While driverless cars may have once seemed like an invention befitting only a science fiction novel, the reality is that the future is here and autonomous vehicles are already on our roadways. While the actual deployment of large scale fleets of autonomous vehicles (AV) is still on the horizon, many companies have already begun development, and are now testing on roadways. In the midst of the excitement and concern surrounding AVs, there are still questions and obstacles that the vehicles face at a number of levels, including regulatory, safety, design, and economic. The good news is that private companies and government entities are already working together to tackle the issues and ease the integration of this technology that is on the fast track to deployment.

 

Various studies and real world research efforts have pointed to autonomous and connected vehicles as having numerous travel benefits in addition to mitigating human error in driving. The California DMV defines an autonomous vehicle as "any vehicle equipped with technology that has the capability of operating or driving the vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person". AVs thus will not only allow passengers to sit back and enjoy the ride, but may have the potential to reduce traffic congestion, improve highway safety and make even the far suburbs more convenient places to live. The dedication to improving the safety of our roads cannot be understated, however, given that according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), " driver error is the cause of 94 percent of crashes". Autonomous Vehicles, especially working in conjunction with large scale fleets of connected vehicles have the potential of widely reducing traffic crashes.

                  

On top of making commuting a more relaxing experience, AVs will likely help traffic flow more smoothly and efficiently, and ultimately cut down on travel times for commuters. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, "the typical driver spends about 42 hours a year stuck in traffic". AVs will likely take out other human functions in a car, leaving the vehicle with more consistent speeds and better communication with infrastructure and other vehicles, which can reduce congestion issues. As a result, less human drivers on the road may also reduce the need for engineered safety strategies intended to assist human drivers on the road, such as rumble strips or speed bumps. In addition to changing the way we commute and travel, AVs have the potential to change how and where we live. As the USDOT notes, autonomous vehicles "have the potential to transform personal mobility and open doors to people and communities - people with disabilities, aging populations, communities where car ownership is prohibitively expensive, or those who prefer not to drive or own a car - that today have limited or impractical options".

 

According to global consultant McKinsey & Company, "consumers will begin to adopt AVs starting in 2020, and AVs will become the primary mode of transportation by 2050". However, the future of AVs is still largely dependent on solving issues of safety, technology, cost, social acceptance, federal regulations, and other drivers. All of these are challenges that must be overcome before AVs are the new normal on the roads. As private companies continue research and development, some experts say that developing fail-safe software for driverless cars includes rethinking how software is even designed. Most of the software we use in our everyday devices - phones, laptops, and "smart"-accessories - are not intended to operate for long periods of time without crashing or freezing. In a driverless vehicle, such a software error would have larger consequences and even deadly results. The safety of autonomous vehicles remains a major issue and question for many; as the New York Times pointed out, "Google's self-driving car has already run into another perplexing safety problem: human drivers." Although AV sensors are constantly being improved and refined for a smoother transition with human drivers, one of the biggest challenges facing automated cars is blending them into a world in which humans don't always follow the rules. While test cars like Google's fleet of autonomous cars have been programmed to follow the law exactly, human drivers who run a stop or even do not come to a full stop, can paralyze the AV sensors and cause a delay in the vehicles path; or worse, can cause a crash.

 

As developers continue to fine tune their product and technology, State governments have already started preparing for arrival of AVs. States such as California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada have recently passed legislation governing the use of driverless cars, and other states are considering or working on implementing similar legislation. In June 2016, Pennsylvania created the Autonomous Vehicles Testing Policy Task Force in order to "collaboratively develop guidance that PennDOT will use when drafting autonomous vehicle policy". PennDOT is chairing the task force, which is comprised of state, federal and private-industry officials such as the Federal Highway Administration, AAA, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Uber Technologies.

 

From a regulatory standpoint, the most notable development in the world of autonomous vehicles is the US Department of Transportation release of the " Federal Automated Vehicles Policy" in September 2016. This policy was created in order to meet the "remarkable speed with which increasingly complex AVs are evolving" and "to take new approaches that ensure these technologies are safely introduced, provide safety benefits today, and achieve their full safety potential in the future". Overall, the policy is an agency guidance rather than a set of rules, which is meant as "a regulatory framework and best practices to guide manufacturers and other entities in the safe design, development, testing, and deployment of AVs".

                    

The guidelines are broken up into four major areas of: Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles, Model State Policy, NHTSA's Current Regulatory Tools, and New Tools and Authorities. The Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles (or "Guidance") section outlines best practices for the safe pre-deployment design, development and testing of AVs prior to commercial sale or operation on public roads. The Model State Policy section confirms that states retain their traditional responsibilities for vehicle licensing and registration, traffic laws and enforcement, and motor vehicle insurance and liability regimes. The shared objective is to ensure the establishment of a consistent national framework rather than a patchwork of incompatible laws. The NHTSA Regulatory Tools section confirms that NHTSA will continue to exercise its available regulatory authority over AVs using its existing regulatory tools: interpretations, exemptions, notice-and-comment rulemaking, and defects and enforcement authority. NHTSA has the authority to identify safety defects, allowing the Agency to recall vehicles or equipment that pose an unreasonable risk to safety even when there is no applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS). The New Tools and Authorities section identifies potential new tools, authorities and regulatory structures that could aid the safe and appropriately expeditious deployment of new technologies by enabling the Agency to be more nimble and flexible.