trip at will?
Because if the status quo is to poke at tablets in moving vehicles, how is anyone ok w/ cruise/waymo/whatever cars driving around SF?
> how is anyone ok w/ cruise/waymo/whatever cars driving around SF?
California DMV has shown a lot better oversight of self-driving than Arizona. They had deregistered several Uber owned vehicles in 2016 [1], and have some reasonably specific rules. It's much more OK in SF than AZ.
This is not how labor laws work. The role description needs to be fair. A employer cannot just shift all the blame to the employee. The employer needs to take the needed actions and provide the needed equipment and procedures so the employee can do her task.
But, let's see what the result of the trial is. I am not an expert and the trial will clarify this point.