It looks like we will see a new set of self-driving car guidelines as early as this summer. According to Reuters, US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chai announced at the Detroit auto show that the agency plans to unveil revised set of guidelines this summer.
According to Chao, the agency has been preparing for the arrival of autonomous vehicles, finding ways to regulate them to keep everyone safe while not limiting innovation at the same time. She also said that revised guidelines cover not only autonomous cars, but also “barriers to the safe integration of autonomous technology for motor carriers, transit, trucks, infrastructure and other modes.”
Last year when the guidelines reached the Senate, they reportedly didn’t include trucks, which was a mistake seeing as many companies are working on autonomous rigs right now. Daimler, Uber and more companies are working to improve on self-driving technology in trucks. Previously, Tesla even unveiled a semi-autonomous truck that’s been quite the hit in the trucking industry.
The response from US Transportation is a good one because automakers have been requesting the government to make changes to vehicles’ safety standards for quite a while now. This is so that automakers don’t have to meet all 75 of them to be able to start deploying fully autonomous products. Most standards don’t apply to cars without steering wheels and pedals anyways. Companies have been asking the administration for more favorable laws that apply to all states so that no individual state can block autonomous vehicles on the road.
