A pair of recent opinion articles in The Washington Post questioned the safety of autonomous vehicles and called out the lack of transparency.
Todd Spencer, president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, wrote that regulators need to tap the brakes on driverless trucks.
“Professional truck drivers operate the largest and most complex vehicles on our roads,” wrote Spencer, who started his trucking career in 1974 and still holds a CDL. “Safety is foundational to our livelihoods. When industry groups like mine raise concerns about unproven, underregulated and unaccountable autonomous vehicles, we are working to ensure everyone on the road gets home safely. Autonomous trucks have not yet demonstrated safe operation at scale in challenging, real-world conditions across diverse terrain, weather and traffic environments.”
OOIDA’s president said one of the problems is that the public has no way of really knowing how safe – or unsafe – autonomous vehicles are, because regulators allow voluntary safety reporting.
“True transparency requires independent oversight and full public accountability,” Spencer wrote. “Beyond data transparency, autonomous trucks also introduce cybersecurity risks that demand clear federal safeguards. There is reason to worry about foreign adversaries having remote access to autonomous technology: Semitrucks have been used in ramming attacks abroad.
In another opinion article, Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., also called out the lack of transparency associated with autonomous vehicles.
“I’m not looking for excuses to oppose self-driving cars,” Markey wrote. “I’m looking for transparency from ‘Big Tech’ companies experimenting without guardrails on our public roads.”
Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, introduced the SELF DRIVE Act on Feb. 5. The Safety Ensuring Lives Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution Act would create a national framework for regulating autonomous vehicles.
However, the proposed regulatory framework has still raised concerns about the lack of transparency.
Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., said more information about the safety of these vehicles is needed before allowing full-scale operations across the United States.
“I hope one day that they lead to a dramatic decrease in traffic deaths, but we are not there yet,” Mullin said during the hearing. “And to know if we’re getting there, we need the data. That’s why for two years I’ve been calling on NHTSA to require more data from AV operators. Unfortunately, this bill includes no meaningful data-recording requirements beyond what NHTSA is already collecting about collisions, which I believe is insufficient.”
“While this bill does mention the need to collect vehicle miles traveled, it is meaningless without specifying that the miles must be miles traveled on public roads,” Mullin added. “Companies should not be able to report miles driven on test tracks or in the middle of a wide-open desert.” LL
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