Google to urge U.S. Congress to help get self-driving cars on roads
Google to urge U.S. Congress to help get self-driving
cars on roads
By David Shepardson March 14, 2016
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of Alphabet Inc's Google
self-driving car programme will urge the U.S. Congress on Tuesday to grant
national auto safety regulators new authority to speed the introduction of
self-driving cars on American roads.
Chris Urmson, director of Google's self-driving cars
programme, will tell the Senate Commerce Committee that legislators should
grant new authority to the U.S. Transportation Department to help get fully
autonomous vehicles on the road, according to his prepared testimony, which was
reviewed by Reuters.
"We propose that Congress move swiftly to provide
the secretary of transportation with new authority to approve lifesaving
safety innovations. This new authority would permit the deployment of
innovative safety technologies that meet or exceed the level of safety required
by existing federal standards, while ensuring a prompt and transparent
process," according to the prepared testimony.
Major automakers and technology companies are racing to
develop and sell vehicles that can drive themselves, but have complained that
state and federal safety rules are impeding testing and ultimate deployment of
such vehicles. California in December proposed draft rules that would bar
autonomous vehicles without human controls and a licensed driver.
Google was disappointed by California's action. "If
every state is left to go its own way without a unified approach, operating
self-driving cars across state boundaries would be an unworkable situation and
one that will significantly hinder... the eventual deployment of autonomous
vehicles," Urmson's testimony says.
Urmson's testimony says many federal safety rules would
not be needed with fully autonomous vehicles, like a rear-view mirror
requirement.
In January, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) said it may waive some vehicle safety rules to allow
more driverless cars to operate on U.S. roads as part of a broader effort to
speed up development of self-driving vehicles.
NHTSA said Friday in a report there are significant legal
hurdles to allowing fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels.
NHTSA will write guidelines for self-driving cars within
six months, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in January. The agency
last month said the artificial intelligence system piloting a self-driving
Google car could be considered the driver under federal law.
Google wants to offer fully autonomous vehicles for use
on U.S. roads "soon."
But it had a recent setback. One of its self-driving cars
struck a municipal bus in California on Feb. 14. Google said it made changes to
its software after the crash to avoid future incidents.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Comments
Post a Comment