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U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- squidfood 9y agoWell that's one way to look at creating jobs, I suppose...
- 0xcde4c3db 9y ago> Advocates hope self-driving cars can help reduce U.S. road deaths, which rose 7.7 percent in 2015, the highest annual jump since 1966. This was a news story in itself [1]. It was attributed to increased driving, encouraged by economic factors such as higher employment and lower gas prices. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/18/467230965/2015-traffic-fatalities-rose-by-largest-percent-in-50-years-safety-group-says http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/02/18/467230965/...
- SilasX 9y agoYeah, it looks like deaths per mile has been on a steady decline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#/media/File:USA_annual_VMT_vs_deaths_per_VMT.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...
- alxmdev 9y agoNot exactly a steady decline, quote from the NPR article linked above: In its own early estimates that were released late in 2015, NHTSA reported seeing a 3.5 percent rise in vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. But it also said the fatality rate — the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled — was rising at a slightly higher pace of 4.4 percent.
- tonmoy 9y agoMaybe the average number of people riding the same vehicle has increased?
- fuhrysteve 9y ago> attributed to increased driving, encouraged by economic factors such as higher employment and lower gas prices Interesting - I always assumed that the increase in road deaths was at least largely due to increased cellphone usage, resulting in distracted drivers.
- danblick 9y agoI wonder what fraction involved smartphones? https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/tech-distractions-blamed-for-rise-in-traffic-fatalities.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/business/tech-distract...
- steventhedev 9y agoRather than speculate on anecdotes, perhaps we can focus on actual data[0]. 2014-2015 only saw a +280 change in fatalities caused by distractions (read: texting). Florida and Georgia combined saw a +190 drunk driving fatalities in the same period. EDIT: found a more specific report about electronic device usage: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812426 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... [0]: https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812318 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
- Sylphine 9y agoWhich is fitting that nobody says how many deaths will result from starvation that results by being fired from UPS and FedEx
- nxc18 9y agoUPS has 400,000 employees. Autonomous driving would pay itself off very quickly even if one of uber's cars personally murdered every single UPS and FedEx employee. Of course, the issue at play isn't joblessness, but the lack of a safety net for when people lose their jobs. Still, in the u.s., very few people actually starve to death, even when unemployed. Perhaps lack of health care will kill them all. But was their health care that good to begin with? Perhaps an actual solution for root problems is the better route.
- Sylphine 9y agoStaying with your parents isn't the idyllic life. I know from experience. /// Inb4 you want to held back technology. /// Technology's main focus should be improving peoples quality of living not maximizing profits and replacing employees with robots.
- thanksgiving 9y agoI disagree. Technology should be focused with all things that reduce the need for human labor. What we need is what gp says: a decent social safety net. It cannot happen as long as we vote for people who want to reduce taxes.
- csallen 9y agoReplacing employees is not the problem. In fact, it's a good thing. It frees people up to do more enjoyable things with their lives. The problem is that our economic system is unequipped to handle a world in which people aren't expected to work jobs "just because."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- djschnei 9y agoscrew the states and their autonomy!
- fhsjei 9y agoIf driving from one state to another, especially for business purposes, doesn't count as interstate commerce I don't know what does. See the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3): The United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."
- sokoloff 9y agoExactly. For airplanes, the FAA is supreme and has consistently smacked down individual state/city initiatives to regulate air traffic (and rightly so, even as I'm a small federal government/states' rights advocate in general).
- djschnei 9y agoIt was a play on words... wasn't being serious.
- TuringNYC 9y agoWould be great to see a similar national viewpoint on liability issues with SDCs. For example, who is liable (the car owner? manufacturer? algo writer?)
- tehlike 9y agoalgo writer should not be liable, unless it's gross negligence or conscious cover up (like VW cases). However, i can imagine a set of guideliness adopted into industry which involves slow rollouts of updates (potentially in a multivariate testing manner controlling for speed variance/distribution, response time, collision proximity (?) or collisions avoided, distance traveled, user comfort score, and so on. In other words, due diligence must be done, before rolling out new releases.
- TuringNYC 9y agoYour response makes sense, but that is usually not how the legal system works...i'm curious if all sorts of tangentially or abstractly related parties will be pulled into many lawsuits and then promptly dropped. No ultimate impact w/r/t/ judgements, but a lot of wasted time and legal defense costs.
- tehlike 9y agoFor sure. I can imagine businesses simply outsourcing the legal costs to insurance companies.
- stale2002 9y agoThe people who pay for self driving car accidents will be the same people as those that pay for them today. The insurance companies. Only now, these insurance companies will be paying 1/4th the amount of money they were before, because of the reduced number of accidents.
- TuringNYC 9y agoThat is not quite how it works in most US states. Insurance companies cover up to a maximum amount, which is usually enough to cover all damages. However, when the maximum amount is breached, the cost is then bourne by some party which "caused" the accident. Suppose the "driver" of the SDC isnt even driving -- who is that other party? The manufacturer? The algo writer?
- dayaz36 9y agoI'm confused...how is capping the number of FSD cars allowed to 25k accelerate anything? Am I missing something?
- azernik 9y agoYes. You're missing that the current cap is 0. To elaborate: "Current federal rules bar self-driving cars without human controls on U.S. roads. States have issued a variety of different rules in the absence of clear federal guidance, and automakers have complained that California’s rules are too restrictive."
- dayaz36 9y ago25k is less than 1% of most major auto manufacturers yearly production numbers. No article I've read on this news has put that into context and instead praises the legislation as liberating car manufacturers to bring FSD cars to the masses. Most people don't read past the headline let alone look into the facts of the article. Also nothing good EVER gets passed legislation unanimously. Last time the House passed legislation this quickly and unanimously was when they passed SOAPA. Something feels fishy about this. I haven't read the legislation directly but I bet if a journalist went through it fully, somethings would surface that people wouldn't like.
- mrhappyunhappy 9y agoMy thoughts exactly. When I read that the vote was unanimous I instantly thought "oh oh, what did they sneak in there".
- azernik 9y agoGiven that this is from a base of zero, and the cap is set to rise by 4x to 100k by 2020 (which is when Waymo plans to start introducing driverless cars), I do not think that this is at all a slow pace.
- dayaz36 9y ago
- Tangurena2 9y agoHmm. The section on exemptions to safety standards was pretty interesting. I wonder what brought that on. The federal pre-emptions to state regulations was expected. States cannot have any higher standards than the federal ones, except for the vehicles that the states purchase for their own needs.
- wbc 9y agohow come pre-emptions are expected? i would expect states cannot have any LOWER standards than federal (think min wage, emissions, etc) and can mandate higher if they choose
- tomschlick 9y agoBecause it would suck if you crossed into another state and all of a sudden your car acted differently to conform to that state's laws (turning off auto pilot, limiting speed, etc).
- Tangurena2 9y agoIt is the other way around - states may not have standards unless they implement the exact federal standard: > No State or political subdivision of a State may maintain, enforce, prescribe, or continue in effect any law or regulation regarding the design, construction, or performance of highly automated vehicles, automated driving systems, or components of automated driving systems unless such law or regulation is identical to a standard prescribed under this chapter. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3388/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3388... According to Wired, there are 21 states with some form of regulation of self-driving vehicles. > Self-driving vehicles have been testing on public roads since 2010, when Google hit the streets near Mountain View, California. And in the absence of congressional oversight, states have stepped in to regulate them, creating a patchwork of at least 21 different state laws and guidelines with different purposes, definitions, and priorities. This is a serious pain for the growing self-driving industry, which aspires to build cars permitted on all public roads. https://www.wired.com/story/congress-self-driving-car-law-bill/ https://www.wired.com/story/congress-self-driving-car-law-bi...
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- Animats 9y agoDup of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15185262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15185262
- cjensen 9y agoQuestion: Does this undermine California's safety standards for self-driving cars? I was very pleased with how quickly California slapped down Uber. Will California still be able to do that? For those who don't remember: Uber was clearly experimenting with unready software on the roads with insufficient safety processes in place. When caught on camera running a red light, Uber blamed the human operator and weasel-worded their pr statement to imply that the car was not in autonomous mode. It in fact was in autonomous mode, and the driver was in observation mode. It's unclear if the failure was due to observer attention failure or lack of training.
- danblick 9y agoYes, it seems to prevent states from having their own safety policies. It makes an exemption for "performance standards" which I guess is omissions. Page 2: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS-115-HR3388-L000566-Amdt-9.pdf http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS...
- Sylphine 9y agoThe apocalypse is near. Inb4 (GOOG. MSFT. APPL. AMZN) Amazing new tech that will change the world buzzword, buzzword, buzzword
- sctb 9y agoThis account has been violating the guidelines with a lot of unsubstantive comments. Please slow down, review the guidelines, and post more thoughtfully. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Splatter 9y agoQuestion: Is it expected that, as a result of this legislation, there will be rigorous behavioral and performance definitions and standards that self-driving cars, however that is defined, will have to meet? IOW, similar to, or in addition to, the FMVSS, will manufacturers have a series of regulations that define the minimum requirements of objective performance criteria for cars sold as "self-driving"? If so, what would those criteria be? Will there be software source code audits to exhibit that the software wasn't written specifically for the testing (vis-a-vis VW)? Finally, will superior test results become marketing fodder for manufacturers in the way acceleration and cornering are now?
- danblick 9y agoIt seems like the legislation would delegate responsibility for coming up with such policies to the Secretary of transportation and gives them 24 months to come up with such rules. ‘‘§ 30129. Updated or new motor vehicle safety stand- 10 ards for highly automated vehicles 11 ‘‘(a) SAFETY ASSESSMENT CERTIFICATION.— 12 ‘‘(1) FINAL RULE.—Not later than 24 months 13 after the date of the enactment of this section, the 14 Secretary of Transportation shall issue a final rule 15 requiring the submission of safety assessment certifi- 16 cations regarding how safety is being addressed by 17 each entity developing a highly automated vehicle or 18 an automated driving system. Such rule shall in- 19 clude— 20 ‘‘(A) a specification of which entities are 21 required to submit such certifications; 22 ‘‘(B) a clear description of the relevant test 23 results, data, and other contents required to be 24 submitted by such entity, in order to dem- 25 onstrate that such entity’s vehicles are likely to http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS-115-HR3388-L000566-Amdt-9.pdf http://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20170727/106347/BILLS...
- Pica_soO 9y agoOn the one side - i find this quite extraordinary- a government ready to push new technologys, instead of inhibiting it- on the other (slightly paranoid) side- what is in it for the senators? Huge portions of traffic automated, because they really love new tech? Nah. They could have forwarded hyperloops and public traffic ages ago. Do they get a bonus point for the next vote? Certainly not, a large part of the population earns its "good" livelihood with what this law is about to destroy. So one wonders- can you push and incentivize the trading of still green bananas to the market- and the watch the populous lynch the producers/cripple with regulation, after the expected large failure happens? You would be seen as tech loving - and you could prevent social turmoil + reap large lobbyist gift basket. Of course that would be very cynical and presume foresight on the part of the politician. Still.
- jcao219 9y agoI'm having trouble comprehending your fourth paragraph.
- Pica_soO 9y agoThe idea is to take a new technology, that is bound to create horrible accidents, and push it faster forward then is its own pace - thus creating indirectly a surge of horrible accidents in the publics eyes, that would make the public rise against said technology. A sort of - over-evaluation to kill a company- strategy.
- stevenwoo 9y agoWhat's in it for them? Their campaigns probably got donations from lobbyists for the interest in question. If you don't have HBO - http://www.newsweek.com/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-congressional-fundraising-443675 http://www.newsweek.com/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-congre... Similarly, the anti net neutrality congresspeople can be found simply by examining the amount of campaign funds raised from the fiber/cable/wireless providers. The folks who voted against allowing importation of equivalent drugs into the USA from Canada - just have to look at pharma contributions to congresspeople.
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- SapphireSun 9y ago"Automakers would have to submit safety assessment reports to regulators, but the bill would not require pre-market approval of advanced vehicle technologies. The measure now goes to the Senate, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers has been working on similar legislation." You and I both know that without premarket approval, one or more companies are going to get careless and are going to kill people before the technology is ready. It's going to stain public acceptance for a quite necessary technology. Here's a new medicine we're developing! It's gonna totally work great. The science says it's possible, we just need to work out the kinks while treating hundreds of thousands of people....
- mobilefriendly 9y agoEven with government approval, there will be fatal accidents. This approach is better because it DIRECTLY holds automakers liable-- they can't claim immunity because some bureaucrat approved the vehicle. And it keeps politics and technical ignorance out of the development cycle. Also, 3,000 people die every month on U.S. roads, your medicine analogy is wrong because there is much harm from the current system.
- ghaff 9y agoOne issue is this. Assume self-driving cars exist at some point. Assume they reduce fatalities by 90 percent. Ignore injuries. Now "only" 3,000 people are being killed by autonomous vehicles because "Hey, software isn't perfect and stuff happens." How many consumer products today kill that many people a year and the public is basically OK with it? I'm not saying that the companies shouldn't make reasonable payments as a cost of doing business but if Ford manufacturing defects today were to kill 1,000 people a year they'd be sued out of existence.
- pg314 9y agoThere are plenty of medical procedures that save lots of lives but occasionally kill people. The public is ok with that because it is way better than the alternative.
- tryingagainbro 9y agoIMO: The need to emphasize that accidents will still happen, just less than when humans are at the wheel.
- 1337biz 9y agoOne of the very few things that I see as a massive benefit of the current Trump Whitehouse: Now would be the time for moonshot projects! I bet Trump would be willing to free a massive budgets if under his term there were a realistic chance on something like the moonlanding. Or something that would ensure him a positive entry in the history books. I truly hople Thiel or Musk use this rare opportunity.
- Retric 9y agoMost presidents would, but they don't create the budget.
- 1337biz 9y agoNot sure. It seems that most have other priorities. But its sometimes not about the budget but can be something like easing up certain laws and so on. Let's see if self driving cars are really normality until the end if his first term.
- redler 9y agoAnd even if a budget were somehow allocated, much of it would be deferred into subsequent congressional terms. An 11- or 12-figure project that has to survive multiple presidential and congressional terms would be no easy feat.
- 1337biz 9y agoI don't think he is interested much in the presidential terms coming after his 4 or 8 years. The most vivid example for that problem is the Iran hostage crisis which led arguably to the election loss of Carter (while he put massive effort into that issue) but only a few days after his loss and into Reagan's presidency, the hostages were released.
- dforrestwilson 9y agoTesla should make a car called the Model Trump, instant Federal support.
- FidelCashflow 9y agoI make the argument that the majority of our interactions with law enforcement (for those of us who are otherwise generally well mannered) stem from some driving related instance. This is the true pathway for most of us to get tangled up in the [broken[ revolving door of the legal system. I am 100% all for self driving cars and look forward to owning one as soon as there are no controls for me to interact with at any time during travel. i.e. no steering wheel, no gas or brake pedals, nothing and therefore no reason to be pulled over. I want the car to be treated legally as an extension to my home; anything that I do / can do at home can also be done in the car. I want a cocktail? take it from the house into the car while it takes me to my destination.
- craftyguy 9y agoI think it would be a very long time, if ever, that all human control mechanisms are removed from an autonomous vehicle
- turk183 9y agoWhy not just reform the legal system so that speed limits are not so prone to abuse and generally make it a rule that unless you are somehow at risk of harming others, that there is no crime? The victimization by police will continue, self-driving cars or no because we give agency to government to invade our lives via the 10,000,000 laws on the books.
- evanlivingston 9y agoThat is to say, you want to limit your mobility to that which is directly and entirely under the control of legislated authority with no possibility of circumventing laws for one reason or another.
- rubicon33 9y agoI have long been arguing among friends and family that in the future it should be ILLEGAL to manually operate your vehicle without a special license. That license, would require to obtain it, a much more vigorous examination and approval than we currently have at the DMV. So, for those determined to manually operate their vehicle, there would always be the means for them to do so. But it should be sufficiently difficult that the average joe doesn't pursue it, given the utility of the self driving car.
- phkahler 9y agoFederal overreach. I find it incredible that they want fully autonomous cars, but we do not yet have fully autonomous aircraft. This stuff isn't safe yet, and may not be for some time. If a state doesn't want to allow it on their roads, DC should not get to overrule them.
- dmix 9y agoThis entire thing sounds like they are trying to solve a problem that doesn't yet exist. As you said, how can they effectively legislate something that is not even fully fleshed out yet? Is this really the time to centralize legislation at the federal level and block states? The primary benefit of allowing states to do it instead is that you can have more liberal experimentation in places where it makes more sense, like less dense, deserty Nevada, with lots of freeways. While more densely populated highly urbanized parts of the country can be avoided until it's ready. I can't believe they are selling this as 'speeding the deployment' because it would be 10x easier for tech companies to convince a state/local government than the federal one. And it seems they already convinced a few states already... The only thing I can imagine this is "speeding up" is helping the major auto companies minimize their legal costs and allow them to focus on lobbying one level of government. As well as making it easier for these companies to guide the legislation towards their favour. This is how corporatism works in the US. The legislation is designed with big-co's in mind who have teams of lawyers and lobbyists.
- program_whiz 9y agotl;dr Under pressure from big investors and a public clamoring for road bots, politicians as usual cater to the whims of the moment. 2 years later: After numerous accidental deaths, the outcry of the public, and the behest of large tech donors fighting growing competition, politicians cater to the whims of the moment and heavily increase regulation and scrutiny of self-driving cars.