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A new bill is being written with input from both the House and Senate in the hopes of speeding the introduction of self driving vehicles on the roads.
Similar legislation last year (the SELF DRIVE Act in the House and the 'AV START Act' in the Senate) failed to pass even though amended repeatedly in response to Democrat
raised objections that it didn’t do enough to address safety concerns. The hope is that with Democrats now in control of the House, a bill can be crafted from the start that addresses those concerns.
The new bipartisan legislation will also address
what these vehicles look like in the future, allowing for automakers to manufacture vehicles without steering wheels, gas, and brake pedals so long as the Department of Transportation exempts them from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).
Movement on this front was unexpected considering that
the AV industry has mostly dialed down its efforts in Washington. According to Politico, lobbying on driverless cars dropped 35 percent between the end of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019.
Perhaps due to focusing on technical challenges.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 29 2019, @02:21AM (10 children)
Try. Fail.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better next time.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 29 2019, @02:48AM (9 children)
Yes, but politixheads need the illusion it was them that made it happen, technical challenges be damned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 29 2019, @02:59AM (8 children)
The bit that caught my eye was :
Which seems to imply that legislation doesn't get worked on unless some industry or other is paying for it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 29 2019, @03:03AM (2 children)
Are you surprised? The legislative session is short, who's got time to write bills? Lobbyists, that's who.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 29 2019, @03:56AM (1 child)
Not surprised, just disappointed.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 29 2019, @11:59AM
Disappointment is the biggest part of learning about how our governmental systems work. They really should start teaching the disappointment phase around middle school - definitely before voting age.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 29 2019, @03:45AM (4 children)
Yes, but, one step further... why doesn't the AV industry lobby as much as in previous years?
Maybe it's time for politicos to offer some incentive to boost those lobby efforts?
I don't know, like tax concessions or... letting some carnage be free in some US cities?
(large green grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Monday July 29 2019, @05:01AM (1 child)
Maybe just common sense? After a few of these bills being passed around congress they finally realized that there is no way anyone is going to pass legislature in America exempting for profit companies from wrongful death liability. And the accountants were asked to tabulate how much they would have to charge per vehicle if the manufacturer had to pay for every dent and every death that car caused over its lifetime.
As long as the legislation never gets passed, it will be possible to pay some insurance holder to sleep in the vehicle for half of minimum wage.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 29 2019, @12:05PM
In 2009 I approached an insurer about basic liability coverage for operation of a 6lb drone for the purposes of aerial mapping. They came back with a quote somewhere in the range of $25K per year per drone in operation, with provisos for fully trained operators, etc. Combine that with the legal restrictions in place at the time and the only people willing to engage with drone operation were law enforcement who basically didn't give a shit about liability or legal ramifications when they were using the real-time drone imagery to reduce life safety risk for their officers during no-knock warrant service on drug operations.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @10:06AM (1 child)
Politicians that vote to put automated killmobiles on the roads aren't likely to get re-elected next time, no matter how much bribe money lobbyists give them.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 29 2019, @11:23AM
Don't be naive. You think the Silly Valley representatives would lose anything if they vote a bill that lets automated killmobiles free to roam in Chicago? I reckon quite the contrary will happen. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @03:12AM (1 child)
I follow several auto industry trade magazines/journals. After a few years of rosy and often ridiculous predictions, in the last few months some doubt about the autonomous future has crept into editorials and articles. With the exception of Musk/Tesla, I get the impression that the word has finally gotten through to the PR flacks (and the VC's too?) that this is a very hard problem and it's going to roll out slowly, initially in very limited areas.
Meanwhile, there have been a couple of bits of real (not vapor) news recently,
https://www.autonomousvehicleinternational.com/news/legislation/bosch-and-daimler-set-to-launch-fully-autonomous-valet-service-in-stuttgart.html [autonomousvehicleinternational.com] [autonomousvehicleinternational.com]
If you own a Mercedes with the correct options, you can use a smart phone to hand your car off to an automated parking garage, where the car and garage work together to get the car parked/retrieved. Conveniently the parking structure serves the Mercedes-Benz Museum, but they are looking to expand to other sites.
In the Mercedes article there is a reference to "SAE Level 4" -- the SAE definitions for different amounts of driver assistance were recently updated and are somewhat more detailed than the earlier version:
https://www.sae.org/news/press-room/2018/12/sae-international-releases-updated-visual-chart-for-its-%E2%80%9Clevels-of-driving-automation%E2%80%9D-standard-for-self-driving-vehicles [sae.org] [sae.org]
(page down for the annotated chart).
Now we wait to see what the hype artists will start overselling next.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 29 2019, @05:37AM
IMO, we are several decades away from reliable, fully autonomous vehicles. Building a vehicle today with no driver controls at all is criminally stupid. It's going to take a few disasters to convince lawmakers of that, though. We need to re-introduce Murphy to the decision makers. There are pages and pages of Murphy's laws and corolaries available to peruse on the internet. But, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and probably at the most inconvenient of times.
Imagine if Hurricane Katrina had been dealt with, with mostly autonomous vehicles. Then, imagine that something knocked out 25%, or 50%, or even 100% of those vehicles. Like, maybe a bad update that had been scheduled at the most inopportune time during the evacuation? Wow - millions of vehicles suddenly just die, leaving people stranded in the lowest of the lowlands, watching the waters rise around them.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday July 29 2019, @06:36AM (5 children)
From TFA:
Hey Congress, stay in your lane! States and their DMVs regulate the roads. Not everywhere wants to be like Arizona with robot cars mowing down pedestrians.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 29 2019, @10:12AM (3 children)
Actually, the federal DOT already claims jurisdiction when it comes to "standards". You don't see individual states licensing class 8 trucks to run up and down the highways with hydraulic brakes, do you? That's because the feds have mandated that class 8 trucks have air brakes. Hydraulics was outlawed long, long ago, because the flow of oil is too slow.
The feds set a nationwide speed limit after the oil crisis, remember? When they revoked that 55 MPH speed limit, they didn't tell the states that they HAD to raise their limits.
Commercial drivers today have to get a federally approved CDL. Old state's driver's licenses are no longer any good.
The feds have jurisdiction, and if you challenge any part of their jurisdiction, you'll be threatened with highway funds being withheld.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2019, @03:17PM (1 child)
That does NOT sound like the feds have jurisdiction. It sounds like they make the states an offer that is too good to refuse.
When Lucifer was cast out of heaven down to Earth, theologians debate whether he landed in Florida or Texas.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 29 2019, @04:15PM
It's kind of like congress. They control the purse strings, which gives them authority over every aspect of government.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Monday July 29 2019, @06:53PM
Federal jurisdiction only goes so far, and big trucks are prohibited on many local roads. Sure, the feds can try to over reach. But the fact that this didn't become law indicates that federal power has political limits. Even if it did pass, the Supreme Court would probably also get to review it at some point.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 29 2019, @03:25PM
Not everywhere. But like-minded states see the benefits of yielding to corporate campaign contributions, and thus are not be opposed to have self crashing cars mowing down pedestrians.
More data can be recorded.
Elon Musk says that every failure is actually a success. [evannex.com] More data is gathered.
When Lucifer was cast out of heaven down to Earth, theologians debate whether he landed in Florida or Texas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @06:09PM (1 child)
remember kids, only corporations can kill legally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @08:31PM
So incorporate yourself today!
https://www.upcounsel.com/how-to-incorporate-yourself [upcounsel.com]