Virginia Becomes First State To Legalize Delivery Robots (recode.net)

According to Recode, Virginia is the first state to pass legislation allowing delivery robots to operate on sidewalks and crosswalks across the state. The law (HB 2016) was signed by the governor last Friday and will go into effect on July 1. Recode reports: The two Virginia lawmakers who sponsored the bill, Ron Villanueva and Bill DeSteph, teamed up with Starship Technologies, an Estonian-based ground delivery robotics company, to draft the legislation. Robots operating under the new law won't be able to exceed 10 miles per hour or weigh over 50 pounds, but they will be allowed to rove autonomously. The law doesn't require robots to stay within line of sight of a person in control, but a person is required to at least remotely monitor the robot and take over if it goes awry. Robots are only allowed on streets in a crosswalk. Municipalities in the state are allowed to regulate how robots will operate locally, like if a city council wants to impose a stricter speed limit or keep them out entirely.

Comments

"...like if a city council wants to impose a..."

[turkeydance]

tax

Statist thinking

[x0ra]

"Legalize" is merely new speak for "regulate". The USA is a free country. Law does not, and can't, "allow" you to do anything, it only can forbid and regulate you to do things. There is no blanket statement about not being allowed to do anything but certain things.

That being said, this statist point of view is typical of the east coast.

Re:Statist thinking

[Waffle Iron]

The sidewalks are owned by the government. They get to decide what happens on them; end of story.

If you don't like that, buy your own sidewalks.

Re:Statist thinking

[x0ra]

You obviously did *not* understand my point: law can only be repressive, not releasing / liberatory. By default, you have the Right to to everything you want, then come the law in its oppressive form. As such "legalize" is actually a negative term.

Re:Statist thinking

[Mycroft-X]

But you don't make laws that legalize something, you repeal or negate laws that prohibit it. I'm woefully unaware of state laws that make it illegal for machinery to safely operate in pedestrian right of way.

Re:Statist thinking

[rtb61]

So when a robot and a person meet on the street who has to give way? If a robot wanders on to your property by mistake, can you claim salvage rights, for an out of control robot? If a group of people are on the footpath and the robot can not proceed without entering the roadway, not at a crossing or trespassing on private property, what do they do, force their way through? When the robot is hacked, do the robot operators face penalties for improperly securing the robot? What are the legal ramifications of a robot bumping a person and knocking them down? When a robot participates in a crime, is the operator liable for the full penalty of that crime, again, for failure to secure the robot?

Remember this is not robots in controlled private places, this is robots out in public, quite capable of killing people, in one form or another. Think not, how about a bump timed with an approaching subway train, how about a bump with an approaching bus, how about transmission of contagion, how about delivering explosives etc. etc. Robots wandering on the streets allows criminals to distance themselves from the crimes they commit via those robots. How technically secure does a robot have to be, before it is allowed to wander around in public, keep in mind, https://it.slashdot.org/story/....

So headline "Worlds Largest Botnet Adds 'Murder For Hire', Hack Of Delivery Robots, Delivering Death To Your Enemies Front Door". If I were a politician that made enemies of hackers I would ban those delivery bots because fuck, the corrupt politicians would be doomed. Just add https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and this could get way out of hand real fast, keep in mind there is zero discussion about how those robots should be the most secure computers in the world. Teachers of the world should be terrified.

I'll bet freaks in the CIA and NSA would be salivating at the possibilities.

Re:Statist thinking

[Waffle Iron]

By claiming that the laws which define property are "oppressive", you're taking unhinged libertarianism into new and uncharted territory.

Re:Statist thinking

[_Sharp'r_]

Sidewalks are owned by the property owner, typically, smaller roads are also. The property just has recorded against it a right-of-way for others to use the road and whatever that locality's legally mandated distance from the road is. As part of the right-of-way, people can drive over the road, walk along the edge, etc...

Cities typically legally take over responsibility for the road portion (and the road is currently usually built and paid for by the land owner at some point), but while the sidewalk is a public location for freedom of speech purposes, for example, it's still generally the responsibility of the property owner. If you are the property owner, if you don't shovel your snow and someone slips, you get sued, not the city. If you don't keep the sidewalk in good enough condition to be used, you get fined, etc...

So for the same reason you can drive without a license on your own private property, you can likely run robots across your property however you like, as long as they aren't violating some other law. Now, if you want to take advantage of the public right-of-way across someone else's property, that's a different story where you'll need to comply with the rules associated with that right-of-way.