A new road safety group targets self-driving cars

New advocacy The group is lobbying state lawmakers to pass stricter regulations for self-driving vehicles. The group, Safe Self-Driving Vehicles Everywhere in the United States (SAVE-US), says its goal is to ensure that new vehicles Autonomous driving Technology will save lives rather than harm them. Its work has a clear goal: Tesla.

the campaignwhich announced Wednesday, among its goals is to pass legislation requiring technology developers to be clearer about the limits of their driving technology; Reporting more specific and general information about crashes to the states; And use multiple sensors on their cars. In the United States, regulations governing Autonomous vehicles They are generally handled by states, whose laws range from strict (California) to relatively lenient (Arizona and Texas). Fourteen US states Don’t have it Laws regarding self-driving vehicles at all. The group will initially target lawmakers in large states, including Illinois, New York and New Jersey, said Chua Sanchez, the group’s national campaign director.

Sanchez and Bob Sommers, a technical advisor for SAVE-US, met this summer outside a school Administrative hearing In Oakland, California. At home, lawyers for the California Department of Motor Vehicles argued that Tesla should temporarily lose its license to manufacture and sell vehicles in the state because, they claimed, the electric automaker falsely advertised its self-driving and Autopilot driver-assistance features.

Sanchez, a physicist, has been following Tesla closely since he became involved in the project Takedown Tesla The movement earlier this year led demonstrations outside a Boston showroom to protest CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with so-called Government Efficiency Department. Somers has worked as an engineer at self-driving vehicle developer Zoox for half a decade. (He has since left the self-driving car industry.)

In Auckland, they agreed that autonomous vehicle technology has the potential to save lives. But rushing to use technology, or confusing customers about its limitations, is unsafe and can ruin the entire project. (An administrative judge is scheduled to decide on Tesla’s case later this year.)

“It’s fair to say that Tesla is the worst actor in this space, but that certainly doesn’t mean every other company is perfect either,” Sanchez says. “If we don’t have good regulations, we leave the door open for any company to follow an unsafe path.”

Unlike many of its competitors, which use expensive radars and lidar in addition to cameras, Tesla relies on vision software only, arguing that only more effective cameras and AI-trained software can drive its vehicles safely. The technology strategy is at the heart of one of Tesla’s key promises: One day, the cars it’s already built will be able to drive themselves entirely thanks to a rapid software update. Competitors, including Waymo and Zoox, are using more expensive, purpose-built robo-taxis for their autonomous rides. Last week, the US federal government She said she had opened an investigation of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Driver Assistance (Supervision) software after reports that the feature, which is not autonomous and must be supervised by a driver behind the wheel, ran red lights and drove on the wrong side of the street.