Congress is paving the way for self-driving cars, and many could be coming to Texas, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
An Energy and Commerce subcommittee, this week, gave initial approval to a bill that would allow automakers to unleash up to 100,000 self-driving cars, even though they do not meet existing safety standards.
It's the first significant legislation that's aimed at getting autonomous vehicles to market, and Congressman Gene Green of Texas says the state's highways are already proving to be a fertile testing ground.
"Google has been testing self-driving cars in Austin for the past two years and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute has been doing a lot of work on this," he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
The San Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute has also been at the forefront of testing self-driving cars, and the Department of Transportation has identified the Fredericksburg Rd. corridor as a possible site.
The bill making its way through congress balances a push for progress with concerns over safety. It requires automakers to submit safety assessment reports.
Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell says this puts the U.S. in the driver's seat, when it comes to innovation.
"If we are serious about promoting high-tech jobs and want this next great wave of manufacturing and R&D to take place here in the United States as opposed to overseas, then we need to have a strong, flexible regulatory framework for highly automated vehicles that always puts safety first,” she testified Wednesday.
The full committee is set to vote on the measure next week, but the full House will not take up the bill until it gets back to work in September.
Rep. Green says the bill needs to be a priority, because it has the potential to saves lives.
Car accident deaths in the United States rose 7.7 percent in 2015 over the previous year. That's the highest annual jump since 1966
."You look at the statistics on the people who die on the road from accidents; it's more than many illnesses even."