Autonomous cars put Arizona ahead of the economic curve
The world’s largest fleet of driverless cars — 600 Chrysler Pacificas, operated by Google’s Waymo — can be seen today zipping around the streets of Phoenix, a public display of Arizona’s forward-thinking policies that are triggering innovation benefiting residents, consumers, businesses and our economy.
Policymakers across the country should learn from Arizona’s approach if they want their communities to compete in the new digital economy.
Arizona’s leaders first signaled to the tech industry that it was open for business in 2015, when Gov. Doug Ducey signed an executive order to safeguard companies developing autonomous technology from burdensome regulations.
Upon signing the order, the governor announced that Uber would be donating thousands of dollars to the University of Arizona to support research and development of state-of-the-art lenses and sensors, which help autonomous vehicles navigate. Since then, investment from other companies — GM and Ford, among them — has poured in. It makes sense that Waymo, which partnered with Intel to design, build and test its autonomous vehicles, chose the Copper State to roll out its fleet.
With these driverless cars hitting the roads, policymakers are also taking steps to ensure community safety.
For example, they have established the Arizona Self-Driving Vehicle Oversight Committee, a team of transportation, policy and public-safety experts who will help the state conduct research on self-driving technology. The committee will work closely with both the Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Safety, advising the agencies on the safest ways to roll out driverless cars on public roads.
Residents, consumers and businesses can attest to the success of Arizona’s policies. Phoenix is now one of the top five growth markets in the country, with 66,000 IT workers. And in last year’s annual Tech-Thirty report, which ranks the 30 leading technology markets in the U.S. and Canada for high-tech software and job growth, Phoenix landed at No. 2.
Lawmakers in other states are similarly taking steps to ensure they are ready to lead in the economy of the future. In Michigan, legislators, business leaders and academic researchers have teamed up to create Mcity, a $10 million, 32-acre mock city on the University of Michigan’s campus in Ann Arbor. There, a pilot program is underway to develop connected-car technologies that will ease congestion and ensure the safety of self-driving cars.
This approach should be a blueprint for policymakers across the country, particularly for those who are trying to balance how to safely incorporate innovation and technology into their communities.
Some leaders in major cities like Chicago and San Francisco have proposed complete bans on innovations such as driverless cars and delivery drones. But while it is crucial to address concerns around safety and the disruption of traditional business models, banning innovation must not be the answer.
Despite their best intentions and concerns, policymakers who stand on the sidelines — or worse, seek to block innovation altogether — are ultimately failing their communities, which will fall behind in providing better services to customers, opening the door to new work opportunities and attracting businesses.
The technology and innovation that companies like Waymo and Intel are developing and testing in Arizona will be the engine of the 21st century economy.
These new technologies are fundamentally transforming the way all of us work, shop, eat and live. Given the rapid pace of this transformation, the economy of tomorrow will reward states that embrace forward-thinking policies now.
Arizona has emerged as a leader on this front, and policymakers elsewhere should follow suit.
Joe Rinzel is a spokesman for Americans for a Modern Economy, an advocacy group focused on modernizing regulations and laws governing the U.S. economy. Share your thoughts at info@ame ricansforamoderneconomy.org; on Twitter, @4amoderneconomy.