how come pre-emptions are expected? i would expect states cannot have any LOWER standards than federal (think min wage, emissions, etc) and can mandate higher if they choose
> No State or political subdivision of a State may maintain, enforce, prescribe, or continue in effect any law or regulation regarding the design, construction, or performance of highly automated vehicles, automated driving systems, or components of automated driving systems unless such law or regulation is identical to a standard prescribed under this chapter.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3388...
According to Wired, there are 21 states with some form of regulation of self-driving vehicles.
> Self-driving vehicles have been testing on public roads since 2010, when Google hit the streets near Mountain View, California. And in the absence of congressional oversight, states have stepped in to regulate them, creating a patchwork of at least 21 different state laws and guidelines with different purposes, definitions, and priorities. This is a serious pain for the growing self-driving industry, which aspires to build cars permitted on all public roads.
https://www.wired.com/story/congress-self-driving-car-law-bi...
What happened to the states being policy laboratories? I thought Republicans were for local control? Or is that only for school textbooks and baking wedding cakes.
Not the lives of the people who would have been saved by safety features in a car they weren't driving because they couldn't afford it or because the implementation of a particular safety feature was a lower priority than the implementing a second variant of emissions equipment and calibration.
Stuff like this is fairly zero sum.
>What happened to the states being policy laboratories
The federal government could implement this as a FMVSS if they wanted.
Neither party has a monopoly on saying one thing and doing another.