What the future of self-driving car safety regulation looks like for cpclists and pedestrians | League of American Bicyclists

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On Wednesday, February 4th, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), titled “Hit the Road, Mac: The Future of Self-Driving Cars.” Leading up to the hearing, the League of American Bicyclists submitted a letter for the record, reiterating our support for an AV regulatory framework that includes a “vision test” ensuring safety for people biking and walking and incorporates the safety tenets we developed with other safety organizations. . . .

Senator Maria Cantwell, the committee’s ranking member from Washington State, made a great comment at the opening of the hearing that whatever the promise of AVs, we have technology that can save lives today like Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). We are currently asking people to contact Congress expressing their support for cyclist-AEB so that people who bike will get the safety benefits of AEB and Senator Cantwell’s comment highlighted this currently available technology. . . .

Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) talked about the Stay In Your Lane Act, which requires AV companies to report on their Operational Design Domains (ODD) and not operate outside of ODD for which they are designed. ODD are used by AV companies to ensure that systems can handle different contexts, such as dense urban areas, school zones, or rural country roads. The League has signed on in support of the Stay In Your Lane Act and hopes that it is incorporated into the next transportation bill. . . .

Witness Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, made a point that Senator Cantwell reiterated: “people are dying today not because we are careful about automated driving but, rather, because we are careless about road safety generally.” While he is an expert on AV law, he noted that the difference in traffic safety between the United States and other countries is not “a vast secret fleet of automated vehicles” but instead the ability to safely “cross the street” and encouraged senators to think beyond AVs to improve traffic safety. . . .

As the League has advocated for a vision test for nearly a decade, we have described it as a test that verifies minimum performance standards related to how AVs detect and respond to all road users, including people biking and walking.

Behavioral competencies may capture much of what we want from a “vision test” for AVs. Discussion of behavioral competencies primarily came from the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, which listed it as one of the key ways that senators could take action to promote American leadership in AV technology.

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What the future of self-driving car safety regulation looks like for cpclists and pedestrians | League of American Bicyclists