“FMCSA regulations will no longer assume that the CMV driver is always a human or that a human is necessarily present onboard a commercial vehicle during its operation.”
That’s the key point from updated guidance on policies for development and deployment of autonomous vehicles issued by the U.S. DOT on Thursday, dubbed Autonomous Vehicles 3.0 (or AV 3.0, for short). It’s a loosened definition of what constitutes a truck driver, with the DOT acknowledging that a driver may not be, in fact, human.
DOT will adapt the definitions of “driver” or “operator” to recognize that such terms could instead refer to automated systems. Story by Overdrive Staff / www.overdriveonline.com