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U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#21

Post by tomschlick »

wbc wrote: post #16
Tangurena2 wrote: post #12

Hmm. The section on exemptions to safety standards was pretty interesting. I wonder what brought that on. The federal pre-emptions to state regulations was expected. States cannot have any higher standards than the federal ones, except for the vehicles that the states purchase for their own needs.

how come pre-emptions are expected? i would expect states cannot have any LOWER standards than federal (think min wage, emissions, etc) and can mandate higher if they choose

Because it would suck if you crossed into another state and all of a sudden your car acted differently to conform to that state's laws (turning off auto pilot, limiting speed, etc).

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#22

Post by Tangurena2 »

wbc wrote: post #16
Tangurena2 wrote: post #12

Hmm. The section on exemptions to safety standards was pretty interesting. I wonder what brought that on. The federal pre-emptions to state regulations was expected. States cannot have any higher standards than the federal ones, except for the vehicles that the states purchase for their own needs.

how come pre-emptions are expected? i would expect states cannot have any LOWER standards than federal (think min wage, emissions, etc) and can mandate higher if they choose

It is the other way around - states may not have standards unless they implement the exact federal standard:

> No State or political subdivision of a State may maintain, enforce, prescribe, or continue in effect any law or regulation regarding the design, construction, or performance of highly automated vehicles, automated driving systems, or components of automated driving systems unless such law or regulation is identical to a standard prescribed under this chapter.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3388...

According to Wired, there are 21 states with some form of regulation of self-driving vehicles.

> Self-driving vehicles have been testing on public roads since 2010, when Google hit the streets near Mountain View, California. And in the absence of congressional oversight, states have stepped in to regulate them, creating a patchwork of at least 21 different state laws and guidelines with different purposes, definitions, and priorities. This is a serious pain for the growing self-driving industry, which aspires to build cars permitted on all public roads.

https://www.wired.com/story/congress-self-driving-car-law-bi...

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#23

Post by sowbug »

drewmol wrote: post #18
stale2002 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who pay for self driving car accidents will be the same people as those that pay for them today. The insurance companies. Only now, these insurance companies will be paying 1/4th the amount of money they were before, because of the reduced number of accidents.

I wonder if potential changes to minimum required liability amounts will lead to higher insurance premiums vs lower? When it's a person's actions responsible for the accident it seems easier to cap these at a lower standard amount vs. a corporation's IP's actions/fault with x-billion in assets...

Compensatory damage amounts are generally independent of the defendant's means. This is as expected. Your hospital bills and pain/suffering aren't any different if the person whose car ran you over is rich or poor.

Punitive damages are another story, but in theory they're not available in cases of ordinary negligence.

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#24

Post by chimeracoder »

stale2002 wrote: post #9
TuringNYC wrote: post #6

Would be great to see a similar national viewpoint on liability issues with SDCs. For example, who is liable (the car owner? manufacturer? algo writer?)

The people who pay for self driving car accidents will be the same people as those that pay for them today. The insurance companies. Only now, these insurance companies will be paying 1/4th the amount of money they were before, because of the reduced number of accidents.

> The insurance companies

Which insurance company, under whose policy? That's the question. It makes a big difference to the people involved, because it affects the policies they buy and how much they cost.

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#25

Post by klipt »

TuringNYC wrote: post #6

Would be great to see a similar national viewpoint on liability issues with SDCs. For example, who is liable (the car owner? manufacturer? algo writer?)

For self driving taxis, the car owner, manufacturer and algo writer might all be the same company (e.g. Alphabet). And a company that huge can just self-insure, especially since they have more data on the risk level of their cars than anyone else.

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#27

Post by cjensen »

Question: Does this undermine California's safety standards for self-driving cars? I was very pleased with how quickly California slapped down Uber. Will California still be able to do that?

For those who don't remember: Uber was clearly experimenting with unready software on the roads with insufficient safety processes in place. When caught on camera running a red light, Uber blamed the human operator and weasel-worded their pr statement to imply that the car was not in autonomous mode. It in fact was in autonomous mode, and the driver was in observation mode. It's unclear if the failure was due to observer attention failure or lack of training.

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#28

Post by fhsjei »

djschnei wrote: post #5

screw the states and their autonomy!

If driving from one state to another, especially for business purposes, doesn't count as interstate commerce I don't know what does.

See the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3): The United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#29

Post by robotresearcher »

BurningFrog wrote: post #20
stale2002 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who pay for self driving car accidents will be the same people as those that pay for them today. The insurance companies. Only now, these insurance companies will be paying 1/4th the amount of money they were before, because of the reduced number of accidents.

I doubt it. If my self driving Subaru causes an accident, I think Subaru will pay for the damages. And Subaru doesn't need to involve an insurance company in that transaction.

Why do you think that?

Re: U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars

#30

Post by dayaz36 »

azernik wrote: post #19
dayaz36 wrote: post #10

I'm confused...how is capping the number of FSD cars allowed to 25k accelerate anything? Am I missing something?

Yes. You're missing that the current cap is 0. To elaborate: "Current federal rules bar self-driving cars without human controls on U.S. roads. States have issued a variety of different rules in the absence of clear federal guidance, and automakers have complained that California’s rules are too restrictive."

25k is less than 1% of most major auto manufacturers yearly production numbers. No article I've read on this news has put that into context and instead praises the legislation as liberating car manufacturers to bring FSD cars to the masses. Most people don't read past the headline let alone look into the facts of the article. Also nothing good EVER gets passed legislation unanimously. Last time the House passed legislation this quickly and unanimously was when they passed SOAPA. Something feels fishy about this. I haven't read the legislation directly but I bet if a journalist went through it fully, somethings would surface that people wouldn't like.
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