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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

#101

Post by turk183 »

FidelCashflow wrote: post #88

I make the argument that the majority of our interactions with law enforcement (for those of us who are otherwise generally well mannered) stem from some driving related instance. This is the true pathway for most of us to get tangled up in the [broken[ revolving door of the legal system. I am 100% all for self driving cars and look forward to owning one as soon as there are no controls for me to interact with at any…

Why not just reform the legal system so that speed limits are not so prone to abuse and generally make it a rule that unless you are somehow at risk of harming others, that there is no crime? The victimization by police will continue, self-driving cars or no because we give agency to government to invade our lives via the 10,000,000 laws on the books.

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

#102

Post by BurningFrog »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #57
BurningFrog wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Volvo have already made it clear that they will take responsibility for incidents caused by autonomous Volvos. I presume that this is at least partly a marketing tool because I would certainly prefer a clear commitment on the part of the manufacturer of any autonomous car that I might buy.

"Prefer" is a weak term. I don't think a SDC would be sellable without that guarantee.

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

#103

Post by dmix »

phkahler wrote: post #91

Federal overreach. I find it incredible that they want fully autonomous cars, but we do not yet have fully autonomous aircraft. This stuff isn't safe yet, and may not be for some time. If a state doesn't want to allow it on their roads, DC should not get to overrule them.

This entire thing sounds like they are trying to solve a problem that doesn't yet exist.

As you said, how can they effectively legislate something that is not even fully fleshed out yet? Is this really the time to centralize legislation at the federal level and block states?

The primary benefit of allowing states to do it instead is that you can have more liberal experimentation in places where it makes more sense, like less dense, deserty Nevada, with lots of freeways. While more densely populated highly urbanized parts of the country can be avoided until it's ready.

I can't believe they are selling this as 'speeding the deployment' because it would be 10x easier for tech companies to convince a state/local government than the federal one. And it seems they already convinced a few states already...

The only thing I can imagine this is "speeding up" is helping the major auto companies minimize their legal costs and allow them to focus on lobbying one level of government. As well as making it easier for these companies to guide the legislation towards their favour. This is how corporatism works in the US. The legislation is designed with big-co's in mind who have teams of lawyers and lobbyists.

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

#104

Post by dsfyu404ed »

jlev wrote: post #98
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA emissions have forced the automakers to offer basically two versions of every vehicle for the past half century or so. Nobody in the industry wants a repeat of that because it costs money.

In both cases the California standard was higher, improving the environment and saving lives. What happened to the states being policy laboratories? I thought Republicans were for local control? Or is that only for school textbooks and baking wedding cakes.

>In both cases the California standard was higher, improving the environment and saving lives.

Not the lives of the people who would have been saved by safety features in a car they weren't driving because they couldn't afford it or because the implementation of a particular safety feature was a lower priority than the implementing a second variant of emissions equipment and calibration.

Stuff like this is fairly zero sum.

>What happened to the states being policy laboratories

The federal government could implement this as a FMVSS if they wanted.

Neither party has a monopoly on saying one thing and doing another.

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

#105

Post by turk183 »

Pica_soO wrote: post #49

On the one side - i find this quite extraordinary- a government ready to push new technologys, instead of inhibiting it- on the other (slightly paranoid) side- what is in it for the senators? Huge portions of traffic automated, because they really love new tech? Nah. They could have forwarded hyperloops and public traffic ages ago. Do they get a bonus point for the next vote? Certainly not, a large part of the popula…

They're getting bucks for one thing and only one thing--eliminating the cost of long-haul truck drivers or turning them into minimum-wage "truck minders" or something like that.

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

#106

Post by evanlivingston »

FidelCashflow wrote: post #88

I make the argument that the majority of our interactions with law enforcement (for those of us who are otherwise generally well mannered) stem from some driving related instance. This is the true pathway for most of us to get tangled up in the [broken[ revolving door of the legal system. I am 100% all for self driving cars and look forward to owning one as soon as there are no controls for me to interact with at any…

That is to say, you want to limit your mobility to that which is directly and entirely under the control of legislated authority with no possibility of circumventing laws for one reason or another.

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

#107

Post by redler »

Retric wrote: post #79
1337biz wrote: post #78

One of the very few things that I see as a massive benefit of the current Trump Whitehouse: Now would be the time for moonshot projects! I bet Trump would be willing to free a massive budgets if under his term there were a realistic chance on something like the moonlanding. Or something that would ensure him a positive entry in the history books. I truly hople Thiel or Musk use this rare opportunity.

Most presidents would, but they don't create the budget.

And even if a budget were somehow allocated, much of it would be deferred into subsequent congressional terms. An 11- or 12-figure project that has to survive multiple presidential and congressional terms would be no easy feat.

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

#108

Post by SapphireSun »

Fricken wrote: post #92
SapphireSun wrote: post #66

"Automakers would have to submit safety assessment reports to regulators, but the bill would not require pre-market approval of advanced vehicle technologies. The measure now goes to the Senate, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers has been working on similar legislation." You and I both know that without premarket approval, one or more companies are going to get careless and are going to kill people before the tech…

The incentives against killing people are already in place.

Tell that to the Radium Girls. :P

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

#109

Post by SapphireSun »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #67
SapphireSun wrote: post #66

"Automakers would have to submit safety assessment reports to regulators, but the bill would not require pre-market approval of advanced vehicle technologies. The measure now goes to the Senate, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers has been working on similar legislation." You and I both know that without premarket approval, one or more companies are going to get careless and are going to kill people before the tech…

Even with government approval, there will be fatal accidents. This approach is better because it DIRECTLY holds automakers liable-- they can't claim immunity because some bureaucrat approved the vehicle. And it keeps politics and technical ignorance out of the development cycle. Also, 3,000 people die every month on U.S. roads, your medicine analogy is wrong because there is much harm from the current system.

I dunno, a financially disinterested third party that appoints an expert panel of inspectors could stop a poor decision from being made. Most of the time, the internal processes within these companies will work correctly.

What can happen is if suddenly there's a race to market that throws process off the rails or a risk factor that was dismissed because of particulars of the culture that is producing the vehicles. That's where an outside inspector and premarket approval really helps.

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

#110

Post by rubicon33 »

evanlivingston wrote: post #106
FidelCashflow wrote: post #88

I make the argument that the majority of our interactions with law enforcement (for those of us who are otherwise generally well mannered) stem from some driving related instance. This is the true pathway for most of us to get tangled up in the [broken[ revolving door of the legal system. I am 100% all for self driving cars and look forward to owning one as soon as there are no controls for me to interact with at any…

That is to say, you want to limit your mobility to that which is directly and entirely under the control of legislated authority with no possibility of circumventing laws for one reason or another.

I have long been arguing among friends and family that in the future it should be ILLEGAL to manually operate your vehicle without a special license. That license, would require to obtain it, a much more vigorous examination and approval than we currently have at the DMV. So, for those determined to manually operate their vehicle, there would always be the means for them to do so. But it should be sufficiently difficult that the average joe doesn't pursue it, given the utility of the self driving car.
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