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US Consumer Groups Warn 'Robot Car Bill' Threatens Safety (consumerreports.org)
"If you don't place a Capable Engineering crew to oversee a project that involves lives, you're asking for trouble," writes Slashdot reader Neuronwelder. Consumer Reports writes:
Congress is moving ahead with plans to let self-driving cars be tested on U.S. roads without having to comply with the same safety rules as regular vehicles... The House passed its version of the legislation earlier this month with little opposition. The Senate is expected to vote on its bill in the coming weeks... "Federal law shouldn't leave consumers as guinea pigs," said William Wallace, policy analyst for Consumers Union. "We were hopeful that this bill would include much stronger measures to protect consumers against known emerging safety risks. Unfortunately, in the bill's current form, it doesn't."
The legislation, which would take effect in 18 months, would allow the deployment of up to 50,000 self-driving vehicles per company in the first year of its application, rising to 100,000 vehicles annually by the third year, exempt from essential federal safety standards... Automakers might be able to go beyond the limits by getting exemptions for more than one model. The bill also creates a means to go beyond 100,000 cars for each company, by allowing automakers to petition the NHTSA after five years for more vehicles.
"The bill pre-empts any state safety standards," argues the group Consumer Watchdog, "but there are none yet in place at the national level."
The legislation, which would take effect in 18 months, would allow the deployment of up to 50,000 self-driving vehicles per company in the first year of its application, rising to 100,000 vehicles annually by the third year, exempt from essential federal safety standards... Automakers might be able to go beyond the limits by getting exemptions for more than one model. The bill also creates a means to go beyond 100,000 cars for each company, by allowing automakers to petition the NHTSA after five years for more vehicles.
"The bill pre-empts any state safety standards," argues the group Consumer Watchdog, "but there are none yet in place at the national level."
Not only does it leave consumers as guinea pigs, it makes every non-participating driver, cyclist, and pedestrian a guinea pig. When someone dies from a flaw in self driving, will they consider it a good trade off if maybe fifty years down the road we start to see a decrease in road deaths from the technology? Will they understand why their family paid the price? Full liability on the part of the vendor introducing a self driving technology should be a minimum requirement.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The thing is, currently 50,000 people a year die on American roads. Even if self-driving cars could reduce that number 99%, rather than getting credit for saving 49,500 people a year, these car companies would be ripped apart for "murdering" 500 people a year. Rather than winning accolades for saving 10's of thousands of lives, they'd be sued for hundreds of millions a year for those hundreds of deaths.
You need legislation to prevent that kind of liability, and it will save many, many lives. It just won't save everyone.
You need legislation to prevent that kind of liability, and it will save many, many lives. It just won't save everyone.
No you don't. You just need insurance and actuaries to calculate and charge for the risks--which is exactly how we handle car accident deaths already.
Nothing new is needed to deal with self-driving car liabilities. It's a solved problem. I will never understand why people cling to this idea that it's not.
Nope. In that case, the business controls the drivers who control the car so of course there needs to be insurance for liability. A business buying self driving cars from Google should not be liable either, since there is nothing they can do to control the car. Yes you may want to insure against external forces such as vandalism or fire, but why would anyone pay for liability for something they do not control?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
This is a poorly written article. There is no mention, except for lack of steering wheel, of the rules self driving cars don't have to follow. If you are getting up in arms over this, at least point out the problem.