PA Autonomous Vehicle Testing Legislation Still Needs Work

PA HB 2398 would legalize autonomous vehicles (AVs) without human drivers in Pennsylvania. Having passed the PA House, it is pending in the PA Senate Transportation Committee. While the bill has improved, my 25 years of experience working on AV safety at Carnegie Mellon University leave me with significant remaining concerns:

1. A municipal preemption clause would prevent Pittsburgh from restricting the testing of immature self-driving vehicle technology in active school zones and other high risk locations.
2. A loophole regarding vehicles “approved for noncommercial use” apparently exempts most AVs from certification when using conventional vehicle retrofits, potentially rendering the bill toothless.
3. Test drivers are not required to conform to an established industry standard for testing safety as done elsewhere in the US. Argo AI is the sole company conforming to the relevant safety standard: SAE J3018.
4. The recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration release of AV crash data makes it clear that crashes will happen. The bill should require AV testers to attest that their technology is acceptably safe. Perfect safety might be unrealistic, but AV companies should at least promise on the record that their testing will be no more dangerous than human driven vehicles.

The current bill leaves Commonwealth constituents unnecessarily vulnerable on public roads. In exchange for placing road users at risk from this work-in-progress technology, we at least deserve to have these issues fixed before the bill is made into law.

Philip Koopman, Ph.D.
Squirrel Hill neighborhood, Pittsburgh PA

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article was published here: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/transportation/2022/06/22/self-driving-vehicles-expanded-testing-safety-concerns-emergency-drivers-pennsylvania-house/stories/202206220121

Update 6/30/22: the PA Senate Transportation Committee updated SB 965 to largely include language from the PA House bill.  It does seem to have addressed two of my points to a degree:

• I no longer see the "approved for noncommercial use" loophole, which is good.
• A safety management plan must be filed, which partially addresses the issue of promising that operations and testing will be no more dangerous than human driven vehicles (but does not require that level of safety). 

See printer number 1839 here:  https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/billInfo.cfm?sYear=2021&sInd=0&body=S&type=B&bn=0965

PA House HAV bill progress & issues

This past week the PA House Transportation Committee significantly revised and then passed a bill granting sweeping authority to operate Highly Automated Vehicles (HAVs) in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That includes light vehicles, heavy trucks, and platoons of heavy trucks. This bill has evolved over time and seems a better candidate for a final law than the older, much more problematic Senate bill.

It has some good points compared to what we've seen in other states, such as an insurance minimum of $1M, and placing PennDOT in regulatory control instead of Public Safety. By way of contrast, in other states the State Police are in charge of regulating (they have no real ability to do so, and realize this, but the HAV industry pushed to have it this way), and insurance minimums are as low as $25K or $50K. So we're doing better than some other states. 

The PA bill establishes an advisory committee, but it is unclear whether it will have much power, and its current mandate is to report benefits of HAVs without being tasked to report on any public safety concerns (or benefits).

However, a great number of issues identified in earlier versions have not been addressed. A very significant concern is a municipal preemption clause. For example, cities are prevented from curtailing testing of experimental, immature HAVs in school zones, even with no safety driver in the vehicle. 

There are a number of other serious concerns unaddressed by this bill especially in the area of safety, but also with regard to compensation, transparency, inclusion, and non-discrimination: see Five Principles for Regulation of Highly Automated Vehicles.

A particular problematic issue boils down to who goes to jail if an HAV has a software defect that results in driving behavior that would, for a human driver, result in criminal penalties. This bill is at least clear about the "certificate holder" being on the hook, whereas other states are silent on this topic. However, it is unclear if a certificate holder who might have no understanding of HAV software and no ability to influence HAV operational safety is the right person to be sending to jail for reckless driving by an HAV that results in deaths. (Yes, this is a difficult problem. But the HAV industry has had years and years to address concerns such of this. Apparently their plan is to deflect blame away from the tech companies and onto whoever ends up holding the bag as a certificate holder.)

The manner of how HAV bills are being pushed through the legislature is also extremely disappointing. The Senate rammed through a bill that was not disclosed until the last minute with no public hearing. To its credit the House did have a public hearing on its initial bill. However, this very significant modification was kept secret until the Transportation Committee meeting voted it through along party lines. The industry certainly knows what is in the bills and amendments well in advance, because we have had public events in which they were thanked for helping author them. If they really believed that public safety was #1 and stakeholder engagement mattered, the industry would not be resorting to releasing legislation in the dead of night to ram it through votes.

I fully expect this will be pushed through both House and Senate in the most industry-friendly way that can be managed. The PA Governor has already promised to sign HAV legislation. We're going to be stuck with regulations that disproportionately favor the industry so that they can attempt to reap the IPO and SPAC compensation rewards of chasing a trillion dollar market while exporting risks of public road testing to other road users. (Some companies are doing better than others on safety, but the industry as a whole as, for example, represented by AVIA is quite clearly all about the $$$ and not really about public safety.)

It is sad to see legislators seduced by the "jobs and economic opportunity" mantra of the HAV industry while most companies are merely paying lip service to safety. But I guess this is how it will be until we have a sufficiently high number of crashes and other adverse newsworthy events to put on public pressure to do better.

Note: there is one clause that is a potentially HUGE issue. Page 29 lines 16-18 appear to exempt any vehicle that is not strictly commercial (in practice anything except heavy trucks) from the requirement for a PennDOT certificate. It is unclear whether this is an intentional loophole or just a drafting mistake. Either way it should be fixed.