Automated Vehicles are Probably Legal in the United States

Automated Vehicles are Probably Legal in the United States
Author: Bryant Walker Smith
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Motor vehicles
ISBN: 9781481135177

Note: This is the original 2012 report. An updated 2014 law review article is available as 1 Tex. A&M. L. Rev. 411. This report provides the most comprehensive discussion to date of whether so-called automated, autonomous, self-driving, or driverless vehicles can be lawfully sold and used on public roads in the United States. The short answer is that the computer direction of a motor vehicle's steering, braking, and accelerating without real-time human input is probably legal. The long answer, contained in the report, provides a foundation for tailoring regulations and understanding liability issues related to these vehicles. The report's largely descriptive analysis, which begins with the principle that everything is permitted unless prohibited, covers three key legal regimes: the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, regulations enacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the vehicle codes of all fifty US states. The Geneva Convention, to which the United States is a party, probably does not prohibit automated driving. The treaty promotes road safety by establishing uniform rules, one of which requires every vehicle or combination thereof to have a driver who is "at all times ... able to control" it. However, this requirement is likely satisfied if a human is able to intervene in the automated vehicle's operation. NHTSA's regulations, which include the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to which new vehicles must be certified, do not generally prohibit or uniquely burden automated vehicles, with the possible exception of one rule regarding emergency flashers. State vehicle codes probably do not prohibit-but may complicate-automated driving. These codes assume the presence of licensed human drivers who are able to exercise human judgment, and particular rules may functionally require that presence. New York somewhat uniquely directs a driver to keep one hand on the wheel at all times. In addition, far more common rules mandating reasonable, prudent, practicable, and safe driving have uncertain application to automated vehicles and their users. Following distance requirements may also restrict the lawful operation of tightly spaced vehicle platoons. Many of these issues arise even in the three states that expressly regulate automated vehicles. The primary purpose of this report is to assess the current legal status of automated vehicles. However, the report includes draft language for US states that wish to clarify this status. It also recommends five near-term measures that may help increase legal certainty without producing premature regulation. First, regulators and standards organizations should develop common vocabularies and definitions that are useful in the legal, technical, and public realms. Second, the United States should closely monitor efforts to amend or interpret the 1969 Vienna Convention, which contains language similar to the Geneva Convention but does not bind the United States. Third, NHTSA should indicate the likely scope and schedule of potential regulatory action. Fourth, US states should analyze how their vehicle codes would or should apply to automated vehicles, including those that have an identifiable human operator and those that do not. Finally, additional research on laws applicable to trucks, buses, taxis, low-speed vehicles, and other specialty vehicles may be useful. This is in addition to ongoing research into the other legal aspects of vehicle automation.

Religion and Power

Religion and Power
Author: Nicole Maria Brisch
Publisher: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

This volume represents a collection of contributions presented during the Third Annual University of Chicago Oriental Institute Seminar Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, held at the Oriental Institute, February 23-24, 2007. The purpose of this conference was to examine more closely concepts of kingship in various regions of the world and in different time periods. The study of kingship goes back to the roots of fields such as anthropology and religious studies, as well as Assyriology and Near Eastern archaeology. More recently, several conferences have been held on kingship, drawing on cross-cultural comparisons. Yet the question of the divinity of the king as god has never before been examined within the framework of a cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary conference. Some of the recent anthropological literature on kingship relegates this question of kings who deified themselves to the background or voices serious misgivings about the usefulness of the distinction between divine and sacred kings. Several contributors to this volume have pointed out the Western, Judeo-Christian background of our categories of the human and the divine. However, rather than abandoning the term divine kingship because of its loaded history it is more productive to examine the concept of divine kingship more closely from a new perspective in order to modify our understanding of this term and the phenomena associated with it.

The Speed of Change

The Speed of Change
Author: Jan-Bart Gewald
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2009-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9047430794

In the early 1900s the motor-vehicle (car, bus, lorry or motor-cycle) was introduced in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially the plaything and symbol of colonial domination, the motor-vehicle transformed the economic and social life of the continent. Indeed, the motor-vehicle is arguably the single most important factor for change in Africa in the twentieth century. A factor for change that thus far has been neglected in research and literature. Yet its impact extends across the totality of human existence; from ecological devastation to economic advancement, from cultural transformation to political change, through to a myriad of other themes. This edited volume of eleven contributions by historians, anthropologists and social and political scientists explores aspects of the social history and anthropology of the motor-vehicle in Africa.

Microsoft First Generation

Microsoft First Generation
Author: Cheryl D. Tsang
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2000
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Meet 12 of the early builders of Microsoft--all now retired millionaires--and step inside the infamous culture of loyalty, "maniacal" work ethics, and visionary risk-taking that has been crucial to the computer giant's sustained success.

Bifurcation Stenting

Bifurcation Stenting
Author: Ron Waksman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2012-03-22
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1444346989

Here is expert guidance on one of the most vexing clinical challenges faced by interventional cardiologists. Written by global thought leaders in the area and edited by two internationally-recognized pioneers in interventional cardiology, Bifurcation Stenting covers all techniques, imaging modalities, and devices in current use, including VH-IVUS and OCT. It includes practical tips/tricks from leading experts and a section of challenging cases to further illustrate the material and help readers better understand the treatment of bifurcation lesions.

Historicizing Colonial Nostalgia

Historicizing Colonial Nostalgia
Author: P. Lorcin
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2011-12-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137013044

Comparative study of the writings and strategies of European women in two colonies, French Algeria and British Kenya, during the twentieth century. Its central theme is women's discursive contribution to the construction of colonial nostalgia.

Turkey and the Holocaust

Turkey and the Holocaust
Author: Stanford J. Shaw
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1349130419

The neutrality maintained by Turkey during most of the Second World War enabled it to rescue thousands of Jews from the Holocaust in the Nazi-occupied or collaborating countries of Europe. This book shows how in France, the Turkish consuls in Paris and Marseilles intervened to protect Turkish Jews from application of anti-Jewish laws introduced both by the German occupying authorities and the Vichy government and rescued them from concentration camps, getting them off trains destined for the extermination chambers in the East, and arranging train caravans and other special transportation to take them through Nazi-occupied territory to safety in Turkey. 'an important and unique addition to the vast scholarship available on that tragic era' Rabbi Abraham Cooper