Obama To Touch On Self-Driving Cars In State Of The Union Address

Today, President Obama, one of the more tech savvy, or at least tech conscious, president, will be discussing one of the thorniest topics in the tech industry in his State of the Union Address. And no, it's not about privacy and encryption this time, though we bet that will be included as well. According to government officials, the president will be touching on the topic of advanced transportation efforts in the country, which is to say self-driving cars. Their regulation, or rather the lack of it, has repeatedly been cited as one of the biggest hurdles in pushing the technology that would give the US an even more prominent spot in the automobile industry.

The US and Europe have been playing a tug of war on who's the better car maker but of late, the US has had one advantage. Thanks to Google, the country has been seen as the pioneer when it comes to fully autonomous vehicles. However, that head start may be for naught if the country's lawmakers can't decide on a national legal strategy for these type of cars.

It's not that the government isn't aware or concerned about self-driving cars and the safety implications they have on public roads. On the contrary, they are very much ready to jump on regulation and laws for them. The problem, however, is the problem of too many cooks. With each state trying to write up its own requirements for self-driving cars, there is a danger that progress on the technology be left at a standstill or limited to just one jurisdiction.

Mark Rosekind, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is of the same mind as Google and other car makers. A "patchwork" of regulations on driverless cars may do more harm than good in the long run. Instead, he promises a more flexible strategy for a national legal framework on autonomous vehicles.

The US government has been slowly catching up with technologies, especially in transportation, that promise convenience but may have important ramifications with regards to public safety. The crackdown on drones and even hoverboards are just some of the more recent, and highly publicized, cases. Self-driving cars are apparently next.

SOURCE: Reuters