Virginia does not have autonomous vehicles on the road, at least not yet. But members of the General Assembly will be considering legislation to change that.
When the automobile was invented, people were concerned about the safety of horseless carriages. Now, in the 21st century, people are worried about the innovation of autonomous vehicles bringing driverless cars and trucks to the roads. Delegate David Reid is a Democrat from Loudoun County who has been working with a group of lawmakers to come up with safety standards.
"We were really working on how we were going to define that, because is it safer than the average impaired human driver? Is it safer than the average human driver under normal operating conditions? And what we came up with was a really, very high bar that would be measured in millions of miles traveled," Reid says.
Similar legislation stalled in the House earlier this year, and it would likely face opposition next year.
"I'm not there yet," says Senator Jennifer Boysko, a Democrat from Herndon, who is on the Senate Transportation Committee.
"I want to see more data. I want to see more evidence that all of the safety concerns that we've seen around the country have been addressed, and that we are not going to put anybody in harm's way at this point. I would not be in support with the information that I have now."
Disclosure records show that the autonomous driving tech company Waymo has five lobbyists working the issue, and the California-based company has made campaign contributions to the House Majority Leader and the governor’s inaugural committee.
