Prospective manufacturers of autonomous vehicles have long hoped for clarity in the laws they will face, hoping to avoid a patchwork of disparate state regulations. Help for makers of self-driving cars for the U.S. market may be on the way in the form of legislation passed in the House this week. That legislation “…would effectively void state and local safety regulations concerning autonomous vehicles that have begun to crop up in the absence of formal federal safety rules,” according to John D. McKinnon in The Wall Street Journal.
The bill would also provide exemptions from U.S. safety regulations for up to 100,000 vehicles per manufacturer. McKinnon writes, “The exemptions are intended to prevent delays in technological advancements that could improve vehicle safety….” He quotes Rep. Bob Latta (R., OH) as saying the measure would ensure that “…innovation can flourish without the heavy hand of government.”
The legislation faces tougher going in the Senate, McKinnon writes. Senators are concerned about self-driving trucks, and they are hesitant to void state and local safety regulations. He explains, “The question of how to use federal policy to encourage self-driving trucks is a particularly dicey one, given the prospects for eventual job losses and economic dislocation.”
In The Boston Globe, Robin Washington, a columnist who writes about transportation, expresses confidence that the legislation will pass. “If President Trump wants to get behind a bold, bipartisan, good-for-America initiative…he could sign the driverless car bill likely to land on his desk soon,” Washington writes.
