[Home-on-the-range] Hi Everyone, FW: From the October Braille Monitor: The Senate Must Act on Legislation So Americans can Reap the Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles

Sun Oct 21 21:30:34 UTC 2018

Here is a message sent out by the President of the Kansas City chapter. I
thought I would forward it along.

Susie Stanzel

From: Daniel Garcia <dangarcia3 at hotmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2018 9:17 AM
To: Daniel Garcia <dangarcia3 at hotmail.com>
Subject: From the October Braille Monitor: The Senate Must Act on
Legislation So Americans can Reap the Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles 

Dear Kansas City Chapter Members & Friends:

Below you can read an article that appears on the current issue of the
Braille Monitor, the flagship publication of the National Federation of the
Blind. You can get more great articles by subscribing to the Braille Monitor

Regards

Daniel Garcia, President, Kansas City Chapter

National Federation of the Blind of Missouri

dangarcia3 at hotmail.com <mailto:dangarcia3 at hotmail.com> 

(816) 621-0902

www.nfb.org <http://www.nfb.org> 

www.nfbmo.org <http://www.nfbmo.org> 

Live the life you want.

***

The Senate Must Act on Legislation So Americans can Reap the Benefits of
Autonomous Vehicles 

>From the Editor: This editorial is reprinted with permission of The Hill. It
originally appeared on July 31, 2018:

Mark RiccobonoThe myriad benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are
remarkable. Beginning with greater independence and enhanced mobility
options for those who cannot or do not drive, to dramatically reduced road
fatalities and declines in traffic congestion, the autonomous vehicle
revolution promises many positive changes across the country and around the
world.

The National Federation of the Blind, the country's largest organization of
blind people, has been especially enthusiastic about this exciting
innovation. While blind Americans are already mobile and regularly use
available transportation, we face challenges related to insufficient public
transportation networks, inadequate paratransit systems, and issues of
disconnectedness for those of us who may prefer to live in small towns and
rural areas. These challenges play a role in driving suboptimal employment
outcomes, a poverty rate that is double the national average, and community
disengagement among people with disabilities.

The AV START Act of 2017 (S. 1885) is a bipartisan bill that would lay the
groundwork for the safe and rapid deployment of AVs. This bill will ensure a
coherent federal framework for the proliferation of this life-changing
technology while also clarifying the vital role that states and localities
will play in their traditional jurisdictions.

Most importantly from our perspective, the bill would require that
accessibility be a key element of safety reporting and prohibit
discriminatory licensing practices that could exclude blind Americans from
full and equal access to AVs. The bill would also create a working group
specifically dedicated to helping craft recommendations on accessibility and
other issues related to people with disabilities. In short, the AV START Act
is an inclusive and pro-innovation approach to the safe and expeditious
rollout of autonomous vehicles, and we support it wholeheartedly.

Skeptics of the AV START Act often cite the safety risks associated with
this new and disruptive technology. This critique is confusing given that
AVs have the potential to radically reduce road fatalities by removing some
of the dangerous human element from driving. To underscore this point, note
that 94 percent of the roughly 37,000 deaths on our roads and highways last
year were attributable to human error, which comes in the form of drunk or
impaired driving, distracted driving, and fatigued driving. An autonomous
vehicle will never be drunk, and it will never be fatigued. The safety gains
that could be brought about by the advent of AVs could quite literally save
thousands of lives every year.

Beyond the paradox of opposition based on safety concerns, it is also
confounding to observe this opposition from a historical perspective.
Critics also feared the automobile and thought that replacing the horse and
buggy would be far too dangerous and disruptive for America to handle.
Innovation skeptics also thought that airplanes represented too much of a
risk to public safety. Skepticism of autonomous vehicles can be placed in a
similar category-exaggerated fear of an exciting transportation innovation
that will bring innumerable societal benefits, not the least of which being
greater transportation independence for the blind and other people with
disabilities.

AVs, while not a silver bullet for any of the transportation-related
challenges we face, do represent a powerful new addition to the toolbox that
can help us live the lives we want. However, these benefits are in jeopardy
if the United States Senate does not act swiftly and concertedly. Now is the
time to guarantee that the United States will lead the world in yet another
technological paradigm shift. We cannot afford to wait any longer-the rest
of the world isn't waiting.

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