American regulators have abolished the condition for manual self-driving controls for autonomous car makers in a bid to usher in an era of fully autonomous cars.

Prior to this, autonomous vehicles sold in the US were supposed to have manual driving controls as per crash standards. This had hindered automakers and even IT companies from building automated driving systems (ADS) sans manual driving controls. These regulations were enforced decades ago but have now been now scrapped in the US.

General Motors (GM) and its self-driving subsidiary Cruise filed a plea with the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) last month for the development and launch of a completely autonomous vehicle without steering wheels or brake pedals.

As per the new standards, “cars will always have a driver’s seat, a steering wheel, and accompanying steering column, or just one front outboard passenger seating position”. However, the regulators mentioned that “for vehicles designed to be solely operated by an ADS, manually operated driving controls are logically unnecessary”.

These new regulations were first recommended in March 2020 and have finally been implemented this year.

NHTSA Deputy Administrator, Steven Cliff, said, “As the driver changes from a person to a machine in ADS-equipped vehicles, the need to keep the humans safe remains the same and must be integrated from the beginning”.

The NHTSA also added that children must not sit in “driver’s” seats.

The development has allowed the auto market to look forward to more autonomous vehicles that will no longer require human interaction or manual input.

Source: Pro Pakistan