Otherwise, federal officials have warned, the government will exercise its right under current regulations to pull them off the road.
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In somewhat contradictory fashion, officials also said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is examining whether it should have “pre-market approval” authority, in which the government inspects and approves new technologies like autonomous vehicles. “We look forward to working with [ regulators] and state policy makers to produce a consistent, nationwide approach that ensures these vehicles are brought to market without unnecessary restrictions or delay”.
Cars of the future will be self-driving automobiles: there will be no one behind the wheel steering, but rather technology will take us from point A to point B.
Any time a disruptive new technology comes along, it’s wise to put smart regulations in place that protect the general public. But it also exposed a hole in MA law: It does not say anything about self-driving technology, leaving law enforcement and MA officials struggling to say whether a fully driverless vehicle would even be allowed today on the state’s streets. The first signs of that already are visible, with GM investing $500 million in ride-sharing company Lyft in 2016, with future plans including the introduction of GM’s driverless cars to Lyft’s fleet.
An Uber driverless Ford Fusion drives down Smallman Street on September 22 in Pittsburgh.
More intense scrutiny came this summer after the disclosure that Joshua Brown was killed in Florida when his Tesla Motors auto, with its Autopilot system engaged, crashed into a tractor-trailer at highway speed.
Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14th) and Transportation Committee Chairman Anthony Beal (9th) have introduced a short-sighted ordinance that would ban driverless vehicles, defined as those that have “the capability to drive a vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator”. Strickland is also a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The country saw 35,000 road fatalities past year, almost all of which were due to driver mistakes.
Tesla plans as soon as this week to download new software to its cars.
With the regulation issue pumping up again in several states, NHTSA reiterates the call for safety assurance.
Semiautonomous driving systems, the policy says, must take into account the fact that distracted or inattentive drivers may fail to retake control, and the systems could be considered “an unreasonable risk to safety and subject to recall”. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the new software will include improvements to Autopilot that could have avoided the fatal accident.
“People around those cars can see them coming”, Steinfeld said. Business Insider reported that a video shows the driver’s hand on the wheel. Humans cost money to employ and tend to be unpredictable drivers, making calculations far more hard for other self-driving cars.
Likewise, the rooftop sensors on autonomous cars will become smaller and cheaper; some won’t even be needed as “perception software” gets better at seeing and interpreting the world outside the vehicle, Steinfeld said.
The state task force will now use the federal guidelines to craft its own rules, but PennDOT Secretary Leslie Richards said in the statement that the new federal policy “does not impact testing now underway in Pittsburgh”. Automakers and any other interested parties have 60 days to comment to the Transportation Department, a period that will not end until after the presidential election on November 8.
Some consumer advocates have objected to the administration’s decision to pursue voluntary guidelines instead of drafting safety rules and standards that are legally enforceable. “We think it can help with congestion, we think it can make transportation cheaper and more accessible for the vast majority of people”.
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While the technology is still in its infancy, transparency of both the regulatory process and how the cars themselves work is essential.
