The Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce will look at autonomous vehicle regulations during a 26 July hearing called “Self-Driving Vehicle Legislative Framework: Enhancing Safety, Improving Lives and Mobility, and Beating China.” Previous versions of the Bill were sponsored by Republicans but went nowhere. This time the subcommittee will consider separate draft legislation from Representative Bob Latta, a Republican from Ohio, and Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan. NHTSA is also in the process of looking at self-driving vehicle regulations.*
The Center for Auto Safety says one of the proposals, the SELF DRIVE Act, “neglects to include any consumer protections that prevent the use of binding arbitration clauses in contracts involving autonomous vehicles.” As is common in Washington the legislation is misleadingly named. However, there is a need to explore the issue as there are arguments on many aspects of technology and systems that can save lives and reduce traffic congestion even though AutoInformed remains skeptical about the ability of politicians to do so with a regard for We the People as opposed to We the Congress who are paid large sums by corporate interests.
This legal shield in the view of CAS ** is a technique long used by tech and ride-share companies to prevent access to courts by victims. Binding arbitration is now being used by AV manufacturers in their autonomous ride-share operations. “Under the proposed legislative language, victims of AV crashes would lose the opportunity to bring civil claims when crashes occur, and be forced to into secretive and biased arbitration proceedings. These would be funded by AV manufacturers, with few of the opportunities and protections guaranteed to consumers in US courts,” CAS said.
*AutoInformed on
**AV Bill of Rights
The draft released in February 2023 by CAS – discusses a wide and formidable list of potential issues. Simply put, it says AVs should “Do No Harm!” The draft is an ambitious attempt to learn from the more than a century of automobility and apply the knowledge at the outset of what is expected to be widespread AV use sometime in the, oh, next decade or three.
Key points of the Autonomous Vehicle working paper, dubbed the AV Bill of Rights.
- AVs shall not increase risk of injury or death inside or outside of an AV.
- The bare minimum standard for introduction of AVs into commerce is that an AV does not degrade the safety of the highways, highway users, or accessible property. (Do No Harm!)
- No vehicle design version may be deployed that increases the frequency of crashes or the likely magnitude of property damage due to crashes or fire.
- No vehicle design may be deployed that increases the probability of injury or death to vehicle occupants, to other motorists or their vehicles, to structures that might contain the AV (including by battery or other electrical fires), to police, fire fighters and other emergency personnel, construction personnel, or other vulnerable road users.
- AVs must include automatic fallback to a safe state in the event of mechanical failure, software or data processing failure or fault, inability to safely continue based on Object Event Detection and Response processing failure, other consequential operational problem, or occupant demand.
- NHTSA 2017 paper shows minimum standard for AV-specific reliability ~1/140 million hours of operation between critical factors in fatal crashes.
Consumer Rights Nil in New Autonomous Vehicle Bills?
The Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce will look at autonomous vehicle regulations during a 26 July hearing called “Self-Driving Vehicle Legislative Framework: Enhancing Safety, Improving Lives and Mobility, and Beating China.” Previous versions of the Bill were sponsored by Republicans but went nowhere. This time the subcommittee will consider separate draft legislation from Representative Bob Latta, a Republican from Ohio, and Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan. NHTSA is also in the process of looking at self-driving vehicle regulations.*
The Center for Auto Safety says one of the proposals, the SELF DRIVE Act, “neglects to include any consumer protections that prevent the use of binding arbitration clauses in contracts involving autonomous vehicles.” As is common in Washington the legislation is misleadingly named. However, there is a need to explore the issue as there are arguments on many aspects of technology and systems that can save lives and reduce traffic congestion even though AutoInformed remains skeptical about the ability of politicians to do so with a regard for We the People as opposed to We the Congress who are paid large sums by corporate interests.
This legal shield in the view of CAS ** is a technique long used by tech and ride-share companies to prevent access to courts by victims. Binding arbitration is now being used by AV manufacturers in their autonomous ride-share operations. “Under the proposed legislative language, victims of AV crashes would lose the opportunity to bring civil claims when crashes occur, and be forced to into secretive and biased arbitration proceedings. These would be funded by AV manufacturers, with few of the opportunities and protections guaranteed to consumers in US courts,” CAS said.
*AutoInformed on
**AV Bill of Rights
The draft released in February 2023 by CAS – discusses a wide and formidable list of potential issues. Simply put, it says AVs should “Do No Harm!” The draft is an ambitious attempt to learn from the more than a century of automobility and apply the knowledge at the outset of what is expected to be widespread AV use sometime in the, oh, next decade or three.
Key points of the Autonomous Vehicle working paper, dubbed the AV Bill of Rights.