On the privacy front, DoT said that manufacturers’ privacy policies must explain how they collect, use, share, secure, audit and destroy data from vehicles, offering choices as to how personally identifiable information (PII) like geolocation, biometric and driver behavior data is accessed and used. If the vehicle is unable to make a confident decision, it alerts the driver to take control of the wheel. Two years later, the agency released rules governing the testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads. Among the contents of the guidelines is a new requirement for automobile manufacturers, tech companies and other firms involved in self-driving auto technology to submit a safety assessment letter to the NHTSA. And right now, for too many senior citizens and Americans with disabilities, driving isn’t an option. In fact, he suggests, the rate of fatalities as a result of distracted driving could even increase if the warnings in such semi-autonomous systems don’t improve.
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Deborah Hersman, president and CEO of the National Safety Council, said: “The [council] applauds the release of the Federal Automated Vehicle Policy from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration”.
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.
Tesla has since announced modifications so Autopilot relies more on radar and less on cameras, which it said were blinded by sunlight in the Florida crash.
“Automated vehicles have the potential to save thousands of lives, driving the single biggest leap in road safety that our country has ever taken”, said USA transportation secretary Anthony Foxx in a statement. States, he said, should stick to registering the cars and dealing with questions of liability when they crash.
But he said the federal guidelines for autonomous-vehicle technologies will have “significant impacts to commercial freight companies, drivers and customers, as well as safety and our environment”. Though companies are not required to follow the guidance – it is voluntary and does not carry the force of formal regulation – Foxx said he expects compliance. The flaws with the state’s initial draft regulations went beyond the ban on truly self-driving cars. Akin to this strategy, Intel also encourages the agency to invest a larger portion of its “innovation” grant funding in autonomous vehicles. That would be a departure from the agency’s historic self-certification system and might require action from Congress.
In a conference call with researchers, NHTSA officials insisted the policy will be proactive and will change when it needs to.
NHTSA has been striving to make the guidelines a concise framework, rather than a lengthy set of detailed standards and regulations. “So I don’t think that the issue for us is whether they’re coming or not”, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said on Boston Herald Radio last Wednesday.
“Make no mistake: If a self-driving vehicle isn’t safe, we have the authority to pull it off the road”, Obama said.
“We look forward to continued collaboration with NHTSA and other federal and state policymakers to further develop the national framework for safe and timely deployment that avoids a patchwork of requirements that could inhibit self-driving vehicle development and operations”, the coalition said.
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NHTSA has also changed its review process slightly, and plans to shorten the time it can take to rule on autonomy-related exemption requests to six months. We look forward to working with DOT/NHTSA and other federal and state policymakers to advance autonomous vehicles and usher in a zero accident future for consumers and businesses in the USA and around the world. And it’s not just in the way they could save us the time of driving around, according to Vasant Dhar at New York University’s Center for Data Science.
