Posted on 10/01/2017 8:16:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Senate has agreed to pass legislation lifting regulations on manufacturers of self-driving cars. Full details will be announced the first week of October, but it's expected the bill will cover safety and manufacturing regulations as well as driver protection.
Paving the Way
United States roadways are one step closer to being traversed by driverless cars: on September 30, the Senate announced that it had reached an agreement to lift some of the regulations on manufacturers that made it harder to get self-driving cars on the road.
“While this Senate self-driving vehicle legislation still has room for further changes, it is a product of bipartisan cooperation we both stand behind,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who introduced the legislation, in a joint statement.
The original bill that Peters and Thune took to the Senate, known as the American Vision for Safer Transportation through Advancement of Revolutionary Technologies (AV START) Act, was broad-reaching. In addition to removing barriers to manufacture, the bill proposed enhanced safety oversight of manufacturers, as well as guidance for state and local research on traffic safety and law enforcement challenges. It proposed to strengthen cyber-security policies to protect the information and safety of drivers. The bill also included measures on automated trucking, consumer education, and protections for drivers with disabilities.
On October 5, the Senate will announce which provisions were retained in the approved legislation.
The bill is expected to utilize some provisions from a similar bill that was passed in the House of Representatives earlier in September. That bill allowed manufacturers to produce an initial load of 25,000 cars in the first year. After three years, if they can prove that AI vehicles are at least as safe as human-directed cars, that will increase to 100,000 annually.
Jobs and More
American policymakers and manufacturers alike have been hurrying to get aboard the self-driving train—so to speak. Around the country and the world, self-driving cars are rapidly multiplying. The UK will be testing “platoons” of driverless semi trucks by the end of next year. Uber already uses them to pick up passengers in Pittsburgh and Arizona, Lyft is introducing them in San Francisco, and the city of Sacramento is seeking to make their city a driverless car testing ground. Tesla CEO Elon Musk even believes that most cars in production will be autonomous within ten years.
Yet the legal framework still isn’t in place for this transportation revolution.
“Self-driving vehicles will completely revolutionize the way we get around in the future, and it is vital that public policy keep pace with these rapidly developing lifesaving technologies that will be on our roads in a matter of years,” said Senator Peters, in his statement on the original bill. He emphasized that the industry has the potential to create thousands of new jobs.
Given that approximately 93% of all accidents have been attributed to human error, the senators and others have emphasized that self-driving cars aren’t just a job creator or a cool way to get around—they could save millions of lives.
there will an untold number of accidents from this and they will be bad.
Why you ask?
The owner of the self-driving car will not wear a seat belt because he believes the car cannot have an accident.
Mark my words.
Just because something is possible to do, does not mean that it should be done.
35,092 vehicle accident deaths occurred in 2015.
How long will it take to save millions of lives ?
and our lovely pubs just go along with it...
“there will an untold number of accidents from this and they will be bad.”
No worries; I’m sure the Senate will pass new laws to provide immunity from liability to these captains of industry.
Of all the issues that this country is facing, this is what they’re working on????
The stupid is strong in the UniParty’s swamp.
Who would actually buy one of these?
The fewer bots on my car, the better. The last thing I want is for them to drive me around; the last thing.
They’re copying their European fellow travelers.
The sheep over there are bleating “driverless cars are the future” now. And they have no idea why.
A joke from a relative:
If Apple makes a self-driving car, would it have windows?
Exactly what they shouldn’t be doing. Nothing....infrastructure, insurance companies, drivers, law enforcement...nothing and nobody is ready for this.
“How long will it take to save millions of lives?”
A whole lot longer than they can imagine. When they started talking about electric cars about 10 years ago, they estimated to get them up to snuff, in the US alone, it was going to take until an estimated 2075. And that’s with our technology. And if we no longer purchase petroleum products, how is Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela going to eat when we no longer have the need?
There’s dominoes all over this one.
rwood
wait.. the senate finally gets around to passing something and this is all they could think of?!??!
This is idiotic
There are judges and cabinet members to confirm and a tax reform to work on
Traditional vehicles will be banned from public roadways, autonomous vehicles will be rented, not owned and your every travel will be documented in some database.
Wow! Thanks for brightening my day! {/SARCASM}(just in case ya missed it!) :)
They can make the vehicle refuse to operate if you’re not belted. Besides, trust in those things is going to be earned.
No doubt these cars will be involved in accidents. The vast majority of which will be operator driven vehicles causing accidents in the same way they do now. Robot car isn’t going to stop someone from rear ending you because they were fiddling with the radio heading into an intersection.
But I would bet any amount of money accident and injury rates will decline as the proportion of these vehicles grows. Not to mention wealth not flushed in broken windows.
We have pretty good stat collection on this:
2016: According to data released by the National Safety Council (NSC), in 2016 there were more than 40,000 traffic fatalities in the U.S. for the first time in 10 years. The NSC statistics show a 6 percent increase in auto crash deaths in 2016, and a 3 percent rise in the number of miles Americans drove, compared with 2015. NSC estimates that the cost of deaths, injuries and property damage attributed to crashes in 2016 totaled $432.5 billion, up 12 percent from 2015. Nearly 4.6 million people required medical treatment after crashes, an increase of 7 percent over 2015.
sorry I just don’t trust a computer to do my thinking for me.
and yes it is faster, but that doesn’t matter.
Probably all about the campaign money on this one.
Yeah, I can hear it now.......
“It was the Russians that hacked into my Cars computer, they caused my accident! I demand an investigation by performed.
35,092 vehicle accident deaths occurred in 2015.
How long will it take to save millions of lives ?
...
A long time. But 35,000 is a significant number. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do.
However, I can already tell that driverless technology will be held to a standard of perfection. So even if it cuts down on deaths by many thousands a year, the media and most people on FR will be screaming about any death caused by the technology.
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