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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?
Automated vehicles that work?
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
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.
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.
$60 billion dollars are spent on truck driver salary's in the US. If automated vehicles achieve a 1% improvement in fuel economy (which is ludicrously conservative) you would save the economy another $45 billion in fuel costs. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of hours of wasted time, tens of thousands of deaths, and hundreds of thousands of injuries that could be possibly be prevented or at least reduced.
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.
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
If that is the rationale, then the car needs to be 100% automated, under all circumstances, with all liability going to whoever made the damned thing.
Many of us have been saying for quite some time ... if we're liable for the actions of a robot, or the automated car is suddenly going to transfer control back to you to solve the problem ... these things will continue to be nothing more than novelties.
If you expect me to be driving in an automated car, I shouldn't reasonably need to be even awake, because any failover to human more or less needs to assume it isn't possible to do that safely.
And why the hell would I pay insurance on my car if it's not being operated by me? You think I'd take the liability over for Google? Why would I do that?
So, if it isn't 100% automated 100% of the time ... it's a half-ass solution which is going to have corner cases in which bad things will happen, and whoever made it will act like it was your fault.
Done properly, the auto insurance industry goes out of business with autonomous cars. Done improperly, there's still the illusion that the meat-sock which should essentially be a passenger is responsible.
In which case, the meat-sock might as well drive their own car.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And how often does a NASCAR car turn right?
Fairly often given that there are 5 Nascar road courses.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
An IR camera can see a dear hiding in the grass from much further away than you can see.