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Uber Pulls Self-Driving Cars From San Francisco, Sends Them To Arizona (sfgate.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGate: Uber is moving its self-driving pilot to Arizona, one day after the California Department of Motor Vehicles ordered the autonomous vehicles off the roads in San Francisco. "Our cars departed for Arizona this morning by truck," an Uber spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon in a statement. "We'll be expanding our self-driving pilot there in the next few weeks, and we're excited to have the support of Governor Ducey." After starting its San Francisco pilot on Dec. 14, the ride-hailing company angered the mayor and officials at the DMV by refusing to get a permit to operate its self-driving cars. And so, around noon on Thursday, a fleet of Uber self-driving cars passed through the South of Market area on the backs of several flat-bed trucks. Commuters gawked at the fleet with their distinctive hoods, backing up traffic as the convoy slowly drove by. In a statement Thursday, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey called California's regulations "burdensome" and said Arizona welcomes Uber's self-driving car pilot with "open arms." "While California puts the brakes on innovation and change with more bureaucracy and more regulation, Arizona is paving the way for new technology and new businesses," he said. It is unclear which city -- or cities -- the cars are headed to.
Unregulated self-driving cars. What could go wrong?
"While California puts the brakes on innovation and change with more bureaucracy and more regulation, Arizona is paving the way for new technology and new businesses," he said"
What he meant was that a campaign contribution was made by relevant lobbyists.
Uber's "justification" for not getting the autonomous driving license that California requires for self-driving vehicles, a license that 20 other companies already have, was that their vehicles were "not sophisticated enough." Guess that was right, given the numerous reports in the past weeks of autonomous Uber cars failing to stop at street lights and signs.
Good luck Arizona; your governor just sold the safety of your streets out for a quick soundbite.
If the goal of the regulation was to chase away people who are doing cool stuff, this regulation worked.
Public streets aren't meant for "cool stuff", do that on an off-road track. If you want to do cool stuff on the streets, then expect some oversight -- a $150 permit and reporting requirements sounds like pretty light regulation for something that's being tested alongside the general public.
I prefer regulations that promote doing things with an appropriate level of safety. By that standard, this regulation failed - they aren't doing it California at all now. That's why I prefer dealing with regulatory agencies with relatively few people they regulate, such as the local ATF and FAA offices. (Versus the DMV). They tend to engage licensees to find ways to do things safely, rather than declaring you can't do it at all unless you do it exactly *this* way, a way that doesn't work
The FAA has a $15B budget, and has over 7000 people working in their aviation safety division alone -- they issue on average 5 - 10 Airworthiness Directives per day. Are you sure that's a good example of a hands-off, low oversight agency? Try to get a GPS certified for use in the air, and try the same thing for a car, and tell me which agency was easier to deal with (hint, the California DMV doesn't care as long as you don't hang it on the windshield).