House lawmakers approved a bill this week that enables tech companies to conduct wider tests for their next-generation technology. This is one of the few major victories for this market segment. It indicates that the political world is now ready to accept the massive positive impact autonomous cars will have to the national economy.
The Self Drive Act Offers New Authorizations to the Research Field of Self-Driving Technology
Thanks to this new bill, thousands of new self-driving vehicles are closer to hitting the roads than ever. The novel piece of legislation has just delivered a major boost for the research field of this high-end technology. The bill was dubbed as the Self Drive Act and would allow companies that build autonomous technology only to bypass certain tight regulations.
Therefore, these parties will be able to skip time, effort, and resource-consuming steps in covering the bureaucratic labyrinth. They will receive the right to apply with the federal and state regulators for exemptions from certain policies regarding design and safety. By eliminating such lengthy duties, companies could focus better on deploying smarter cars that can drive people around busy roads by themselves.
The Department of Transportation Will Have to Update Its Terms and Definitions to Include Autonomous Cars
Thanks to the new bill, automakers might be able to add 100,000 of such products on the market with each passing year. On the other hand, the Self Drive Act brought cyber security in the foreground.
Automakers have to make sure that regulators and clients are fully aware of how the company approaches privacy and digital safety. This guideline arose the moment researchers started showing how vulnerable even major vehicle systems are to cyber attacks.
On top of that, the bill turns to the Department of Transportation to update its own regulations to these new times of self-driving technologies. The agency still employs outdated terms that the age of autonomous cars is turning redundant.
For instance, definitions of a vehicle are still resorting to the imperative existence of brake pedals and steering wheels. On the other hand, automakers are trying to get rid of these traditional systems.
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