Florida passes law allowing autonomous vehicles without drivers

[diplomat33]

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —

Self-driving vehicles will be able to operate in Florida without a human on board under a bill signed Thursday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis signed the measure on Thursday at a test track for autonomous vehicles in Auburndale. The governor says he wants companies testing the vehicles to move to Florida.

The new law takes effect July 1. It will allow self-driving cars without humans on all roads as long as the vehicles meet insurance and safety requirements outlined in the new legislation.

Current law allows self-driving vehicles if a person is in the car as backup. The new law also exempts operators inside self-driving cars from laws that ban texting while driving and other potentially distracting activities.
Autonomous vehicles can drive without humans in Florida

Looks like State laws are catching up to allow autonomous cars to operate without humans in them!

 

[Daniel in SD]

Looks like State laws are catching up to allow autonomous cars to operate without humans in them!

This is also legal in California and Arizona (with a permit of course!). I believe all this "regulatory approval" concern trolling I read around here is silly.

 

[electronblue]

This is also legal in California and Arizona (with a permit of course!). I believe all this "regulatory approval" concern trolling I read around here is silly.

I haven’t seen much of that. It is more an excuse for some that Tesla hasn’t released somehing yet because they are waiting for regulatory approval...

No, they are waiting to implement the thing. Regulatory would allow them to do so much more than they are doing — if they have a reliable feature of course.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I haven’t seen much of that. It is more an excuse for some that Tesla hasn’t released somehing yet because they are waiting for regulatory approval...

No, they are waiting to implement the thing. Regulatory would allow them to do so much more than they are doing — if they have a reliable feature of course.

It's an excuse but I think many people believe it. I think there will be regulatory problems if Tesla releases FSD as a level 2 system. I personally believe that it will quickly be banned by regulators.

 

[boonedocks]

This is also legal in California and Arizona (with a permit of course!). I believe all this "regulatory approval" concern trolling I read around here is silly.

And Georgia

 

[diplomat33]

I am curious though. What standards do the self-driving cars have to meet before they are allowed on public roads without a driver? Surely, the laws establish some minimum standard to prevent a company from releasing a robotaxi that is unsafe. It would be crazy to let any company unleash their robotaxis on public roads whenever they feel like it. I think it would be very good if self-driving cars had to pass a standardized driving test similar to what humans do when they get their driver's license. You could test the self-driving car in various scenarios from unprotected left turns to stalled cars in the middle of the highway to see if the self-driving car is capable of safely handling all those critical cases. I know measuring disengagements is the common way of testing self-driving cars but disengagements are only a good metric if the self-driving car experiences a wide range of different driving conditions. After all, a self-driving car could drive the same stretch of highway a million times and have 0 disengagements, it does not prove that the self-driving car can handle intersections. Which is why I think a comprehensive driving test that covers all the critical driving conditions would be a good way of testing a self-driving car.

 

[Daniel in SD]

I am curious though. What standards do the self-driving cars have to meet before they are allowed on public roads without a driver? Surely, the laws establish some minimum standard to prevent a company from releasing a robotaxi that is unsafe. It would be crazy to let any company unleash their robotaxis on public roads whenever they feel like it. I think it would be very good if self-driving cars had to pass a standardized driving test similar to what humans do when they get their driver's license. You could test the self-driving car in various scenarios from unprotected left turns to stalled cars in the middle of the highway to see if the self-driving car is capable of safely handling all those critical cases. I know measuring disengagements is the common way of testing self-driving cars but disengagements are only a good metric if the self-driving car experiences a wide range of different driving conditions. After all, a self-driving car could drive the same stretch of highway a million times and have 0 disengagements, it does not prove that the self-driving car can handle intersections. Which is why I think a comprehensive driving test that covers all the critical driving conditions would be a good way of testing a self-driving car.

I think standardized test are pretty useless in evaluating autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles could pass standardized tests back in 2007 at the DARPA Urban Challenge. There's just no way to make a standardized test complicated enough to measure safety on par with a human driver.
The requirements in California are pretty simple. The main one being:

The autonomous technology is designed to detect and respond to roadway situations in compliance with all provisions of the California Vehicle Code and local regulation applicable to the performance of the dynamic driving task in the vehicle’s operational design domain, except when necessary to enhance the safety of the vehicle’s occupants and/or other road users. CCR 228.06(a)(9)

Rules: View Document - California Code of Regulations
Application: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/c...89c5-b2bc7de3fd2c/ol321.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=

 

[diplomat33]

I think standardized test are pretty useless in evaluating autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles could pass standardized tests back in 2007 at the DARPA Urban Challenge. There's just no way to make a standardized test complicated enough to measure safety on par with a human driver.
The requirements in California are pretty simple. The main one being:

Rules: View Document - California Code of Regulations
Application: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/c...89c5-b2bc7de3fd2c/ol321.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=

I watched a couple youtube videos of the DARPA Urban Challenge to refresh my memory. The DARPA Urban Challenge seems like it was staged. They basically set up various staged scenarios and tested the cars in those scenarios. And I am thinking the participants were probably told in advance what the various scenarios would be so that they could prepare. That's not what I envision for a driving test for self-driving cars. Maybe the term "standardized test" was misleading. I am not talking about a standardized staged course. By standardized, I meant that all the tests would need to test for the same things (unprotected left turns, merging, traffic lights etc). My idea of a "standardized test" would be to give the self-driving a random address and grade how it does in real world driving conditions, traffic and all. It would be a completely random route, no advance notice, no advance preparation, in real world driving conditions. You could repeat the test with new random addresses until you are satisfied that the car has encountered a large enough sample of driving conditions. I think a real world test on a random route would be much more difficult than the DARPA challenge. Now perhaps, it alone, would not be enough to certify a self-driving car as a robotaxi but it would be a valuable test for the development team at least. Heck, that is exactly what Waymo is doing right now by taking passengers around town to various random addresses over and over again, and in real world driving conditions, and seeing how the car does.

If driving tests like that are good enough for humans to measure their level of safety and proficiency, why wouldn't it good enough for a self-driving car?

I did read the California DMV requirements that you linked to. Thank you for sharing that. It certainly does a great job of establishing comprehensive standards that a self-driving car would need to satisfy. It will be interesting to see when Tesla submits their application for deploying autonomous Teslas on California's public roads. Tesla is definitely not there yet.

 

[Daniel in SD]

If driving tests like that are good enough for humans to measure their level of safety and proficiency, why wouldn't it good enough for a self-driving car?

Many autonomous vehicles could easily pass a human driving test.
As you said, going to random addresses under random conditions is exactly how companies are already testing autonomous vehicles. I wouldn't call that a standardized test. Do that with an accident or safety driver initiated disengagement rate of less than one per million miles and you've probably got a working autonomous vehicle. It's really a question for statisticians.

 

[diplomat33]

Many autonomous vehicles could easily pass a human driving test.
As you said, going to random addresses under random conditions is exactly how companies are already testing autonomous vehicles. I wouldn't call that a standardized test. Do that with an accident or safety driver initiated disengagement rate of less than one per million miles and you've probably got a working autonomous vehicle. It's really a question for statisticians.

Actually, it is probably proof that our human driving tests are inadequate. We test a 16 year old driving around for 30 minutes and give them a driver's license but look at all the accidents humans get into.

 

[diplomat33]

Many autonomous vehicles could easily pass a human driving test.
As you said, going to random addresses under random conditions is exactly how companies are already testing autonomous vehicles. I wouldn't call that a standardized test. Do that with an accident or safety driver initiated disengagement rate of less than one per million miles and you've probably got a working autonomous vehicle. It's really a question for statisticians.

Tesla's fleet size is one advantage here. When Tesla does finish FSD, a fleet of hundreds of thousands of cars can complete the millions of miles pretty quickly to test if the disengagement rate is good enough.

 

[Dr. J]

Looks like State laws are catching up to allow autonomous cars to operate without humans in them!

Now, if only autonomous car operators could catch up to the laws!

 

[Daniel in SD]

Tesla's fleet size is one advantage here. When Tesla does finish FSD, a fleet of hundreds of thousands of cars can complete the millions of miles pretty quickly to test if the disengagement rate is good enough.

Maybe we should only replace the worst human drivers with autonomous vehicles. That would make the roads safer and make autonomous vehicle safety standards easier to achieve. haha.

 

[diplomat33]

Maybe we should only replace the worst human drivers with autonomous vehicles. That would make the roads safer and make autonomous vehicle safety standards easier to achieve. haha.

Statistically speaking, replacing only the worst human drivers with autonomous cars, probably would make roads safer overall.

 

[Dr. J]

Maybe we should only replace the worst human drivers with autonomous vehicles. That would make the roads safer and make autonomous vehicle safety standards easier to achieve. haha.

Starting with the sudden unintended acceleration folks. No steering wheel for you!

 

[EVNow]

This is also legal in California and Arizona (with a permit of course!).

Not the same thing. FL law allows robotaxis. CA allows "testing".

 

[Daniel in SD]

Not the same thing. FL law allows robotaxis. CA allows "testing".

CA allows deployment. Costs $3275 per vehicle though, maybe that’s why no one has done it.

 

[diplomat33]

CA allows deployment. Costs $3275 per vehicle though, maybe that’s why no one has done it.

So when Tesla cars do qualify as autonomous, I imagine Tesla will probably have to pay the $3275 on every car they produce in CA or every Tesla car that drives in CA? How will that work? That could be a pretty hefty bill to pay.

 

[Daniel in SD]

So when Tesla cars do qualify as autonomous, I imagine Tesla will probably have to pay the $3275 on every car they produce in CA or every Tesla car that drives in CA? How will that work? That could be a pretty hefty bill to pay.

I assume that Tesla will lobby for lower fees. I believe that the owner of the vehicle pays the fee. I would expect that the fees will eventually be the same as registering a regular vehicle. Initially there’s probably going to be a lot of oversight that has to be paid for by a small number of vehicles (unless of course Tesla is first!).

 

[CarlK]

CA allows deployment. Costs $3275 per vehicle though, maybe that’s why no one has done it.

It's only for testing of autonomous car on public roads. It still needs a person in the car to operate it and that person has to be a company employee or qualified test driver. The "company employee" description allowed Tesla to recruit employee owners to test their cars. That may even include Elon himself.

Also that fee is good for up to 10 vehicles and 20 drivers. It's not that significant.

Updated Summary of California’s Autonomous Vehicle Regulations