Highly Automated Vehicles & Discrimination Against Low-Income Persons

Abstract

This essay uses Pennsylvania’s proposed autonomous vehicle law (SB 965) to illustrate how existing law can fail to protect low-income persons and communities from suffering a disproportionate risk of loss due to highly automated vehicle testing. Though a proposed Pennsylvania law provides a case study, this analysis illustrates some basic principles which might inform autonomous vehicle legislation across the United States to guard against economic discrimination.

The federal government has made combating economic discrimination a priority, as evidenced by its Justice 40 initiative, among other steps. Even if all federal agencies promote this goal, to succeed best, all levels of government around the country (federal, state, and local) ought to align in pursuit of a common purpose. When proposed legislation regulates a new technology, the affected businesses ought to follow IEEE 7000 to identify all stakeholders who will be impacted by the development and use of the technology to ensure that any law addresses concerns of all stakeholders.

Three principles to promote social justice emerge. Laws governing the testing of autonomous vehicles ought to take special care (i) to ensure that testing activity does not impose a disproportionate risk of loss on low-income persons and other communities of concern, (ii) to protect the rights of cyclists, pedestrians and bystanders (iii) and, to clearly identify the parties responsible for loss, the standards used to determine liability and the resources available to pay a judgement.

Keywords: ADS, AV, Autonomous Driving System, Autonomous Vehicles, Highly Automated Vehicle, IEEE 7000, SAE, safety, SB 965, Justice40, ethics, engineering ethics, discrimination, low-income person, low-income neighborhood, motor vehicle insurance, safety driver, pre-emption, limited tort, social justice

JEL Classification: K23, K32, L50, L59, L62, L91, O33, R41