Current Developments in Autonomous Vehicle Policy in the United States: Federalism’s Influence in State and National Regulatory Law and Policy

Global Jurist ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Salatiello ◽  
Troy B. Felver

Abstract With the advent of autonomous vehicles, especially self-driving cars, there is great promise for society. However, cars are not islands; they operate in a community of vehicles. Laws and regulations are crafted to allow the maximum benefit for the community while imposing the fewest costs. Unfortunately, a full accounting of these benefits and costs is not entirely clear at promulgation. Because the technologies and how they will be used are so uncertain, regulatory bodies have to try to build on what they have done in the past, sometimes successfully and sometimes unevenly. This paper will examine several regulatory attempts involving these new technologies in the United States, both on the federal and state levels. Also considered will be the interaction of these regulations under a federal system with defined and specific responsibilities for both sovereigns. A view on future developments is provided to gauge the directions additional regulation could take. Finally, generalizable lessons from this approached will be summarized.

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 436-451
Author(s):  
Yilang Peng

Applications in artificial intelligence such as self-driving cars may profoundly transform our society, yet emerging technologies are frequently faced with suspicion or even hostility. Meanwhile, public opinions about scientific issues are increasingly polarized along the ideological line. By analyzing a nationally representative panel in the United States, we reveal an emerging ideological divide in public reactions to self-driving cars. Compared with liberals and Democrats, conservatives and Republicans express more concern about autonomous vehicles and more support for restrictively regulating autonomous vehicles. This ideological gap is largely driven by social conservatism. Moreover, both familiarity with driverless vehicles and scientific literacy reduce respondents’ concerns over driverless vehicles and support for regulation policies. Still, the effects of familiarity and scientific literacy are weaker among social conservatives, indicating that people may assimilate new information in a biased manner that promotes their worldviews.


Significance This comes a week after an autonomous Uber vehicle killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona on March 18. Uber had already suspended its testing there (and in Pittsburgh, Toronto and San Francisco) but presumably now it will not be able to restart testing in Arizona until it receives state permission, even if it restarts testing elsewhere. The United States has been leading the push for effective and ubiquitous self-driving vehicles. The fatality raises ethical and policy questions. Impacts The incident may slow roll-out of testing without a safety driver, scheduled to start in California on April 2. This may also bring to the forefront the ethical dilemmas for self-driving cars, which have yet to be settled. Further such fatalities and widespread reporting could shift public opinion against autonomous vehicles.


Subject 5G telecommunications in the United States and China. Significance The outcome of the contest between China and the United States for leadership in fifth-generation (5G) telecommunications technology will have long-term implications for each country's respective economy. It will affect the speed and way in which many new technologies, including autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things (IoT), are implemented. Impacts Consumers in the United States will be the first to enjoy the higher speeds afforded by 5G. The roll-out will be faster in China of such transformative 5G technology as autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things. China’s healthcare, manufacturing and automotive sectors will be among the beneficiaries.


Author(s):  
Sara Roy

Many in the United States and Israel believe that Hamas is nothing but a terrorist organization, and that its social sector serves merely to recruit new supporters for its violent agenda. Based on extensive fieldwork in the Gaza Strip and West Bank during the critical period of the Oslo peace process, this book shows how the social service activities sponsored by the Islamist group emphasized not political violence but rather community development and civic restoration. The book demonstrates how Islamic social institutions in Gaza and the West Bank advocated a moderate approach to change that valued order and stability, not disorder and instability; were less dogmatically Islamic than is often assumed; and served people who had a range of political outlooks and no history of acting collectively in support of radical Islam. These institutions attempted to create civic communities, not religious congregations. They reflected a deep commitment to stimulate a social, cultural, and moral renewal of the Muslim community, one couched not only—or even primarily—in religious terms. Vividly illustrating Hamas's unrecognized potential for moderation, accommodation, and change, the book also traces critical developments in Hamas' social and political sectors through the Second Intifada to today, and offers an assessment of the current, more adverse situation in the occupied territories. The Oslo period held great promise that has since been squandered. This book argues for more enlightened policies by the United States and Israel, ones that reflect Hamas' proven record of nonviolent community building. A new afterword discusses how Hamas has been affected by changing regional dynamics and by recent economic and political events in Gaza, including failed attempts at reconciliation with Fatah.


Author(s):  
Seth W. Whiting ◽  
Rani A. Hoff

Advancements in technologies and their mass-scale adoption throughout the United States create rapid changes in how people interact with the environment and each other and how they live and work. As technologies become commonplace in society through increased availability and affordability, several problems may emerge, including disparate use among groups, which creates divides in attainment of the beneficial aspects of a technology’s use and coinciding mental health issues. This chapter briefly overviews new technologies and associated emerging applications in information communication technologies, social media networks, video games and massively multiplayer online role-playing games, and online gambling, then examines the prevalence of use among the general population and its subgroups and further discusses potential links between mental health issues associated with each technology and implications of overuse.


1999 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-344
Author(s):  
Frances B Jamieson ◽  
Pamela Chedore

Since the mid-1980s, the rate of new cases of tuberculosis (TB) diagnosed in Canada ceased to follow a downward trend, and has instead stabilized at approximately 7 cases/100,000 population. In the United States, a similar trend emerged, such that in the early 1990s there was an increase in new cases of TB. Outbreaks of drug-resistant TB also occurred with devastating clinical impact. These observations prompted laboratories to re-examine their role in halting the spread of TB. Laboratories play a critical part in the diagnosis of TB; procedures must be optimized to provide rapid and accurate results. This review discusses the role of the mycobacteriology laboratory in the diagnosis of TB, and how new technologies available today have enhanced the ability of the laboratory to provide timely, efficient and accurate results.


Author(s):  
Joe Gustafson

Most transportation engineers around the world, and now in the United States, are relatively familiar with roundabouts and their operational and safety benefits. Although roundabouts are becoming increasingly common, drivers and even engineering professionals often contend with mixed messages about roundabout design and operation. In a world speckled with all manner of spiral roundabouts, signalized roundabouts, traffic circles, gyratories, and rotaries, is it any wonder that confusion, and public resistance, often persists? These mixed messages may represent the greatest hurdle to implementation, public acceptance, and safe operation of multi-lane roundabouts in particular. Within North America and across the globe, circular intersection designs that appear relatively similar to users can in fact require significantly different driver behaviors, depending on whether they are configured with a continuous circle road or a network of crossing roadways. This distinction can be of critical importance for roadway designers and agencies, elected officials and other policymakers, road user education and licensing, traffic enforcement, mapping and GPS navigation, and safe operation of autonomous vehicles. This paper aims to provide an overview of existing definitions, explore the nature of conflict points for each design, provide a framework modeling method for analysis, and provide globally applicable definitions for roundabout features for use in design, education, policy, enforcement, and research. This paper is focused primarily on roundabout design guidance and operations within the United States, but places these practices within the global context, such that the definitions and analyses provided can be applied to all forms of roundabout intersections around the world.


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Millard-Ball

Autonomous vehicles, popularly known as self-driving cars, have the potential to transform travel behavior. However, existing analyses have ignored strategic interactions with other road users. In this article, I use game theory to analyze the interactions between pedestrians and autonomous vehicles, with a focus on yielding at crosswalks. Because autonomous vehicles will be risk-averse, the model suggests that pedestrians will be able to behave with impunity, and autonomous vehicles may facilitate a shift toward pedestrian-oriented urban neighborhoods. At the same time, autonomous vehicle adoption may be hampered by their strategic disadvantage that slows them down in urban traffic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Zimmer ◽  
Jennifer Bridgewater ◽  
Fatima Ferreira ◽  
Ronald van Ree ◽  
Ronald L. Rabin ◽  
...  

The topic of standardization in relation to allergen products has been discussed by allergists, regulators, and manufacturers for a long time. In contrast to synthetic medicinal products, the natural origin of allergen products makes the necessary comparability difficult to achieve. This holds true for both aspects of standardization: Batch-to-batch consistency (or product-specific standardization) and comparability among products from different manufacturers (or cross-product comparability). In this review, we focus on how the United States and the European Union have tackled the topic of allergen product standardization in the past, covering the early joint standardization efforts in the 1970s and 1980s as well as the different paths taken by the two players thereafter until today. So far, these two paths have been based on rather classical immunological methods, including the corresponding benefits like simple feasability. New technologies such as mass spectrometry present an opportunity to redefine the field of allergen standardization in the future.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document