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.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Author: William A. Schabas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 4171
Release: 2013-04-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139619624

A collection of United Nations documents associated with the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, these volumes facilitate research into the scope of, meaning of and intent behind the instrument's provisions. It permits an examination of the various drafts of what became the thirty articles of the Declaration, including one of the earliest documents – a compilation of human rights provisions from national constitutions, organised thematically. The documents are organised chronologically and thorough thematic indexing facilitates research into the origins of specific rights and norms. It is also annotated in order to provide information relating to names, places, events and concepts that might have been familiar in the late 1940s but are today more obscure.

Édith Piaf

Édith Piaf
Author: David Looseley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2015
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1781382573

The world-famous French singer Édith Piaf (1915-63) was never just a singer. This book suggests new ways of understanding her, her myth and her meanings over time at home and abroad, by proposing the notion of an 'imagined Piaf.

Decades of Reconstruction

Decades of Reconstruction
Author: Ute Planert
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2017-06-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107165741

International scholars review decades of postwar reconstruction in international comparison from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, demonstrating how foreign domestic policy cannot be separated.

Quality Control in Fact-Finding

Quality Control in Fact-Finding
Author: Morten Bergsmo
Publisher: Torkel Opsahl Academic Epublisher
Total Pages: 650
Release: 2020-07-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9788283481358

This book discusses how fact-finding mechanisms for alleged violations of international human rights, humanitarian and criminal law can be improved. There has been a significant increase in the use of international(ised) and domestic fact-finding mechanisms since 1992, including by the United Nations human rights system, international commissions of inquiry, truth and reconciliation commissions, and NGO fact-finding. They are analysed and assessed in detail by 22 authors under the common theme 'Quality Control in Fact-Finding'. The authors include Richard J. Goldstone, Martin Scheinin, LIU Daqun, Charles Garraway, David Re, Simon De Smet, FAN Yuwen, Isabelle Lassée, WU Xiaodan, Dan Saxon, Christopher B. Mahony, Dov Jacobs, Catherine Harwood, Lyal S. Sunga, Wolfgang Kaleck, Carolijn Terwindt, Ilia Utmelidze and Marina Aksenova. This Second Edition includes new chapters by Geoffrey Robertson QC, Emma Irving and William H. Wiley, as well as a new foreword by Mads Andenæs. The book considers how the quality of every functional aspect of fact-finding can be improved, including work processes to identify, locate, obtain, verify, analyse, corroborate, summarise, synthesise, structure, organise, present and disseminate facts. Emphasis is placed on the nourishment of an individual mindset and institutional culture of quality control. This book concerns fact-work outside criminal justice systems. It is supplemented by Quality Control in Preliminary Examination: Volumes 1 and 2 and Quality Control in Criminal Investigation in the same Series.

Comparing the Literatures

Comparing the Literatures
Author: David Damrosch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2022-02-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0691234558

Paperback reprint. Originally published: 2020.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal

The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal
Author: The J. Paul Getty Museum
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 214
Release: 1993-02-11
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0892362286

The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal has been published annually since 1974. It contains scholarly articles and shorter notes pertaining to objects in the Museum’s seven curatorial departments: Antiquities, Manuscripts, Paintings, Drawings, Decorative Arts, Sculpture and Works of Art, and Photographs. The Journal includes an illustrated checklist of the Museum’s acquisitions for the precious year, a staff listing, and a statement by the Museum’s director outlining the year’s most important activities. Volume 20 of the J. Paul Getty Museum Journal contains an index to volumes 1 to 20 and includes articles by John Walsh, Carl Brandon Strehlke, Barbara Bohen, Kelly Pask, Suzanne Lewis, Elizabeth Pilliod, Anne Ratzki-Kraatz, Sharon K. Shore, Linda A. Strauss, Brian Considine, Arie Wallert, Richard Rand, And Jacky De Veer-Langezaal.