The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a wide-ranging “Federal Automated Vehicles Policy” with a view to accelerating the development and adoption of automated, or self-driving, vehicles. The Government has already issued their own guidelines on autonomous cars, including demands for thorough testing before being allowed on a public road. But we have to get it right.
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The paper, termed “Federal Automated Vehicles Policy”, provides regulatory guidelines for today’s automated vehicles, but acknowledges that the trend is only just beginning.
The guidelines include testing, backup systems in the case of a self-driving computer failure, and recording and sharing data. The agency’s administrator, Mark Rosekind, has said he wants the guidelines to be flexible to keep pace with innovation. The guidelines state that reporting these safety assessments to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is voluntary, but could become mandatory as the DOT develops formal autonomous vehicle regulations. Safety advocates have been pushing for stronger federal guidance regarding vehicle automation. The DMV is planning to release revised rules “in the coming weeks”, according to an official statement, which also mentioned that the agency is soliciting comments at a public workshop October 20 in Sacramento. How will the government, both local and federal, handle a line of cars that essentially drive themselves?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) now estimates that over 20 percent of recalled vehicles go unrepaired and has long strived to improve those rates. The department plans to update the policy within one year, or “sooner if necessary and appropriate”, according to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx’s introductory message to the policy.
But technology companies will probably bristle at having to share data after an accident involving a self-driving auto, said Katie Thomson, former senior counsel at the Department of Transportation and FAA and now a partner at the law firm Morrison & Foerster. But NHTSA figures also show that the number of fatalities in accidents where distracted driving-the result of, say, texting on a cell phone or fiddling with the vehicle stereo-was cited as a reason have risen by 8.8 percent year-on-year, from 3,197 to 3,477.
Tesla’s driver-assistance features, which the company calls Autopilot, have been under intense scrutiny in the wake of a fatal crash in Florida May 7. “This new policy comes with a lot of bark, but not enough bite”, Marta Tellado, President and CEO of Consumer Reports, said in a statement. The coalition said in a press release that it welcomed the new policy because it made the rules standard across the country and also “supports rapid testing and deployment in the real world”.
President Barack Obama wrote an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette saying automated vehicles have the potential to dramatically reduce the number of people who die on the roads. The California DMV, the state entity charged by the Legislature in Sacramento with developing the state’s autonomous vehicle regulations, released draft regulations at the end of 2015 which have been the subject of intense scrutiny from academia and industry.
Honda’s (NYSE:HMC) American Honda said it “welcomes NHTSA’s leadership in providing federal guidance regarding on-road usage of connected and automated vehicles”.
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Self-driving cars have been in the news regularly since Google and others announced their development in 2012, but last week their development took a huge step for the first time in the U.S. States will also have the authority to regulate vehicle insurance and liability, meaning insurance policies and liability for self-driving vehicles may vary from state to state.
