SANTA MONICA, Calif.,
June 26, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
-- Consumer Watchdog today called on Congress to ensure the
adoption of federal safety standards to cover self-driving
autonomous vehicles and warned that proposed House legislation that
would pre-empt state safety regulations "would leave a
regulatory void without meaningful safety protections."
In a formal statement filed with the House Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection for its
hearing Tuesday on self-driving legislation, Consumer Watchdog's
John M. Simpson warned:
"Pre-empting the states' ability to fill the void left by
federal inaction leaves us at the mercy of manufacturers as they
use our public highways as their private laboratories however they
wish with no safety protections at all."
The proposed legislation circulated by the Subcommittee does
nothing to require or promote the development of safety standards,
but would prevent states from enacting them.
The nonprofit nonpartisan public interest group stressed
that regulations covering jurisdiction over licensing;
enacting and enforcing traffic laws and regulations; and regulating
vehicle insurance and liability must remain with the
states.
"Lost in the hyperbole over robot cars is a realistic
assessment of the likely costs to both consumers and taxpayers
particularly over the coming decades, when robot cars and human
drivers will share a 'hybrid highway,' " said Simpson.
Consumer Watchdog also called on Congress to increase
funding for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration so
it has the resources necessary to enact safety performance
standards and regulate self-driving robot cars.
Read Consumer Watchdog's statement here:
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/househavstatement062717.pdf
View the Subcommittee hearing here:
https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings-and-votes/hearings/self-driving-vehicle-legislation
The statement to the House Subcommittee comes after Consumer
Watchdog's in depth study, "Self-Driving Vehicles: The Threat to
Consumers." Read the report here:
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/sites/default/files/resources/self_driving_consumer_threat_report.pdf
Consumer Watchdog noted that when the federal government finally
enacts Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FVMSS) covering
autonomous vehicles, they will under current law pre-empt state
safety regulations.
"There will be no 'patch-work' of competing and possibly
contradictory regulations that some warn about," said Simpson.
"NHTSA just needs to do its job and protect the public's
safety."
Consumer Watchdog's formal statement concluded:
"We call on you to require the development of enforceable
federal safety performance standards. Responsible regulation goes
hand-in-hand with innovation. Voluntary 'standards' in the auto
industry have repeatedly been proven to be weak and
insufficient. Safety must come before the automakers' bottom
lines. Consumer Watchdog calls on you to require NHTSA to enact the
necessary regulations to protect the safety of our highways and
give the agency the necessary resources to do so."
The next few years will feature complex interactions between
people, computers, cars and public streets and freeways, Consumer
Watchdog said. To deal with the challenge posed by
autonomous vehicle technology, Consumer Watchdog believes six
principles must be adopted. They are:
1. Protect the civil justice system. The state-based
civil justice system – open courts, impartial judges and citizen
juries – is fully equipped to handle the determination of legal
responsibility as our transportation system evolves over the coming
decades. Disputes over who is at fault in a crash involving a
self-driving car or truck will require the full power of civil
justice system, with its procedural safeguards of an impartial
judge, full public transparency, and trial by citizen juries, to
investigate and publicly expose the cause of crashes, compensate
the victims for deaths, injuries and property damage, punish the
wrongdoer, and force manufacturers to make changes in their
products to prevent future harm. When their autonomous technologies
fail, hardware and software manufacturers must be held strictly
liable. Lawmakers should reject legislation to limit or restrict
state consumer protection laws. Manufacturers must not be permitted
to evade these consumer protections by inserting arbitration
clauses, "hold harmless" provisions or other waivers in their
contracts.
2. Enact stronger state consumer protections against
insurance company abuses. According to a 2013 report by
the Consumer Federation of America, "California stands out from all other states in
having the best insurance regulatory system for protecting
consumers." Enacted by California
voters in 1988, California's
insurance reform law provides precisely the stronger protections
consumers will require in the era of robot vehicles. The reforms,
known as Proposition 103, have protected motorists (along with
homeowners, renters, businesses and medical providers) against
unjust insurance rates (including product liability insurance
rates) and anti-consumer and discriminatory practices. The law's
emphasis on rewarding drivers with lower insurance premiums based
on their safety record, their annual mileage, their driving
experience, and other rating factors within their control that are
"substantially related to the risk of loss," will be critical in
the new automotive era. Proposition 103's mandate for public
disclosure and public participation in regulatory matters are
essential components of a system that will be trusted by
consumers.
3. Enact auto safety standards. Private companies cannot
be trusted to develop and deploy robot cars and trucks without
rules. The federal auto safety agency or other relevant federal
agencies, or in their absence, state auto safety agencies, must
develop standards for the testing and deployment of the multiple
technologies required by robot vehicles. These standards must
address safety, security, privacy and the software that determines
the robot's actions in the event of an impending collision and as
it makes life and death decisions. They must be enforceable by
consumers in courts of law.
4. Stronger laws are needed to protect consumers'
privacy. The laws have not kept pace with the evolution of
technology and the collection and monetization of consumers'
personal data. Hardware and software manufacturers and insurance
companies must be barred from utilizing tracking, sensor or
communications data, or transferring it to third parties for
commercial gain, absent separate written consent (which should not
be required as a condition of accessing the services of the
vehicle/manufacturer, and which should be revocable by the consumer
at any time).
5. Bar federal interference in state consumer protection
laws. Neither Congress nor federal agencies should be
permitted to preempt or override stronger state based civil
justice, insurance reform or auto safety laws.
6. Respect democratic and human values. The sponsors of
self-driving vehicles have promoted the myth that machines are
infallible in order to justify the wholesale departure from a
panoply of norms that form founding principles for the nation,
beginning with the rule of law; individual and corporate
responsibility; long held legal principles that distinguish between
human beings and property; and the transparency of public officials
and institutions that is a hallmark of democracy. The strategy of
substituting robot values for human values has reached its
apotheosis in the determination by robot car company executives to
program computers to make life and death decisions, and to keep
that decision-making process secret. Lawmakers will need to impose
the rule of law and other attributes of American democracy upon the
executives of the hardware and software companies that manufacture
self-driving cars.
Visit our website at www.consumerwatchdog.org
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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog