"“Tesla is venturing into the mushy middle of automation, where the human still performs part of the driving task, the computer performs other parts,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at University of South Carolina who has carved out a specialty on autonomous vehicles.
Mr. Smith said Tesla will be pushing the boundary of the legal definitions. In addition, just because hands-free driving is made possible, it doesn’t eliminate other laws. For instance. New York requires drivers have one hand on the wheel. Many other states prohibit talking on the phone or texting while driving, even if the technology would make this activity safer.
“There is an incredible amount of trust being put in this human driver that they are paying attention, and there is a lot of evidence where that trust is unfounded,” he said."
- Date Published:05/13/2015
- Original Publication:The Wall Street Journal