California just put a price on an idea the tech industry sold as progress: the car that doesn't need anyone. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 1246, a bill championed by state Sen. Dave Cortese, which requires robotaxi companies to send local technicians when their vehicles crash, get stuck, block traffic or obstruct an emergency. If an autonomous vehicle blocks an emergency operation for more than 30 minutes after authorities request a technician, the fine can reach $10,000 per vehicle, according to Gizmodo and Hoodline. The rules take effect July 1, 2028.
The law didn't come from ideology. It came from accumulation: robotaxis blocking San Francisco streets on the Fourth of July, roughly 1,500 Waymo vehicles stalled during a blackout, and federal warnings about driverless cars interfering with police and firefighters. Every incident had one thing in common: when the system failed, there was nobody on the scene to respond.
That's what matters here. Not the car. The logic.
Removing the driver doesn't remove the responsibility
The promise of autonomy always has two parts, and only one gets advertised. The visible part is efficiency: nobody tired, nobody distracted, nobody drawing a paycheck. The invisible part is who pays when something goes wrong. For years, the practical answer was the firefighter who waits, the ambulance that has to turn around, the neighbor stuck at the corner. The cost was real; it was simply shifted onto people who never signed anything.
What the new law does is send the bill back to its owner. If your machine is blocking the road, you send a person. If you don't, you pay. That isn't punishing innovation; it's basic accounting. The same goes for artificial intelligence: delegating a task doesn't mean abdicating its consequences. The tool executes; whoever set it in motion answers for it.
And yet the temptation is universal. It's not just companies.
The robotaxi inside you
A lot of people live in autonomous mode. Routines nobody reviews, inherited commitments, decisions that "made themselves." As long as everything works, it feels like freedom: no need to think, the system keeps moving. But when the system stalls (a debt, a broken relationship, a job that falls through), the same question California asked shows up: who's coming to move this thing?
The uncomfortable answer is that if you didn't plan for someone to show up at that moment, nobody comes. You're left blocking the street with your hazard lights on while other people pay for your paralysis. Living on autopilot isn't freedom. It's being a vehicle waiting for someone else to come get it unstuck.
The question the industry dodged for years is simple: good for whom? The robotaxi was good for the operator, who saved on drivers. It wasn't good for the firefighter who had to wait. Every action has a price; the only real debate is who carries it. When you don't decide, someone decides for you, and almost never in your favor.
A promise without a referee breaks
Autonomous vehicle companies had long promised to solve these problems on their own. Better algorithms, better internal protocols. But self-regulation without a referee isn't control. It's a promise on company letterhead. Behavior changes when breaking the rules costs something, not when someone drafts a good intention.
The same applies to your personal life. Promising yourself that "this time it's for real" without a concrete consequence is writing a press release to yourself. The people who actually change aren't the ones with the most willpower. They're the ones who fine themselves: a public commitment, a deadline with a cost, someone who holds them accountable.
The machine isn't the culprit
It would be easy to read this as a story about clumsy machines. It isn't. The vehicle did exactly what it was programmed to do when facing uncertainty: stop. The problem is that nobody designed what happens after it stops. A machine doesn't rebel. It does what you rewarded, whether you looked or not. Systems don't have morals; they have incentives. If the incentive is to save on staff, the system will save on staff right up to the exact point where it costs someone else.
And when the cost becomes visible, whoever ignored reality pays all at once what they could have paid in installments. Ignoring reality gets expensive, because reality always collects, with interest and at the worst possible moment.
Autonomy means responsibility, not absence
There's a deep cultural confusion between freedom and the absence of oversight. People think being autonomous means answering to no one. It's the other way around. Real autonomy is the ability to answer for yourself without someone else having to come rescue you. An autonomous adult isn't someone who never gets stuck. It's someone who has already worked out who shows up when they do, and that someone is usually themselves.
Autonomy isn't permission. It's a responsibility someone has to take on.
Three practical questions, borrowed from the California law and applied to your life:
- What's your failure protocol? If your main income disappeared tomorrow, what happens in the first 72 hours? If you don't know, you don't have a plan. You have a hope.
- Who's your local technician? When something gets stuck, who physically shows up? If the answer is "someone," the answer is no one.
- How long do you block the road before you act? California set the limit at 30 minutes. You probably tolerate months of gridlock on decisions you know you have to make.
The PRAXMA mindset
The idea: Removing the driver doesn't eliminate responsibility. It just shifts it onto people who never signed anything, until someone forces it back.
— PRAXMA, Logic over emotion
The fact: California enacted SB 1246, which starting July 1, 2028, requires robotaxi operators to send local technicians and sets fines of up to $10,000 per vehicle that blocks an emergency for more than 30 minutes (Gizmodo, Hoodline).
PRAXMA's line: "Being autonomous doesn't mean nobody's driving you. It means someone answers when you stall, and that someone is you."
If you want to go further, we work through the question of who carries the cost of every decision Spanish only in depth.
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