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What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?
ashshy writes Tesla, Google, and many other companies are working on self-driving cars. When these autopilot systems become perfected and ubiquitous, the roads should be safer by orders of magnitude. So why doesn't Tesla CEO Elon Musk expect to reach that milestone until 2013 or so? Because the legal framework that supports American road rules is incredibly complex, and actually handled on a state-by-state basis. The Motley Fool explains which authorities Musk and his allies will have to convince before autopilot cars can hit the mainstream, and why the process will take another decade.
So Elon Musk is planning to revive the DeLorean?
How about a compelling reason?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Automated vehicles that work?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The expectation is in 2023... 2013 is an error and it's already happened.
should be 2023 not 2013
both his biggest existential threat and time itself to make it happen by 2013.
2023, not 2013
I have to type something here, so ... 2013 or so? Because we are already in 2014?
What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?
A clear entity to sue in case something goes wrong? (What happens when it breaks too hard so that I spill my coffee? That can't possibly be my own fault!)
He'll be waiting a long time.
Sounds like Elon is working on his time machine too.
I just checked my calendar. If Musk thinks that we'll have self driven cars by 2013, something is out of whack.
So little time....
Q: What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?
A: A lot of bribes for people at various levels of government.
Wait, did I say "bribes"? Sorry, I meant "lobbying and campaign contributions". I have a hard time telling those things apart.
All it will take is paying the right person the right amount of money, otherwise keep waiting.
Let's hope what it takes is: Really good automated vehicles.
I think this is one technology that we don't really want typical google-style beta testing (think gmail) with. Let's wait for things to mature a bit before they go mainstream.
Car-controlling tech requires that the people involved in the car, in other cars, or owning property near a road must be able to trust the vendor offering the service. Will Google have enough resources to drive every car?
They're not goiung to be accepted until they're always better than human drivers. At the moment there are all sorts of minor issue that need to be addressed and dealt with, as well as a lot of real world issues that have yet to even be noticed.
MIT Technology review has some examples of this sort of issue.
It doesn't matter to the general public if the car is statistically safer. If a car *once* fails to spot a traffic light, even if no harm is done, this will be seen as a fundamental failure of the technology.
But can we hit 88 MPH first?
Only about as much money as it cost to build the main interstate highway system, perhaps. I'd trust a "smart" car about as far as I can throw it. The roads will have to be wired.
Call me when they can make an automated car that car drive in snowy conditions when no lane landmarks are visible. Or one that can turn into a lane of busy traffic that currently requires you to make eye contact with another driver to get them to slow down and let you in. Then we can worry about legalizing it. Legalization is trivial compared to the technical challenges. Personally, I suspect that there won't be a truly automated cars in my lifetime.
If anything is gonna kill/delay the automated vehicle market, it's gonna be people suing the shit out of car manufacturers when anything at all goes wrong. And make no mistake, it's gonna be up to the manufacturer to prove it wasn't their hardware/software that caused it.
And unfortunately, the people that would normally argue in favor of being reasonable with new tech will be suffering from inner turmoil as that idea conflicts with the "big corporations are ruthlessly profitable" belief.
It's gonna be interesting to watch, for sure.
It is for the manufacturer of these self driving cars to prove they are safe and ready for the American highway system. The way they do it is for those manufacturers to indemnify the owners/drivers of those cars. Until then, if the manufacturers don't think they are safe for our roads, then they probably aren't..
The expectation is in 2023... 2013 is an error and it's already happened.
Slashdot, news from several years ago. Later today we'll likely run a story on that new "facebook" thing as well and whether or not it will be worth joining.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
First you'll have to get rid of all those pesky poor people - which increasingly means everyone - since they/we won't be able to afford them.
(The Cash for Clunkers program was another move in that direction since it removed perfectly good automobiles from the market that would typically be used in a few years by people lower on the food chain.)
And yes, I'm serious.
The date in the linked article is 2023, not 2013.
-- jwag
When the automated car can tell itself that those two shiny things on the side of the road are deer eyes, then maybe and only maybe.
Passionately Indifferent
Seriously, if our federal highways were to allocate the inner most lane as being for automated cars starting in 2020, AND allowed 20 mph higher speeds, this would encourage faster adoption of automation for cars and trucks. Ideally, the vehicles would require a freq for talking to each other with as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Legal:? Last week, I heard a speech by Vint Cerf, and he says the next iteration of google car will NOT HAVE A GAS OR BREAK PEDDLE, OR A STEERING WHEEL AT ALL.
mark
Money.
Obligatory Back to the Future reference.
Just another day in Paradise
Not a complete list but I believe these all must exist before broad general acceptance. 1 Autonomous driving becomes better than human driving, including "edge cases" (e.g., junk falling from a truck, ball rolling out in front of car, etc). 2 Some way to deal with the inevitable liabilities. Cars will still kill people. Maybe something built into all car insurance and/or into the price of cars to fund liability payments. 3 Some way to deal with all the insane people in non-automated cars.
"I'm gonna show you something beautiful..."
that would convince me
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/15/tesla-driverless-cars_n_5990136.html
I blame the lack of autopilot for these human fingers.
#o#
O Moo.
A few months ago, I attended a talk on autonomous vehicles at the Petersen Auto Museum in Los Angeles. The executive from the California Department of Transportation told us that they’ve met with dozens of representatives from different states and countries, and they are all waiting to see what happens here.
California already has laws allowing the testing of autonomous vehicles, and many manufacturers have enrolled. They counted fifteen companies that were working on autonomous cars, including Toyota, Volvo, and most every car company you could name.
They described the five categories of vehicle automation, and explained that the first autonomous (not Musk’s so called “autopilot” which isn’t) vehicles will hit the road in the summer of 2015.
It will first take an insurer who will take on liability for driverless cars.
But surely, if this is such a good idea, we should first see planes and trains become driverless? How about driverless subway? How can anybody possibly suggest it's time to push driverless cars when there are so many smaller targets which are still so far out of reach?
Let's also spare a thought for thousands - if not millions - of drivers whose jobs will be threatened / lost. I am not saying this is a reason not to develop driverless cars, but rather that we collectively need to think what to do with millions of people who will become jobless overnight if this happens.
And, what happens when human-driven cars become too expensive to ensure because presumably humans are likely to become worse drivers? Will humans only get to drive on racetracks? I suspect our robotic overlords are unlikely to allow humans to drive at all; humans will only be allowed to drive virtual cars in video games.
One: the vehicle needs to never run anyone over ever. That will not happen. You hit one single piece of property or person and it might as well be Nancy Grace's house you hit because she and the rest of the media will tear that technology to pieces.
Two: computers need to be as smart or smarter than humans at visual object recognition and adaptive decision making. Right now they're about 0.001% of the way there.
You need to line the pockets of the bureaucrats and congressmen.
What will it take?!?!?! Solar Freakin Roadways!
We probably could have automated Highways since the late 70’s. In the 50’s engineers imagined all the brains and machinery for automating Highways in the highways – and would have been incredibly expensive. Now we want to put all the brains and sensors in the car, again (at least for now) incredibly expensive. There must be a sweet spot of compromise for 90% of driving situations that requires only modest changes to our transportation infrastructure and doesn’t require the cars to be capable of handling every conceivable scenario most humans can. Build a series of automation friendly/automation assist sensors, transponders into some long haul stretches of our nations transportation infrastructure and it would probably lead to a snowball effect of getting enough earlier adopters of automated assisted driving that improvements would come even more quickly in cars and roads leading to a truly autonomous era.
Letter To Iran
Though, I'm not quite sure in which direction.
:|
On the one hand, the number of claims should bottom out once self-drive cars are in place and the bugs sorted out.
On the other, they'll have to re-calculate how they determine premium rates since the " human driver " factor will be (mostly) removed.
So, while they won't be paying out nearly as much in claims, they won't be taking in nearly as much in premiums either. Should be interesting.
Speed Traps will no longer be the revenue-cow that many towns rely on. Red-light cameras and similar tech will become a waste of time. How WILL Law Enforcement pay for their Soldier-Wanna-Be toys . . .
Hell, these things, once mainstream, will also shift the entire traffic structure around. Stalls, wrecks, weather, and other rubber-neck variables will pretty much go away meaning a much better driving experience. Great for the driver (passenger ?) , but probably not so great for the State / City governments who just LOVE congestion because it pushes the traffic onto their Toll Roads which they seem to be building in greater numbers these days. I would expect to see the Toll Roads become ghost roads ( in those areas where the Toll Roads are a means to bypass highway congestion and not the ONLY means into or out of an area ) as the reasons for utilizing them in the first place will become irrelevant.
Will need to put some more thought into it, but I bet the introduction of the self-drive vehicle will impact quite a bit of modern day revenue-generators which will probably cause a major panic along some lines. lol
One of the biggest issues is going to be insurance and who will pay when one of these cars causes an accident.
While most bugs will have been worked out, there will still be a situation where one of these cars is going to cause an accident. And I have not heard anyone talk about who will pay when this occurs.
We will never have truly *autonomous* vehicles driving on the same lanes in the same traffic as regular diver vehicles.
The problem is *not* technical in nature ultimately (now, the tech is not near sufficient, but assuming it could improve), the problem is *liability* for when something goes wrong.
What will happen: Dedicated lanes on interstates
Like HOV lanes, basically.
The only way it will actually be implemented is in controlled zones where there are much fewer variables...
To think anything else is magical thinking and not connected to reality
Thank you Dave Raggett
Otherwise, there'll be a whole new class of assassination: Death-By-Driverless.
Suppose you tell the current politicians:
"Hey, I got this great invention, it will improve our transportation 10x, but it will require highly toxic and flammable chemicals to be stored in underground tanks every other block in highly populated areas. It will also cause around 1.3 million deaths per year worldwide, and become the #9 leading cause of death".
How many current politicians would approve this?
That is right, if it was for the current politicians, the car would not exist. We would all be still riding horses, which are even worse for the environment and have a fatality rate of 1 per 10,000 riders.
So I don't hold my breath for current politicians to approve self driving cars, even if 1 person gets killed by a self driving car, politicians will scream "think of the children!" and ban this right away, it will not matter if the fatality rate is even lower than manually driven cars.
I look forward to the beginning of autopilotmobiles. However, I'll be one of the last to participate.
I picture the entertainment value of the work commute increasing exponentially. For example, if I need to take a lane I'll look for the autopilotmobiles and just cut in front, knowing that it will see the impending doom and hammer on the brakes.
If they make dedicated lanes then there best be a barrier between them and us regulars, it's impossible to keep the single drivers out of the existing HOV lanes.
The oncoming of fully automated vehicles won't happen the way that being discussed in geekish circles. Governments tend to move with all the speed of a glacier, and insurance companies will go out of business if the number of traffic accidents plummet. (Yes, they will. Water conservation sounded great until a lot of people started actually conserving water, now the water companies are having to jack up rates to stay solvent.)
What will happen is that "safety features" will be added to top end vehicles and work their way down. This is already happening with rear-watch, lane obstacle detection, and others. Insurance companies will like safer cars, as long as they aren't so safe that they are no longer needed. Public safety groups will lobby for these safer cars.
The myriad of state legislatures in the US will be very reluctant to authorize fully automated vehicles. Instead, manufacturers will just keep introducing "features" that reduce traffic accidents, things like lane following and collision detection and braking. Then, as the number of features mounts, the distance between a fully featured safety car and one that will drive itself will become smaller and smaller until it doesn't seem like such a giant leap. In addition, we may find automated vehicles licensed only for certain pieces of highway. It takes a lot of CPU to automate a car, adding GPS is a detail.
Look around, the changes have already started.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
If the laws allow open containers (alcohol) in automated vehicles, all downsides will be ignored and the population will demand them.
Be Excellent To Each Other
My blind spot indicator on my car still isn't perfect and I still have to check.
Just today I noticed a black hatchback in my right blind spot that the indicator didn't pick up. I don't know if it was dirt on the sensor, the color of the car vs the blacktop, etc.
So... I don't know how much I want to trust a car that fully relies on that.
Because if I have to babysit the car the entire time, I might as well drive.
Eventually maybe, and hopefully within my lifetime. But I won't be using one any time soon.
>What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?
Above all, robost software!
The word "crash" becomes doubly important in this case.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
EVER.
The self-driving cars have a long way to go (no pun intended) before they should become ubiquitous.
Many cities already have rail-based streetcars and streetcar drivers aren't really doing much driving, stopping, going, the occasional turn, occasionally getting out to switch the track, etc. Seems to me an automated car could be designed to use those same rails. Thus, automated cars could piggyback on whatever legal framework or traffic infrastructure allowed streetcars in the first place. A lighter (car only) rail system could also be extended to major roads where it doesn't already exist, expanding the network. A hybrid approach could see the cars flipping into smart car mode from autopilot mode once the car leaves the tracks to traverse normal roads. Automated cars could even conceivably deposit their passengers at the same stations as both streetcars and subways. I know this idea isn't new but maybe it's time has come?
It is naturally a legal question of who can be held liable should an accident happen.
People want to assign blame to the car manufacturer, to the driver...
There are valid cases that can be discussed on an individual level for each one. If a manufacturer has a bug in the code that results in a crash and did not do due diligence, that is one thing.
But there is another solution that many people don't consider.
NO FAULT INSURNACE
This is how it is in Ontario, Canada. It has it's flaws, but the concept is really good and I think would work really well with automated cars.
http://www.ibc.ca/en/car_insur...
Basically, you get your insurance from your own insurance company and they cover your losses.
Person A and person B get into an accident.
A gets damages resolved from A's insurance company.
B gets damages resolved from B's insurance company.
A doesn't care about getting money from B or dealing with B's insurance.
Generally what happens here is your insurance premiums go up the more risk you take on (fancy red sports car = more risk) or the more claims you've had in the past.
So we could easily see insurance companies evaluating automated cars. Cars with better ratings/systems can get lower insurance premiums...
Again, this does not mean other liability causes are out of the window. A person who disables their auto system and crashes or a does not maintain scheduled maintenance, or a manufacturer who has a bug...those are separate issues.
An economic incentive that causes many companies to put pressure on their representatives...
or
A major tragedy that could have been avoided with autonomy that gets continual news coverage (not that this worked for gun control) ...otherwise, reason and good sense have no place here
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
On the one hand we have internet providors effectivly stopping community internet.
On the other hand we have a lot of blue collar people who are going to be put out work.
While I cannot believe that the Teamsters and the Cab driver unsions are just laying down on this issue, in the end, the might not be able to stop driverless cars, because that's what Darpa wants for for their war machines.
Who is going to be the first unlucky person to die for driverless car research?
Who is going to be the furst unlucky person to die from a driverless war machine?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
You ignore the gargantuan influence insurance companies wield over politicians.
Who do you think got these types of laws passed?
Those were the doing of an entity who could see that modifying these behaviors would reduce the payouts they make each year. This entity lives and breaths statistics and charges its customers based on anticipated payouts and profits off the difference. By modifying the behaviors while keeping the premiums at the same level, the insurance companies are able to expand their profits. Insurance companies use these profits to control politicians.
Self-driving cars are hugely attractive to insurance companies. If they can overall reduce payouts by some small number, they'll happily pay for the fewer claims made against their customers' self-driving cars. Should cases go to court, they'll have plenty of telemetric data to throw in front of a jury to bolster their defense.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
OTOH, driverless trains would be an order of magnitude or two easier and... not there.
Wrong - driverless trains are already here and have been since 1967 which means they have been around longer than most Slashdot readers including myself. However, like driverless cars, the first line which was automated, London's Victoria line, still carried drivers because of the unions i.e. politics. More recent lines, like the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) are driverless and there are plans to upgrade other tube lines to true driverless operation.
Given the politics with driverless trains should we expect driverless cars to be any different? I expect there will be a period of adjustment where they are allowed but heavily restricted as we learn to see how well they cope. Assuming they perform these restrictions will be gradually lifted.
It's hard to imagine how autonomous vehicles can exist safely amongst vehicles driven by inebriated, distracted, careless, or angry humans.
"What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?"
The same answer as any similar ""What Will It Take To Make fill-in-the-blank In the US?" where "fill-in-the-blank" is an issue regulated by the states:
1) Votes by all 50 state legislatures
2) A court ruling that the states cannot outlaw "fill-in-the-blank" (we are seeing this now with marriage-related laws)
3) A Constitutional amendment, which only requires cooperation of 3/4 of the states
4) A revolution, which makes the question pretty much meaningless.
For those of you looking for a practical answer rather than a theoretical, "Thank you Captain Obvious, but you weren't the only one who paid attention in High School Civics" answer, well, read TFA. :)
That it never happens! And I admit, the reasons are entirely selfish. I drive a truck for a living so I'd rather not lose that livelihood. I can, however, see a place for adding automation in the safety area like automatic braking if following distance is too close and even maybe a limited autopilot feature that would still require a human being to be sitting in the driver's seat. I guess I need to face the reality that just about anything can become automated and I'm sure my employer has one keen eye cocked towards the progress in automation. I left IT for the love of the open road. Part of me understands why some companies might really want the automation because truckers are a notoriously difficult lot to deal with - basically macho juvenile adults. I'm sure drivers are the bane of the transportation company's existence. Many drivers have an undeserved sense of entitlement, make demands, and are often rude towards the office staff. Little do those guys know they are basically going to "demand" themselves out of a job because don't think for a New York minute that the big boys like Werner and Swift aren't making keen investments in automation.
Personally, I can't wait for these to get here.
If they are SO MUCH better drivers than we are, and can react SO MUCH faster, then the speed limits can SAFELY be upwards of 120, right?
The first is always to identify the problem. Where and how are they currently not legal? You would think that an article about making automated cars legal would say that they are prohibited in state X because of A and in state Y because of B. However, the article is *completely silent* on current laws that prohibit automated cars.
The CIA would love to kill you other undesirables this way too, you lazy motherfuckers who allow companies to run their lives.
"What Will It Take To Make Automated Vehicles Legal In the US?"
Simple...The appropriately greased palm of a majority of any politicians publicly opposed to said legislation.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Proponents of driverless cars need to focus on the 70+ demographic. A big issue for a lot of the elderly is loss of mobility due to being ineligible for a driver's license. As a large voting demographic, having their support seems rather useful for legalizing automatic vehicles.
I imagine in 10-15 years we'll be seeing automatic vehicles on the road. The technology will be a bit more mature and the baby boomers will start losing their licenses.
http://realtime.influenceexplorer.com/outside-spenders/#?ordering=-total_indy_expenditures&committee_class=UOVW
I don't know why the OP thinks that the "legal framework" is an issue? The government has been ignoring legalities for over a decade now.
The lobbyists will decide when driverless cars will be legal.
My guess is that it will all be sorted out right after the mainstream US automakers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) have their self-driving cars ready to go.
What about criminal courts let's say a auto car messes up and thinks a kid / baby is on the safe to drive over list?
Drives into a farmers market full of people?
Drives past a pop up checkpoint?
and then we have all of the ticket issues as well.
Just today I was behind someone who for no obvious reason took both hands off the wheel, waved them out the window for about 30 seconds, veered out of their lane and hit a stopped car. Robo-cars I think have to be able to be no BETTER than that for acceptance. I think they're on the wrong track with trying to be BETTER than humans. They should aim for being just as terrible because people don't want to feel the machines are mocking them.
Clearly no one cares who dies right now so that's not a problem.
So long as it has a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, brake pedal, and an immutable 'OFF' switch, they can put it in any car they want, but I will NEVER own any car that is just a box I have no manual control over. Ever. Not even once.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Eric and Elton to blow the entire congress and whitehouse into a sexual coma?
If Drones ...like the autonomous ones I'm working on can give you any indication, it's going to be some time.
The gov't is having a beef about FPV and manned drone flight. I already know they will have a heart attack on the autonomous ones... sort of says what they're going to think about fully autonomous cars... which uses essentially the same tech and concepts.
We need to better address security implications before autonomous cars become mainstream. How do you stop someone from programming a car to drive to a destination and then explode? If the driver doesn't have to be in the car, that same single "driver" can continue to cause mayhem with multiple cars.
Better yet, how about getting the technology to the point that it works under less-than-ideal conditions? Sure, when it is clear, sunny, dry with no unexpected road conditions or events, the self-driving cars do OK ... sorta ... In fact, in the recent road test of Google's self-driving car in Nevada it should be noted that "What has not been revealed until now, however, is that Google chose the test route and set limits on the road and weather conditions that the vehicle could encounter, and that its engineers had to take control of the car twice during the drive." (see http:// spectrum.ieee.org / transportation / advanced-cars/how-googles-autonomous-car-passed-the-first-us-state-selfdriving-test) So even under ideal conditions chosen by Google to show off the car to its best effect, the engineers still had to take control of the car twice...
Sorry, this tech isn't ready for prime time yet. It has a long way to go before it is even remotely as safe as a human driver.
I'm curious how insurance companies will deal with proper maintenance for automated cars. It's no mystery that bald tires don't handle as well in bad weather as new tires. What happens when an autonomous vehicle gets into an accident because it attempted to stop, but the lack of tread on the tires caused it to hydroplane much more than normal? I imagine insurance companies will want documentation of regular maintenance to prove that the error was not neglect on part of the owner.
Cars that will allow the US driving public to drive around completely asleep! Over 75% of the driving public drives around asleep at the wheel now! And the car makers keep adding "safety" features and alarms that try to keep those asleep from running over someone else. Is this really progress? We teaching folks that don't even have to be personally responsible even when they are piloting a 3,000 pound weapon!
General-purpose train lines, with something unlike single-purpose engines running on open tracks with interconnection? The page does not list any.
Clearly you have never seen the Docklands Light Railway (DLR): here's a map. This is not simple A-to-B track you can catch trains to different destinations from the same track on the same platform e.g. London City Airport has two platforms: one for trains heading to Woolwich Arsenal and the other which has trains headed to both Bank and Stratford and it used to have trains that also went to Tower Gateway but those were dropped before the London Olympics so the routes shown in the map are not static and can be adjusted to match traffic.
What it will take is: for Americans to grow up and stop being afraid of everything which could, maybe, perhaps, one-day, hurt them at some future unknown unpredictable point.
for laws to be changed to prevent people suing people for "shit happens" events
for the political influence of the existing car manufacturers and the business establishment to be neutralised.
Viva la revolution!
Best way to do this and what they will do is get the automated vehicles going in the Military. Once the Military thinks its useful to the public at large then release it to the world. Just like they did with the internet. Release the internet and we can do so much more, :-Twiddling fingers-: