[msb-alumni] Trump administration pushing to ease rollout of driverless cars and trucks
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2018 11:37:51 -0400
BlankTrump administration pushing to ease rollout of driverless cars and trucks
. Michael Laris.
The Trump administration on Thursday wrapped trucks into its updated driverless
vehicle policy, saying it will "no longer assume" that a commercial motor
vehicle driver has to be a human or that a trucker - or anyone
else - necessarily needs to be in the cab. The administration said it would
work
to ease the federal process for exempting trucks and other vehicles from
existing safety standards that might inhibit the use of automation, as long as
companies can make the case that their vehicles are likely to achieve "an
equivalent level of safety. Federal officials also announced a joint research
effort, by the departments of Transportation, Labor, Commerce and Health
and Human Services, to study the "workforce impacts" of driverless vehicles.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said she remains "extremely concerned"
about the impact increased automation will have on the nation's workforce. And
transportation officials said they would seek ways to eliminate federal,
state and local impediments to the deployment of driverless vehicles more
broadly, which they said will bring economic and safety benefits. The updated
federal "guidance" now covers buses, transit and trucks in addition to cars,
and
it remains voluntary, putting the onus for safety on the companies developing
the technologies rather than government regulation. The guidance, dubbed
Automated Vehicles 3.0, continues to call for companies to voluntarily describe
why their vehicles are safe enough to be on public roads, though so far only
four of the scores of companies active in the field have made those assessments
public. The Transportation Department's updated approach does make a nod to
recent high-profile crashes and what officials acknowledged is skepticism about
autonomous vehicles among a broad swath of the population. A top federal
transportation official said the government hopes companies will give
"consideration"
to providing information on how they train and monitor their safety drivers.
The
administration plans to launch new pilot programs to work with states
and industry, and federal officials said one such effort by the National
Highway
Traffic Safety Administration could eventually lay the groundwork for
possible new regulations. Legislation on self-driving cars has been stalled in
the Senate, and states have taken different tacks. Arizona has taken a more
laissez-faire approach, and California has required tighter oversight of
driverless testing and operations in the state. A key holdup has been skepticism
among some senators and others about whether states would be excluded from
their
traditional roles overseeing drivers, now that drivers don't have to be
human. "There's wariness about the federal government's regulatory commitment
[and] willingness to police the companies," said Bryant Walker Smith, an
assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina and a driverless
policy expert. "Even more than the distrust in the technology, it's distrust
in the companies. . . . And it's even a distrust in the administrative ability
of government to regulate, to act as a check. The updated automated vehicle
policy says the Transportation Department "will modernize or eliminate outdated
regulations that unnecessarily impede the development of automated vehicles"
and argues that "conflicting State and local laws and regulations surrounding
automated vehicles create confusion, introduce barriers, and present compliance
challenges. The 80-page policy document does not catalogue all the specific
regulations officials seek to eliminate or the local regulations said to create
problems. But Smith said he was struck by the Transportation Department's
effort
to "give a green light to truck automation. The issue was such a "political
hot potato" that it was largely avoided in the Senate bill, he said. "Truck
automation could be an area where there is some active preemption of state
and local laws, especially if there are some states that are more resistant to
truck automation. I can see something of a showdown," Smith said. Driverless
industry advocates say there are numerous common-sense changes that could be
made in the field, such as getting rid of a requirement that vehicles have
a steering wheel, even when being driven by computers using cameras and lasers.
Such changes would allow ambitious redesigns of vehicles and could spur
a radical rethinking of what cars look like and what people do in them.
Automakers and tech firms have proposed building rolling motels, restaurants and
workspaces, or making vehicles that can move more people more efficiently and
safely and help ease clogged roads. But industry advocates say those efforts
will be stymied by antiquated rules. Some safety groups say the federal policy,
and the regulatory changes that may result from them, could introduce new
dangers. The policy "will not assure the public that unproven, unreliable and
unsafe" autonomous vehicles are kept off the roads, according to Advocates
for Highway and Auto Safety, which represents consumer and safety groups and
insurance companies. Without "real oversight" from the U.S. Transportation
Department and "minimum performance standards" for autonomous vehicles "the
public will be left defenseless. . . . Unfortunately, today's unenforceable
guidelines do little to prevent more deaths and injuries from happening. Uber
said it will soon join Waymo, General Motors, Ford and Nuro, which makes
a self-driving vehicle for delivering goods, in offering a voluntary safety
assessment.
Other related posts:
- » [msb-alumni] Trump administration pushing to ease rollout of driverless cars and trucks - Steve
