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.
A lot freepers grew up driving and riding in cars before the seat belt era. Apparently it’s a marvel to you that any of us managed to survive.
The only people I have heard from who think autonomous vehicles are a good idea have been the hucksters who plan to sell them. Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
The people designing this software are way beyond the comprehension of even half of the bell curve of humanity. Think about most of the people behind a keyboard somewhere, and how incredibly few could put together the devices on the other side of it.
It's not misanthropy. I wish the best for my fellow man, that's why I want to see this automated for those demonstrably and woefully unsuited to this simple task.
I was reminded of this thread today when I saw the look of the driver behind me's eyes (in my review mirror) when only his computer controlled anti lock brakes prevented his dumbass from plowing into me. I don't know what he was looking at before I was forced to stop. I only know he saw me far too late to stop in a reasonable manner, because he was maintaining no awareness of his surroundings and the fact the right lane of this stretch of six lane roadway is guaranteed to back up one quarter to one half of a mile every single weekday at 8am and 5pm.
/endrant
You’re assigning godhood to mere human beings you derided as “meat bags” in a previous post. With all due respect, I have to question your sanity now.
Half the population has an IQ below 100. The people writing software for self driving vehicles are one or two standard deviations removed from them. I don't equate higher competence to godhood, but my life experience gives me a lot more confidence in software than people with IQs below 100 that can't pull their eyes off their phone while they drive. Or that drive drunk. Or fall asleep. Or go too fast in the rain. Or focus on the radio at just the wrong moment. Or a few million other dumb reasons people wreck cars and injure and kill innocent people EVERY year.
The status quo is like inflicting the casualties of the Vietnam war on the country EVERY year. Madness that anyone doesn't want to see it improved.
Aberrant behavior is not related to intelligence quotient—if indeed that is related to anything. And again, automation is not foolproofing.
A few decades of observation on the planet has taught me stupid people do stupid things in higher preponderance. Do you not see the distracted drivers around you on the road, or are you too busy being distracted yourself to notice?
No one is suggesting 'foolproof' anyway, merely improvement over a terrible, terrible status quo that you seem fine with when no one should be.
Oh, there are certainly distracted drivers, but that’s a cultural effect. Pushing* automation on them is not going to save them, or us from them. I’d much rather that they use mass transit—and privatized mass transit, not the “public transit” the left has pushed on us since before WWII (another cultural effect).
* Again, I’m not against the free-market implementation of any technology. Let the people vote with their feet as to whether they want it or not.
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