WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S.
House on Wednesday unanimously approved a sweeping proposal to speed the
deployment of self-driving cars without human
controls by putting
federal regulators in the driver’s seat and barring states from blocking
autonomous vehicles.
The House measure, the first significant federal
legislation aimed at speeding self-driving cars to market, would allow
automakers to obtain exemptions to deploy up to 25,000 vehicles without
meeting existing auto safety standards in the first year. The cap would
rise over three years to 100,000 vehicles annually.
Representative Doris Matsui said the bill “puts us on a path towards innovation which, up until recently, seemed unimaginable.”
Automakers, business groups, and advocates for the
blind praised the House measure. But one consumer group said the House
bill did not do enough to ensure self-driving cars would be safe.
Under the bill, manufacturers seeking exemptions
must demonstrate self-driving cars are at least as safe as existing
vehicles. States could still set rules on registration, licensing,
liability, insurance, and safety inspections, but not performance
standards.
Automakers would have to submit safety assessment
reports to regulators, but the bill would not require pre-market
approval of advanced vehicle technologies. The measure now goes to the
Senate, where a bipartisan group of lawmakers has been working on
similar legislation.
Automakers and technology companies, including
General Motors Co and Alphabet Inc’s self-driving unit Waymo, hope to
begin deploying vehicles around 2020. They have been pushing for new
federal rules making it easier to deploy self-driving technology, but
some consumer groups have sought additional safeguards.
Current federal rules bar self-driving cars without
human controls on U.S. roads. States have issued a variety of different
rules in the absence of clear federal guidance, and automakers have
complained that California’s rules are too restrictive.
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