South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Paving way for driverless vehicles
Proposed bill would eliminate requirements for human operators
Is it time to revise Florida’s motor vehicle laws to prepare for a future dominated by driverless vehicles? At least two lawmakers think so.
A new legislative bill aimed at preserving Florida’s status as a pioneering state for autonomous vehicle development would eliminate requirements that human operators always be on hand to take control of fully autonomous cars while in turn legalizing driverless vehicles fully run by software systems.
The proposed law by Duval County state Rep. Jason Fischer would establish that “a licensed
human operator is not required to operate a fully autonomous vehicle.”
Eliminating the human safety net would be a significant show of confidence for a technology that some experts caution still isn’t ready for everyday use.
But Fischer says he’s confident the technology is close to being ready for widespread deployment. Driverless vehicles will make roads safer, he said, citing a 2017 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that concluded human choices are linked to 94 percent of serious crashes.
In addition, Fischer said companies that want to conduct business in Florida cannot because current law prohibits driverless vehicles on public property other than for testing.
“I see all kinds of economic opportunity, but I also see opportunity for freedom,” he said. “It increases mobility for our society in a way that’s hard to quantify — for people with disabilities, people who are visionimpaired or cannot drive at night.”
State Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, is expected to file a Senate version of Fischer’s bill. The proposals are subject to debate and revision through the spring session, which begins March 5.
Autonomous vehicles will have to comply with federal safety standards and Florida’s traffic and motor vehicle laws. But they would be exempted from requirements and restrictions currently imposed upon human drivers. For example, with the automated driving system engaged, anyone in the driver’s seat could watch movies or TV from a dashboard-mounted video screen.
And as long as the car or driving system is capable of summoning authorities after a crash, there’s no need to require a human to stand at the crash site, said Christopher Emmanuel, director of infrastructure and governance policy for Autonomous
Florida, an advocacy program created in 2018 by the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
“The old law required a person there to be the ‘operator’ with a driver’s license to show, ‘I’m the person to talk to about that shuttle over there,’ ” he said. “It’s probably not fair anymore to require a human to speak for an algorithm.”
Lawmakers enacted the state’s current law in 2012 to encourage testing and pilot programs in the state. Considered groundbreaking at the time, the law requires a human operator to be inside or outside driverless vehicles on public roads, ready to assume manual control in case of a technical failure.
In 2012, lawmakers envisioned that most autonomous vehicles would be owned by individuals, much as we own and keep our cars today, Emmanuel said.
Then came plans by ridesharing service Uber to deploy driverless technology, as well as a decline in automobile ownership among members of the millennial generation.
Suddenly, Uber, Google and the world’s biggest automakers
Duval County state Rep.
announced plans to create fleets of automated cars. Many of the plans call for consumers not to own but to subscribe to car services that will be summoned on demand, much like movies on Netflix and products ordered through Amazon Prime.
“Now we’re moving toward mobility as a service model,” Emmanuel said. “This might be more of a public good, with multiple people using the same vehicle at multiple times a day.”
And while a few highprofile crashes have caused experts to rethink how fast our driverless destiny will envelop us, pilot programs throughout Florida are baby-stepping us into thinking about the concept more along the lines of Herbie the Love Bug than Steven King’s Christine. Ford’s Smart Mobility project in Miami: With its affiliate Argo AI, the legacy automaker is testing its Virtual Driver System on Miami’s streets. As one of the nation’s most congested cities, Miami is an ideal laboratory for teaching an autonomous system to interact safely within a vibrant human-centered environment, the company’s developers said. Testing is also underway in Pittsburgh, Detroit and Washington, D.C. Ford expects to begin marketing self-driving cars for commercial use by 2021.
Voyage in The Villages: The massive planned retirement community halfway between Gainesville and Orlando offers a captive market of 125,000 residents on 750 miles of privately owned roads. Residents can summon a self-driving Chrysler Pacifica to their doorstep for rides to the town’s restaurants, movie theaters, health-care facilities and golf courses. Voyage chose The Villages for the opposite reason Ford chose Miami — the environment is simpler with wellmaintained two-lane roads, and cars can be slower. Voyage’s fleet drives 20 mph, slow enough to give each vehicle’s sensors ample time to perceive, predict and react, the company says on its website.
“Making decisions at 20 mph is easier than at 50 mph,” Emmanuel said.
Transdev: Operating a driverless shuttle that Emmanuel compares to a “toaster on wheels,” the mobility company has established service in Gainesville, Jacksonville and another planned community, Babcock Ranch, near the border of Lee and Charlotte counties in Southwest Florida. The air-conditioned shuttles run on small tires and travel at about 10 mph. Riders sit on simple benches and the vehicles can be summoned for pointto-point travel or run along fixed routes.
Starsky Robotics: The self-driving trucking company, headquartered in San Francisco, achieved a first in Florida in February 2018: It piloted a semi-truck along eight miles of interstate highway without a driver. Currently, the company is refining its driverless truck technology, in which a semi-truck’s entire long-haul trip is automated except for the first and last mile, which is piloted remotely by tele-operators.
Interstate highways have proven among the easiest environments to automate, Emmanuel said. “They have really good lanes, good markings and no cross streets.”
To keep Florida at the forefront of autonomous vehicle technology, Fischer’s bill would also authorize funding and development of autonomous testing facilities by the Florida Turnpike Enterprise. The agency is currently a partner in the construction of a $42 million
400-acre testing course, currently being built north of Auburndale, called SunTrax. Partners are Florida Polytechnic University, the state Department of Transportation and Central Florida Automated Vehicle Partners. Autonomous vehicle testing will take place within the
200-acre infield while tollrelated technology will be tested on the facility’s outside track, according to published accounts.
Fischer compared the coming transformation to the introduction of the nation’s interstate highway system in the middle of the last century. “It’s going to transform the way we move people and goods in a way that’s hard to imagine,” he said.
“It increases mobility for our society in a way that’s hard to quantify — for people with disabilities, people who are vision-impaired or cannot drive at night.” Jason Fischer