Congress to Try Again at Self-Driving Car Legislation
RandomFactor writes:
A new bill is being written with input from both the House and Senate in the hopes of speeding the introduction of self driving vehicles on the roads.
Similar legislation last year (the SELF DRIVE Act in the House and the 'AV START Act' in the Senate) failed to pass even though amended repeatedly in response to Democrat
raised objections that it didn't do enough to address safety concerns. The hope is that with Democrats now in control of the House, a bill can be crafted from the start that addresses those concerns.
The new bipartisan legislation will also address
what these vehicles look like in the future, allowing for automakers to manufacture vehicles without steering wheels, gas, and brake pedals so long as the Department of Transportation exempts them from the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).
Movement on this front was unexpected considering that
the AV industry has mostly dialed down its efforts in Washington. According to Politico, lobbying on driverless cars dropped 35 percent between the end of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019.
Perhaps due to focusing on technical challenges.
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