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Writer's pictureCarine Martinez

Autonomous Vehicles: Senate Committee on Transportation

Texas has chosen the path of innovation with light regulation and its benefits should encourage the Lone Star State to stay on that path.

A little more than a century ago, urban transportation mostly consisted of horse-drawn carriages or carts, leaving the streets the horses took passengers through filthy with manure and sometimes dead horses, hence in undoubtedly unhealthy conditions.


Humans have always striven to improve their lot in all areas of life, and transportation is no exception. However, innovations that are likely to radically change an aspect of our lives have often elicited skepticism and fear. Such was the case with the idea of a horseless, self-propelled carriage—despite the obvious benefits.


Fast forward to today, we have fully moved away from horse-drawn carriages to motorized, human-driven cars, and we drive much more modern vehicles with several advanced features, including some that have the potential to, one day, render us humans irrelevant to the activity of driving. Once a concept found only in science fiction books or movies, “driverless cars”—cars that drive themselves or fully autonomous cars—are moving forward despite not-unusual skepticism and fear from the public.


A little more than a century ago, fears of horseless carriages led to laws that required a person to walk in front of a car with a red flag, and ridiculously low speed limits.[iv] Today, similar (and other) fears lead some interest groups to push for drivers to always be present in autonomous vehicles.


In both cases (humans with red flags and human drivers), the laws or regulations render the benefits of the innovation almost useless and slow down market penetration and further innovation.


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