OpenMarket: Automobiles and Roads

The Environmental Protection Agency is approaching the April 1^st deadline to complete its Midterm Evaluation of the Obama administration’s fuel economy and motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards for model years 2022-2025.

Real-life road testing is the best way to continue improving the performance of automated driving systems, thanks in part to the gathering of real-time road data. Throughout that process, engineers will have the time and information to write technical standards to better inform any future regulatory changes. But cutting off or greatly curtailing automated vehicle road testing would only forestall the radical safety improvements that can help end much of the death and destruction that occur on America’s roadways due to driver error.

The process for modernizing federal motor vehicle safety standards needs to be improved, thereby allowing for more rapid deployment of vehicles equipped with new self-driving technology that are expected to come to market in the coming years. This is critical not only for the potential safety benefits offered by automated vehicles, but for the potential mobility gains to the disabled and elderly, the reduced cost of mobility to urban and suburban dwellers, and far more efficient freight networks.

Applying the precautionary principle to the regulation of self-driving cars could mean more highway fatalities, by delaying the introduction of new, lifesaving technologies. 

This morning, the White House released its long-anticipated, 53-page infrastructure proposal. It is an expansion of the leaked six-page summary that I commented on in late January. The proposal has some elements that will appeal to free market fiscal conservatives. Others, not so much.

Beleaguered ridesourcing giant Uber has been criticized for a wide variety of sins, both real and imagined. But their biggest sin yet may be what they apparently want to do to the public in the future: force everybody to use Uber’s service by outlawing private automobiles.

Despite the Trump administration’s misguided call for additional federal spending on infrastructure, there are some bright spots for free marketers in the administration's plan.

Congress should encourage safety regulators to more rapidly adopt modern standards developed by private professional organizations. 

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Technology has changed how people around the globe go about their daily lives, from using their smartphones to place online food orders to having robots now assist in performing surgeries. Technological advancement has also crept into vehicle industries around the world. The hot button topic right now is whether Congress will address the implementation of standards for automated vehicles (AVs), mainly light...

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This week, the nine-mile segment of Interstate 66 inside the Capital Beltway became tolled during the morning and evening rush hours. The tolls apply...