[probdist]

They could have asked for George's middle name and the cost of compliance would be burdensome. It is not the rap but the ride that you can't beat.

[tptacek]

This list of requests is, for a self-driving car startup, indeed pretty close to simply asking for middle names.

[DannyBee]

THe funnier thing is if you search google for NHTSA special orders, you will find this is pretty much the nicest and simplest one they've issued in quite a while :)

[pnathan]

> It is not the rap but the ride that you can't beat.

I think that's the reason he's bailing - he doesn't have the lawyer crew, he doesn't want to play the law game - he just wants to create things.

[forgottenpass]

Risk analysis is not a "law game," it is engineering, and a fundamental part of building safety critical products. Software development has historically gotten away with ignoring risk because - outside of specialized domains - the worst of the worst case scenarios were broadly acceptable. But when a developer moves into those domains, the worst case changes from "oh no the website is down" to bodily harm. They should expect to step up their game.

Turning a risk analysis into a deliverable suitable for interfacing with federal regulatory bodies is actually fairly easy. You're just generating a report on engineering work you already did. It's only hard if you want to get away with not mitigating risks (or high levels of residual risk). Because if you document the risk, it serves as proof the engineering team knew about the risk when the product was brought to market.

[jacquesm]

Creating things that sit on the shelf unused?

[wglb]

These particular questions aren't a law game. They are straightforward outputs of good engineering practice.

There is some gap between just wanting to create things and to create things that impact personal body integrity. It is of some concern that in today's software engineering environment that this is even a question.