Five Years To Autonomous?

Autonmous vehicles will help move freignt more efficiently. But how engaged will drives have to be?

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Earlier this week, the Governors’ Highway Safety Association (GHSA) presented a webinar on emerging autonomous vehicle technology. The purpose of the event was two-fold: To raise awareness of the fast pace with which autonomous vehicle technology is moving and highlight the need, on the state level, to prepare for the eventual deployment of autonomous vehicles in terms of policy, legislation, and law enforcement.

Dr. James Hedlund is the primary consultant working with the GHSA on autonomous vehicles and I followed up with him after the webinar to expand on some of the themes that were discussed. Hedlund knows his stuff: He is principal, Highway Safety North, Ithaca, N.Y. He spent 22 years at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in various research and management positions, most recently as associate administrator for Traffic Safety Programs. From 2011 to 2015 he served as a consultant on management and data analysis for the SHRP 2 naturalistic driving study of the National Academy of Sciences. He has published over 60 research studies, conference summaries, research syntheses, and guides on a variety of behavioral traffic safety subjects.

Our discussion touched on several relevant points, including Hedlund’s feeling that commercial vehicles will be the driving force in autonomous vehicle adoption nationwide and the fact that this “disruptive technology,” as he called it, has the potential to transform our society in ways we understand very little at the moment.

Jack Roberts: Give me some background on GHSA; its mission and goals.

Jim Hedlund: GHSA is the national organization representing the highway safety offices present in each state. These offices receive federal money from the United States Department of Transportation to use on traffic safety activities. The organization seeks to help members coordinate those efforts on a …Read the rest of this story

Source:: http://www.truckinginfo.com/blog/truck-tech/story/2017/02/five-years-to-autonomous.aspx