{"id":2150,"date":"2016-12-19T12:08:49","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T10:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2150"},"modified":"2016-12-19T12:09:32","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T10:09:32","slug":"should-uber-require-a-permit-for-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2150","title":{"rendered":"Should Uber require a permit for testing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\">Wall Street Journal<\/a> and others are reporting on the ongoing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/ubers-clash-with-regulators-moves-to-self-driving-cars-1482090589\">battle between Uber and state and local governments<\/a>.\u00a0 This time it\u2019s their self-driving car.\u00a0 Uber announced last week that they would not bother to seek a permit to test their car, claiming that the law did not require one.\u00a0 The conflict took on a new dimension last week when one of Uber&#8217;s test vehicles ran a red light.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_CdJ4oae8f4\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Is Uber right in not wanting to seek a permit?\u00a0 Both production and operation of vehicles in the nearly all markets are highly regulated.\u00a0 That\u2019s because\u00a0 auto accidents are a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/injury\/wisqars\/overview\/key_data.html\">leading cause of death<\/a> in the United States and elsewhere.\u00a0 The good news is that number is falling.\u00a0 In part that\u2019s due to regulation, and in part it\u2019s due to civil liability laws.\u00a0 I\u2019m confident that Uber doesn\u2019t want to hurt people, and that their interest is undoubtedly to put out a safe service so that their reputation doesn\u2019t suffer and their business thrives.\u00a0 But the rush to market is sometimes too alluring.\u00a0 With the pace of technology being what it is, Uber and others would be in a position to flood the streets with unsafe vehicles, possibly well beyond their ability to pay out damages.\u00a0 That\u2019s when regulations are required.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few hidden points in all of this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As governments consider what to do about regulating the Internet of Things, they should recognize that much of the Internet of Things is <strong>already<\/strong> regulated.\u00a0 California did the right thing by incrementally extending the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dmv.ca.gov\/portal\/dmv\/detail\/pubs\/calvehcode\">California Vehicle Code<\/a> to cover self-driving vehicles, rather than come up with sweeping new regulations.\u00a0 Regulations already exist for many other industries, including trains, planes, automobiles, healthcare, electrical plants.<\/li>\n<li>We do not yet have a full understanding of the risks involved with self-driving cars.\u00a0 There are probably many parts of the vehicle code that require revision.\u00a0 By taking the incremental approach, we\u2019ve learned, for instance, that there are places where the vehicle code might need a freshening up.\u00a0 For instance, self-driving cars seem to be following the law, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfbike.org\/news\/a-warning-to-people-who-bike-self-driving-ubers-and-right-hook-turns\/\">yet causing problems for some bicyclists<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>IoT regulation is today based on traditionally regulated markets.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t take into account the full nature of the Internet, and what externalities people are exposed to as new products rapidly hit the markets.\u00a0 This means, to me, that we will likely need some form of regulation over time.\u00a0 There is not yet a regulation that would have prevented the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2127\">Mirai attack<\/a>.\u00a0 Rather than fight all regulation as Uber does, it may be better to articulate the right principles to apply.\u00a0 One of those is that there has to be a best practice.\u00a0 In the case of automobiles, the usual test for the roads is this is whether the feature will make things more or less safe than the status quo.\u00a0 California\u2019s approach is to let developers experiment under limited conditions in order to determine an answer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>None of this gets to my favorite part, which is whether Uber\u2019s service can be hacked to cause chaos on the roads.\u00a0 Should that be tested in advance?\u00a0 And if so how?\u00a0 What are the best practices Uber should be following in this context?\u00a0 Some exist.<\/p>\n<p>More on this over time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wall Street Journal and others are reporting on the ongoing battle between Uber and state and local governments.\u00a0 This time it\u2019s their self-driving car.\u00a0 Uber announced last week that they would not bother to seek a permit to test their car, claiming that the law did not require one.\u00a0 The conflict took on a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=2150\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Should Uber require a permit for testing?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,545,4,9,1],"tags":[511,459,555,554],"class_list":["post-2150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-complexity","category-iot","category-politics","category-security","category-uncategorized","tag-iot","tag-regulation","tag-self-driving-car","tag-uber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2150"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2156,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150\/revisions\/2156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}