WASHINGTON — The security advantages of deploying extra autonomous autos on U.S. roads should be weighed in opposition to their potential dangers, a U.S. Home panel mentioned final week.
Whereas AVs have the potential to curb the “startling rise” in U.S. visitors deaths, “we should be sure that these applied sciences are held to the very best attainable security requirements,” Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, chair of the Home Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, mentioned throughout a listening to Wednesday, Feb. 2.
Each Norton, D-D.C., and Rating Member Rodney Davis, R-In poor health., expressed concern over the potential for widespread job displacement introduced on by the deployment of AVs, particularly within the industrial sector.
Davis mentioned Congress must implement “pro-worker insurance policies” that incorporate worker improvement and coaching applications to upskill the work pressure for jobs that AVs will create.
“Our future relies on what we do now,” Davis mentioned. “We have to have a transparent regulatory construction in place to have the ability to proceed to assist AV improvements.”
The Autonomous Car Trade Affiliation, previously the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, argued that AVs will enhance transportation fairness and create jobs however that federal inaction dangers America’s management function within the expertise.
“The AV trade is creating jobs and offering alternatives for employees with a big selection of experience and academic backgrounds, together with many roles that don’t require a university diploma,” Ariel Wolf, common counsel for the affiliation, informed the panel.
Members additionally heard testimony from self-driving startup Aurora, Advocates for Freeway and Auto Security, labor unions and different consultants who urged Congress and the Biden administration to work collectively and act on laws that may create a nationwide framework for AV deployment and regulation.
“With out rules, authorities oversight, client info and trade accountability, the security of all street customers is in peril,” Advocates President Cathy Chase mentioned.
Advocates — a consortium of client, medical, public well being and security teams in addition to insurance coverage corporations — has urged lawmakers to advance the group’s “AV tenets,” a information for crafting a invoice that prioritizes security, fairness, accessibility and sustainability.
“We have to know what’s occurring on our roads, and the best way to perform security is thru regulation,” Chase mentioned.
Earlier makes an attempt by Congress to go bipartisan laws governing AVs have stalled, leaving builders and different stakeholders to navigate a patchwork of state and native legal guidelines.
“Congress must get this proper,” mentioned Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn. “I believe there is a completely satisfied medium between letting tech corporations rule our streets and making use of over-restrictive authorities rules on trade.”
Nat Beuse, Aurora’s vp of security, warned of “pitting security in opposition to innovation.”
“I do not know why we’re doing that,” he mentioned. “We are actually in a disaster of fatalities on our nation’s roadways. We actually want all of those instruments on the desk,” together with AVs.
Beuse urged the U.S. Division of Transportation and NHTSA to maneuver ahead with open rule-makings to help the secure deployment of AVs and pressed Congress to develop legal guidelines and rules which are impartial on expertise and enterprise mannequin.
Beuse, who spoke with Automotive Information by telephone after the listening to, mentioned efforts to maneuver ahead on AV laws would require a “entire of presidency method.”
“There may be super energy that the federal authorities has — both Congress or U.S. DOT — in convening, and many voices should be heard,” he mentioned. “There’s a want for trade … to be clear about what expertise they’re placing on the street, with customers, with the general public and, I might say, with regulators.”