Trump Administration Pondering Self-Driving Cars

We’ve been talking about autonomous cars pretty much non-stop on The News Wheel for months, if not years. Self-driving cars are the future, so we have been told, and will make our roadways infinitely safe. The innovations in autonomous cars were spurred on in the past few years by support from the Obama administration, which wanted the cars on the road sooner rather than later.  In September, the administration requested details from automakers in preparation for formulating a comprehensive set of rule governing the vehicles. This was before the November election, however, and the new Trump administration isn’t quite sure if cars driving themselves are such a great idea.

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According to Reuters, the new Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao, is reportedly looking over the guidance from Obama’s White House and “urged companies to explain the benefits of automated vehicles to a skeptical public.” Before anyone gets angry, Chao acknowledged later that self-driving cars have the potential to drastically improve driver safety, citing the statistic that about 94% of crashes are due to simple human error, so she pretty much gets what is going on here. She’s worried about Americans that either don’t trust technology or do not want to give up the wheel of their vehicle. She is also concerned about what these cars would mean for people like truck drivers and professional drivers that could lose their jobs to the robotic vehicles.

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We will attempt to continue monitoring the situation as more information is released by the new Trump administration. While we know that there is usually resistance to dramatic change, and a reluctance from everybody to rush too fast into something new, we hope that the development of self-driving cars continues to move forward in the US, as in the rest of the world.

News Source: Reuters