Federal auto safety regulations fill nearly 900 pages with standards that determine everything from rear-view mirror and steering wheel placement to the shape of vehicles and the exact placement of seats. Many of the rules don't make sense in the coming era of self-driving cars. Autonomous vehicles don't need rear-view mirrors, or (eventually) steering wheels. Their ideal physical form is still a work in progress.
But an even bigger rethink is in order. As motor vehicles become essentially computers on wheels, software, not hardware, will soon be paramount for safety. This will make most government regulation unnecessary, and, to the extent that it slows innovation, could even cost lives on the highway.
Shot, written, edited, and produced by Jim Epstein. Filmed at the 2017 Automated Vehicles Symposium.
"Detour" by Gunnar Olsen.
"The Key" by The Tall Pines is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
"Stranger in the City" by Marcos Bolaños is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
"Hills" by Riot
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"Realness," by Kai Engel is licensed under a Creative Commons license.