With California appearing on the brink of banning driverless commercial trucks, American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear on Wednesday urged the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to standardize regulations that would ease the testing and use of technology that he and ATA see as promising to enhance highway safety, boost economic productivity and support trucking’s workforce.
Spear emphasized that regulations must be consistent state-to-state in order to avoid a patchwork of rules that treat highway users differently based on vehicle type.
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“What’s needed first is a national framework that encourages development, testing and deployment of technology, in direct support of interstate commerce,” Spear said in a hearing before the panel’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. “Federal guidance should treat commercial and passenger vehicles equally and require automated vehicles to achieve an acceptable level of safety and performance, rather than requiring the use of specific technologies.”
The California Senate this week passed AB 316, a bill that requires trained human safety operators to be inside an autonomous heavy-duty vehicle while it is operating on public roads in the state. The bill would be by proxy a ban of driverless trucks on the state's roads.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters this week also released a guiding document for federal policymakers to address issues with autonomous vehicles intended to prioritize workers and safety.
Volvo Autonomous Solutions President Nils Jaeger noted to CCJ Thursday that many driverless technology companies have already moved from California to Texas and other Sunbelt states because regulations in place across most of the lower U.S. are more flexible for testing without human drivers, and Sunbelt states offer more stable weather, adding there is "significant" freight demand across the region and the terrain is mostly flat.
