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United States Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx predicts self-driving cars will be on U.S. roads in a matter of a few years. Speaking at the Techonomy Conference in New York this week, Secretary Foxx wouldn’t say just how soon he thinks they will be on the roads other than to say it would be within a “single digit” number of years from now. Foxx admits there are still some significant obstacles to getting the autonomous vehicles on the road, though the technology is not one of them.
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Foxx admits the public may not embrace the new technology at first but he says the likely reduction in accidents should turn that around. He notes that right now there are about 33,000 automobile fatalities in the U.S. each year, a number that could be reduced by an estimated 80% with self driving cars, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. He expects there will almost certainly be adverse public reaction when there are deaths resulting from an accident involving self-driving cars. But he notes that while each death “represents a real three-dimensional person who is a father mother, daughter or son,” that eliminating the bulk of the 94% of accidents caused by human error will be worth it.
The Secretary says there are still regulatory and liability issues yet to be resolved. If a self driving car is in an accident who will be liable, the vehicle’s occupant, the car’s manufacturer, the software maker, or in the case of electronically created infrastructure, could it be the municipality or roadway operator? And he notes that it’s not at all clear whether this will be a state or federal regulatory matter or both. While the federal government regulates auto safety through NHTSA, it’s up to the states to regulate drivers’ licenses, traffic rules, and liability. A lack of uniformity among states might mean that a car that’s legal to operate in Nevada, for example, might not be legally able to cross the border into California.
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A key component in the DOT’s planning for autonomous cars is in vehicle to vehicle communications (V2V). He says that in the next few months the government will issue what he calls a regulatory framework in which a V2V communications protocol could be developed. While Google and others have been developing autonomous cars with all the technology they need already on board, most experts believe the real implementation of the technology will take place once vehicles can talk to each other, alerting one another of upcoming turns or lane changes.
Foxx made specific reference to the importance of the self driving car for older Americans, pointing out that his grandmother never had a driver’s license, but with a self driving car she could get herself to a doctor without having to rely on anyone else. As the baby boom generation continues to age, the notion of when is it time to take the license away from grandma is going to be a prevalent conversation, one that could be made moot by the advent of self-driving cars.
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