Update on 2022 PA AV bill

PA AV legislation update: The PA Senate Transportation Committee passed the PA House bill on AVs to the PA Senate for a vote. This is an amended version of PA HB 2398 bill that has already passed the PA House. https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfm?syear=2021&sInd=0&body=H&type=B&bn=2398

Key aspects of this new version (PN3563) fixes many of the issues I’ve noted in previous bills, which is good news. But still some remaining issues. A summary:

– Permits operation of an AV without a driver.
– A responsible Certificate Holder must be a company (it being “a person” is struck out).
– Human safety driver, if any, must be an employee or contractor.
– Permits platooning, but seems to require a driver in each vehicle.
– Requires reports of crashes involving harm or damage to property to PennDOT
– Public posting of contact info for crash claims
– Registration requirement with PennDOT includes safety management plan
– $1M insurance requirement (not as high as it might be, but better than many other states)

Some not-so-great parts
– Municipal preemption clause (but at least now it allows local authorities to enforce existing laws)
– PennDOT appears to have very limited ability to reject registrations
– Any computer driver automatically gets a driver license with no testing and no independent assessment of driving skill required
– No requirement to follow industry safety standards (J3016 is mentioned, but is NOT a safety standard)
– An advisory committee that reports on economic benefits (good) — but no apparent charter for safety concerns
– Looks really difficult to suspend or revoke a certificate in practice. It is unclear that a severe crash is enough to do that, at least immediately (it seems only after a criminal conviction of killing someone — which might take years). I guess we’ll have to see how soft law works in this area over time.
– The Certificate Holder (remember that is a company, not a person) is considered the driver, and is specifically called out to be cited by police for violations. So if there is a criminal driving offense committed by an automated driver (something a human driver would go to jail for) there is quite literally nobody (no natural person) held responsible. Will be interesting to see how PennDOT handles driver license points for moving violations, if at all.