For any industry to grow the government regulations play a very important role. What is the political disposition towards any industry at the end of the day matters. No matter how promising it may look to the other players and how much ever potential it may have, it all ends at the feet of the government and how it wishes to act.
When there is ambiguity among the governments on how to deal with autonomous cars Germany is leading by example how a government must act in order to promote its industry. German Industry which largely consists of car manufacturers and is home to Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. The government wants the industry to become a global player in the market for self-driving vehicles. There is political consensus among the parties on this and all agree upon this point that the government has to play a major role in order to foster this cutting edge technology.
Germany recently has changed some traffic rules in order to include autonomous cars .It has made mandatory for these cars to have a steering wheel and that a human must still sit behind it.The drivers must remain ready to intervene. Until now, the driver’s inattention at any given point in time triggers his liability; in the future, during the auto-pilot mode, the driver’s possible liability will focus on failing to react to the ‘wake-up signal’.The new rules also mandate to install a ‘black’ box on the cars which would record when the car was under the control of the driver and when was in the self-driving mode.
Others countries, especially US state California which has a number of such cars manufactures, must learn from this example and come up with the regulations which doesn’t hamper the industry and are clear as well on safety issues.
Source: http://telematicswire.net/germany-tweaks-its-traffic-rules-to-include-self-driving-cars/
