Michigan State Senate fast-tracks autonomous vehicle legislation - Autoworld News

Proposed by State Sen. Mike Kowall on February 7th, the bill would make Michigan the fourth state in the Union to allow companies to pilot fully autonomous vehicles on the open motorways, joining California, Florida, and Nevada. The Michigan bill would require, however, that a licensed driver be at the wheel at all times, should the vehicle autonomy systems fail.



Recently in his State of the State address, Governor Rick Snyder called for the state to pass such a bill. Last week, according to a Detroit News report, the Michigan State Senate Transportation Committee held a hearing on the topic and plans to vote on the proposed legislation before the end of February.

Companies like Google and Audi already have autonomously operating vehicles in Nevada. Google alone has clocked over 300,000 miles in its autonomous vehicles. Michigan-based companies like Continental, which currently has self-driving systems in development, considered moving its testing from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Nevada. If passed, the bill would allow Continental to keep its autonomous car testing within the state.

General Motors representatives testified at the hearing last week but wanted assurances that should another company retrofit one of its vehicles with autonomous technology, it wouldn't be liable for any wrongdoing.

Americans aren't the only ones hot on the trail of self-driving cars. Oxford University in the UK recently unveiled its penny-pinching vehicle autonomy system called RobotCar.

Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage after Michigan's State Senate votes on the proposed legislation later this week. /* @Himanshu 09-01-2013 New code to work with br tag, p tag and /n */ div.post-content1{ color: #000000; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.333em; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-top: 10px; } /* @Himanshu 09-01-2013 New code to work with br tag, p tag and /n */ div.post-content1 ul li { list-style:disc !important; margin-left:20px; color:#000000; } div.post-content1 ol li { list-style-type: decimal !important; margin-left:20px; color:#000000; } #editorial_graph ul li { list-style:none !important; margin-left:0px; }

Source: Leftlanenews