Today the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency (NHTSA) released their plan on regulation of automated vehicles, a 14 page document on various elements of the technology and how it might be regulated.

No regulations yet of course, but a message that they plan to look hard at the user interface, particularly on the handoff between a human driver and the system. All reasonable stuff. They define 4 levels of autonomy (similar to prior lists) and say they don't expect full unmanned operation for some time, and discourage states from even making it legal to use level 3 (where the driver can do another task) by ordinary folks yet -- only testing should be allowed.

It's good that NHTSA is studying this, and they seem to understand that it's too early to write regulations. It's pretty easy to make mistakes if you write regulations before the technologists have even figured out what they intend. For example this document, as well as some Nevada law documents, suggested regulations that required the vehicle to hand over control if the driver used the wheel, brakes or accelerator. Yet by another logic, if the driver kicks the gas pedal by mistake and does not have her hands on the wheel, would we want the law to demand that the system relinquish the wheel, causing the vehicle to leave the lane if the driver doesn't get on it quickly?

At this point their goal is lots of research on what to do, and that's reasonable. Of course, the sooner the vehicles can get on the road safely, the sooner they can save lives, and NHTSA understands that. I also hope that the laws will not push small players out of the market entirely, as long as they can test and demonstrate safety as well as the bigger players.