Elaine S. Povich | (TNS) Stateline.org
Early one morning last year, as state Rep. Josh Bray left his small town of Mount Vernon in southeastern Kentucky to make his way to the Capitol in Frankfort, he decided to count how many drivers he saw texting or distracted by something else.
He quit counting after 24 when he saw a truck driver reading a newspaper while going down the road.
The incident spurred the Republican lawmaker’s effort to pass a bill this spring in the Kentucky legislature that sets rules for self-driving vehicles, including the largest commercial trucks after July 2026. Bray thinks the rules will ensure that self-driving vehicles are safer than those operated by often-distracted human drivers.
The new law for fully autonomous vehicles — those designed to function without a human driver present — requires owners to file a safety and communication plan that law enforcement can use and to have a minimum of $1 million in liability insurance per vehicle, roughly 10 times higher than the amount for regular personal vehicles.
“I felt like it was necessary to have something on the books in Kentucky because we are kind of a logistics hub,” Bray said. For example, he said, self-driving baggage handling vehicles at a northern Kentucky airport now will be able to cross a state road.
The legislature approved the bill in late March and a few weeks later overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who said the bill advanced too quickly and that there should be a testing period before fully autonomous vehicles are allowed to drive in the state.
While no fully autonomous cars are in regular use in the country yet, some states have allowed limited testing and pilot programs on public roads. Many state legislatures are trying to get ahead of self-driving vehicles that eventually will be on their roads by setting standards for operating the vehicles and rules for law enforcement if they see an autonomous vehicle breaking a traffic law. And many laws require, as Kentucky’s does, a minimum insurance requirement to protect drivers, passengers and pedestrians, should the vehicles be involved in an accident.
This year, five states and Washington, D.C., enacted bills dealing with fully automated vehicles, according to Douglas Shinkle, associate director of environment, energy and transportation for the National Conference of State Legislatures. The new laws in Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota allow for the operation of fully autonomous vehicles, while California’s new law deals with safety requirements. North Carolina’s brings the vehicles under updated dealer regulations for all cars.
Updates to current laws
About half the states already have statutes regulating vehicles operated by some degree of autonomous technology — ranging from the fully autonomous vehicles that are not on the road yet to those that have some driver-assist functions, Shinkle said. But many of the laws are being changed already.
“There’s been a steady progression of bills,” he said, “with some going back and refining some of the language. Every year some new states are getting into the mix.”
Most of this year’s new laws have to do with commercial …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
